2010 Solidarity calendar available now

Once again Bristol ABC is delighted to be helping distro ‘Certain Days: the 2010 Freedom For All Political Prisoners Calendar’, which this year has a focus on Indigenous Resistance.

Calendar back cover showing 12 months artwork

This beautiful 44-page calendar is packed with superb full colour artwork, alongside extensive writings on the prisoners, campaigns and communities represented. It includes artwork by Martin Mantxo, the former Bristol street artivist and co-founder of Kebele social centre, who has now returned to his native Basque country (where he remains extremely active and artistic!). If you are looking for the perfect politically conscious gift supporting some vital causes this solstice/new year, then this is it!

Prisoner support cafe and film night on 22 November

Bristol ABC prisoner support group takes it turn hosting the weekly Sunday vegan cafe at Kebele social centre, and lobs in a couple of provocative films to wash down the meal.

Recover from Kebele’s birthday bash with us at 14 Robertson Rd, Easton BS5 6JY on Sunday 22 November.

From about 6pm set vegan meal, for a requested donation of 2 quid. All proceeds to cover costs of meal and pay the bills at kebele social centre.

From 7.30pm a couple of cracking films!

Bristol EDO Decommissioner 10 months on remand

10 months ago yesterday, on 18 January 2009, Elijah (James) Smith and 5 other anti-militarists from Bristol were arrested in Brighton. They had spent the previous night decommissioning the EDO/MBM/ITT factory in Brighton, in an attempt to stop it providing parts for weapons being used by the Israeli army to bomb civilians in Gaza. Nobody was injured or harassed during their action, which was one of property damage/sabotage. They did not resist arrest.

Exactly 10 months on and Elijah Smith is still on remand. Yes thats right – 10 months in prison without trial. And it looks as if he is likely to remain in prison until the trial actually starts, probably on 17 May 2010, by which time he’ll have spent 16 months on remand. British justice?

Elijah is currently at Bristol prison, please write to him in solidarity: Elijah Smith VP7551, HMP Bristol, 19 Cambridge Rd, Horfield, Bristol, BS7 8PS

Greek prisoners win concessions as Greece hots up again

Athens 17/11/09

[Update 18/11/09: Yesterday 17 November saw mass protests on the anniversary of the 1973 student uprising against the Colonels' Junta in Greece. Despite heavey repressive policing people marched in Athens, Salonika and elsewhere. In Athens and Salonika protesters fought back against riot police provocation and heavy teargassing, building barricades and targetting corporate businesses. Over 270 were arrested in Athens, and another 13 elsewhere. However it seems that only 8 or 9 have actually been charged, with the rest released. Report here, update here.]

Anarchist black cross at the London anarchist bookfair

The Brighton and Bristol Anarchist Black Cross prisoner support groups will both have stalls at the London anarchist bookfair, this Saturday 24 October. We’ll be alongside the comrades from the Campaign against prison slavery, and Haven Distribution books to prisoners. Come along and have a chat with us, find out more and pick up some interesting info and prisoner’s details.

Brighton and Bristol are also hosting the following workshops:

Why prisoner support is important

Prisoner support should be an essential facet of any anarchist’s political activities; yet our prisoner support groups attract so little actual support from our fellow anarchists. Why is this?

The following article has been written by comrades from Brighton ABC, with input from other anarchists including us here in Bristol. The article is due to appear in the special issue of Freedom newspaper to be given out at the London Anarchist Bookfair on 24 October 2009. We think its well worth circulating far more widely….

Why Prisoner Support?
Prisoner support should be an essential facet of any anarchist’s political activities; yet our prisoner support groups attract so little support from our fellow anarchists. Why is this?

Of course, it is natural for us to support someone we are close to, friends and family or even a comrade from ones affinity group, when they are banged up. Yet why do so few anarchists support comrades from within the wider movement, let alone prisoners in general? Mutual aid and solidarity are surely a central tenet of the anarchist ‘belief system’, one brick that any anarchist society should be built upon, yet it is something that often doesn’t extend beyond one’s immediate environment (family/friends/affinity group).

EDO Decommissioners update and correction

The 2 Bristol EDO Decommissioners arrested near Manchester on Saturday have been released today, Monday 19 October!

Along with the woman from Brighton who was also arrested for alleged breach of bail, they were in court today in Oldham (apologies, it was not Brighton as we expected). However it seems the prosecution offered no evidence and/or ran out of time, so the case was dismissed. So we can only presume it was some straight up harassment of the 3 defendants by the state, because lets face it if they really wanted to nail them they would have tried a bit harder. But thats good news for now, all 3 should be safely tucked up in their homes by now, getting some well earned rest. Lets be a bit more careful out there next time folks…

Remanded Bristol EDO Decommissioner in court frenzy

The last remaining Bristol EDO Decommissioner on remand, Elijah (James) Smith, is in the midst of a frenzy of court activity these current few weeks. Indeed the court appearances for a variety of cases is hard to keep up with. In fact, we think it’d make far more sense to just let the guy out and write-off all the cases, doesn’t our injustice system have better things to waste their money on? Like corrupt politicians, or murdering arms corporations? Obviously not in this class society!

Repression and Resistance in Socialist Greece

The election of PASOK (Greek socialist party, think NewLabour, but controlled by a family dynasty) in the recent snap general election has, so far, changed absolutely nothing in Greece. The pattern of state repression, and resistance by workers and other social movements, continues.

On a turnout of 71% on 4 October, PASOK got 44%, which means about 160 seats in parliament out of 300. The commies got 21 seats, and a radical left coalition 13 seats. Papandreou, the PASOK leader, took power on 8 October, announcing his government were ‘antiauthoritarians in power’! On the 9 October the police and security forces launched a 3 day invasion of the radical Athens area known as Exarcheia. This saw thousands stopped, searched, humiliated and brutalised on the streets and in bars, clubs and cafes, with well over 100 detained. The 10th saw a protest march in the area. The 8th had seen a smallscale sabotage attack against banks and a fascist bookshop. At the final rally before the election of the soon to be outgoing right-wing Prime Minster, a bomb went off near to him, allegedly planted by radicals. On the 9th October a Pakistani immigrant ‘without papers’ died of wounds inflicted on him by police after being tortured in a police station between 26 to 28 September. He had been wrongfully arrested…but without papers he had no rights, and no right to healthcare. He is one of many migrants to die in the last year. This is life on the streets of Athens, and all major towns in Greece, day after day after day. Resistance, repression, resistance, repression.

Spanish prisoner on hungerstrike for 88 days

Amadeu Casellas is a Spanish anarchist who has been in prison for over 25 years, thats 5 more than the Spanish legal maximum to be in prison, and 5 more than his original maximum sentence. His ‘crimes’ all relate to expropriation, the robbing of banks to fund the workers and other social movements in the late 1970’s, just after the death of the fascist dictator Franco and the end of his regime – a regime that stole the funds and property of countless Spanish trade unions and individuals, as well as murdering many of its people.