TWO LETTERS FROM INSIDE......

Letter from Laudelino Iglesias, free after more than 23 years in prison.
Laudelino Iglesias Martinez left prison on the 9th of August 2004 after spending more than 23 years in the Spanish prisons. He is one of the well-known social rebels and anarchists in prison in Spain, co-founder of the APRE (r), de Asociacion de Presos en Regimen Especial (reconstituida), organisation of prisoners who in the beginning of the nineties struggled against the isolation and for their rights as human beings and was brutally repressed. Laudelino spend years in the infamous FIES-units but never stopped to struggle.
As Laudelino writes, in an accompanying note to the support group ‘Amaitu’, the last years he had very difficult moments, with severe depressions and disgusted by everything, himself included. He admits that this resounds in his letter, that he is very sad about this, that the cure will take long time and that he believes that the consequences of almost 24 years imprisonment will never disappear completely.

“Dear comrades!!

Finally they have released me, finally they set me free from the leGAL hostage taking to which I was subjected since no less than 23 years and ten months. I have made it thanks to the knowledge which I taught myself about my human rights and by writing a lot, as well to their courts of injustice as to those honest and combative people from the streets and from other prisons who wrote me and helped me... But above all because I never lost my cherished hope and because I always took care of myself as good as possible and never stopped to believe in my ideas.

Yes, 23 years and 10 months taken hostage in the extermination camps of the fascist and murderous Spanish state, ruled in the first place by some national-catholic capitalist parasites who sit satisfied at the fireside while they exploit, oppress, squeeze, torture, kill and deceive the workers, students and all persons who, to survive, dare to violate their unjust laws. Laws which, we should always keep in mind, are dictated by our executioners, made on their size and only in their interest, imposed upon us by the sword, with violence.
Yes, finally they let me go, but they have robbed 23 years and 10 months of my life (my freedom), and have mistreated me (physically tortured, beaten, threatened with death, insulted, completely isolated in special security quarters during more than 15 years in the first degree and in the FIES.1-C.D.-, they have conspired against me with the intent to discredit me and be murdered by certain “prisoners”, they have unlawfully applied sanctions to me, they have infected me with dangerous and incurable diseases, they have continually hurt and harassed me) – all this till the last day… That is the normal treatment they give to the prisoners who struggle ceaselessly so that they don’t take away their dignity and respect their fundamental human rights. Yes, they played many dirty tricks on me and earned a lot of Money on my back, Money they have stolen of the wages of the workers. They have kept me locked up in some thirty prisons and maxi-prisons (concentration camps of the social war in which the world is immersed), and now they release me from the prison of Valencia, out of its worst section of the second degree (section 7), my last cell was number 205 of the second floor.

I leave behind some friends, which makes me sad, but be sure that just as I did conquer, they too will win their freedom one day. Many of my time and others have been murdered unpunished by the guards through tortures, beatings, suicide, carelessness, etc.; all remain in my thoughts and in my heart.
For the other prisoners (except the few and honourable exceptions) I feel nothing but disgust, it is with shame that i talk about them, but the prisons in the capitalist world are full of servants, creepers, individualists, ash lickers, quarrellers, violators, collaborators, and many are just the same as the screws or even worse... , miserables without morals, who have no respect neither for the others nor for himself. They are the canon flesh to fill the prisons (who have become real mastodons) and as such fulfil one of the insane objectives of this system which exploits and oppresses us. It is a complete degeneration and it becomes worse everyday...

Bit by bit I will tell you about the things and my experiences in the prisons of this damned State, now i will dedicate myself in the first place to LIVING this life (they have kept me practically whole my life imprisoned, which means SUFFERING life) together with my girl friend and enjoy the space and taste as much as possible of all good things that life offers.

I leave you know with a brotherly libertarian embrace, till soon comrade. Keep strong and resist without end!!!
Til an end is made to all exploitation and represssion,
Till we all are free.
Salud y Anarquía!!!

Laudelino Iglesias Martinez

From the micro-prison of Valencia, 9 augustus 2004. Picassent”



(intro and translation: anarchist black cross – gent)Letter from Laudelino Iglesias Martinez
"From death row in Villanubla prison, Valladolid, February 26th, 2001
Dear comrades in struggle,
My name's Laude and I want to let you know that the Supreme Court of this murderous State sentenced me to life imprisonment, sentenced me to die into the death row of these modern concentration and extermination camps, in short it sentenced me to death. The Spanish State, though it has tortured me for 20 continuous years into its prisons, brought itself to sentence me to death while it should have released me 7 years ago if one refers to what is established by its penal code or its Constitution. This limits any prison sentence to 20 years maximum and specifies that no one can be subjected to torture nor to punishments and degrading treatments. But in the reality of facts, the humanism and the application of those laws are triumphant through their absence. My case is an additional example of the terrorist essence of this State. Abuse, torment, sadism, murder are favourite and usual practices against all those who fight for life, freedom, dignity and for all human beings.
Monarcho-franquist mafias that constitute this country oppress and exploit us, subject us to poverty and destitution, brainwash and make us ill, drop us out, control and poison our lives. They beat us, torture and murder when we rebel against those scoundrels. They confine us illegally and lock up in their extermination camps to torture us day after day, to use us as hostages against social and revolutionary struggles (...), to exploit us economically, to humiliate us, to harass us continuously, to make us mad and murder us (...). To isolate and fret us. My personal case was subjected to a wide number of those dirty methods. I've been tortured, trashed, insulted, threatened to death, tormented to kill me, maintained in isolation for over 12 continuous years by submitting me to the module 1 of the FIES regime (...), caused and kept alive diseases and generally, I've been systematically violated my most fundamental rights. They were about beating me up to death every time they brutalized me. It has happened numerous times and during one of these beatings, they put me into coma and resuscitated me at the hospital.
With this new sentence to life imprisonment, it is clear that they persist in this willingness to murder me. This is anyway what they attempt by always occulter themselves with suicide, or with a fight in between fellow mates, with overdose, or with any kind of farce. Along these over 20 years where they've kept me locked up, they've already murdered a number of my friends, they beat them up to death, resorting to torture, hanging, by causing or inflicting them diseases, by overdoses, by using other inmates in return of prison benefits, or by causing conflicts in between prisoners for stories of rumours, drugs, or for prison rights or privileges. I do not use any drug, I do not smoke tobacco either, I'm vegetarian and I try to live a healthy life in spite of such hostile conditions. I come from Eukalherria and my spirit is libertarian. I have numerous friends, I feel loved, I'm still young and I very much want to live. But before all, I want to live free and I'm not going to loose this feeling for life because of this new sentence to life imprisonment. Even less will that prevent me to keep struggling for what I want, love and dream.
In this State, we are actually numerous prisoners who've spent over 20 years confined in prison and numerous are those sentenced to life, which is equivalent to a sentence to death. It is clear that this State doesn't respect its own laws. It is even less democratic and legitimate than murderous and corrupted. It practices detention, torture, gives sentences to life imprisonment and sentences to death against all those who rebel against those scoundrels (...)
The fact that this State has sentenced me to life imprisonment, though it has already kept me locked up and confined into its death camps, is a failure for the State and an additional victory for the libertarian struggle. In 20 years of detention, they haven't managed to make me deny my libertarian ideals and will not manage it along the numerous years they keep pressuring me.
Consequently, dear comrades and friends engaged in the struggle, do not consider this news as a failure but on the contrary view and feel it as a victory. Because undoubtedly, it is a victory of human resistance against the barbarity of capitalist prison and an additional triumph for libertarian practices and ideals.
The struggle goes on, we will take some rest when we defeat capitalism, once we defeated exploitation and oppression, until human beings are free and decide themselves for their fate, until Human Rights are respected by every person and people, until we obtain a free, egalitarian, standing by and sound world, until we build a prisonless society. As long as dignity will be derided, nobody can make us give up hope, our hopes and our sacrifices are never vain. Neither imprisonment, nor judicial farce, nor sentences, nor murders against us will break down our revolt.
That's all for now, I tell you that I love you and send you big brotherly and libertarian greetings. Salud y anarki! Jo ta ke! Hurrengo arte, lagunak! Agur".
Laudelino Iglesias Martinez : Villanubla, Carretera Madrid-Gijon, 47014 Valladolid, Spain.

(anarchist black cross – gent)