Gabriel will participate in this with Jose Delgado, Pit (a member from I.vI who also is a prisoner in Rheinbach Jail. Also around 470 prisoners from 28 jails said that they will participate in their own way (sometimes doing 2 days of hunger strike) in this movement, which seems really interesting even if it has certainly some limits in the means and methods it chooses, which Gabriel also mentions in his text, but which also may be overcome.

Let's see how different groups or individuals want to take part in their own ways on this ...


"Last 28th March 2008, a noteworthy article appeared on the WDR TeleText channel. "Prisoners produce 45 Millions Euro"

According to the article, in the year 2007 and only in the Renania retention centers, prisoners have produced with their "work" a company profit of 44,90 Million Euros, a sum that has increased when compared to 2005, when the revenue was of 43,45 Millions.

Mueller Piepenkoetter, the Ministry of Justice of Renania, cynically declares at the press conference " to keep prisoners occupied is an important goal since it allows prisoners to be reinserted in the culture of work", shortly after: "the fact that the centres can finance themselves makes it more bearable".

Certainly, it cannot be denied that the distinguished minister of justice is a worthy person. As there are not so many countries that dear to make public statements about the submerge economies of the penitentiary "centres".

There is also no place for misunderstanding. The words of the minister are clear (legal and restricted to the press): the prisoner has to work and on top of that, has to contribute to the expenses of the imprisonment's costs to the State.

But the minister does not talk about the internal operation of the prisons or the forced labour, and not because those are "illegal", but because the less people know about it, the less questions, polemic or problems the state will have.

If we are to believe, of course, that this kind of information is to be of interest to anyone. (This in this country is not the case)

When I say that in this county there is no interest to uncover this kind of information I am talking about the general public (or what it's called the public interest, as if this interest was to be of interest to anyone). But affected- interested persons there always are and will be.

To give an example, inside German prisons, there is an association and collective of prisoners (with external support from lawyers and the kind) that for years have been fighting against the abuses of power, the psychological-terrorism, the conditions of the detentions, forced labour, etc, etc.

This association is called Iv.i (Interessenvertretunginhaftierten) that translated means something like Representation for the Interest of the Detainees.

Regardless of whether I share their interest, means followed, (formal complaints, appeals, calls to the mass media, etc. ) or their allies (lawyers, juristic persons...) I am, as libertarian, on their side, from the moment they revolt and protest and consequently, put on isolation, disperse, etc

After the direct contact with some of their representatives in prison, talks and debates we have decided to start a Hunger Strike to protest about the Isolation conditions of Nadine Trivian, (one of the representatives of this association) as well as her imprisonment/dispersion in a centre where she finds herself on an extremely hostile environment. This is due to the fact that she complaint, together with other fellow female prisoners, against a prison guard, who is now condemned for rape and sexual assaults while practising in his work place.

My solidarity with this comrade and the political word of this association Iv.i (and their fellow mates) is therefore unconditional.

Nonetheless, my solidarity goes further than this particular case and it extends against all centres of detention and punishment, against all life imprisonment, death sentence, and systems of isolation and torture. The Hunger Strike will take place from the 1st to the 7th of August 2008 and people could show their solidarity according to their criteria: sending faxes to the ministry of justice in Dusseldorf, to the prison where Nadine is, to the German consulates, etc.

With regards to the internal operation of the German Prison-industry (to name it somehow), it is important to say that it is one of the most repressive of Europe.

The repression in Germany is not specific, meaning that guards lose their temper, but systematic. That is the whole system and the process (police, judicial and criminal) it is conceive to be able to make up farce sentences, mockery trials and subsequent sentences that fill prisons with productive forces (sub proletariat) who are forced to "work", since the prisoner is responsible of the expenses of the trial (you cannot declare yourself insolvent, since the prison is offering "work" for him-her to pay what they owe to the state) as well as the payment of the cell: bed, bed coverings, laundry, breakfast and lunch, etc.

Disobedients and rivals to the penitentiary system are rare, since the vast majority accept the conditions (willingly or reluctantly) because should they rebel, the prisoner will be denied the money necessary to buy the essential to survive in the marginal atmosphere of the prison life: cigarettes, coffee, good food, etc.

The economic blackmail is just a small part of the means available to the penitentiary administration. In fact those who are not working, (whether they are on the waiting list or because they refuse this type of forced labour) will be put down to a tougher penitentiary regime: 23 hours per day in the cell ( 1 hour patio) and with no possibility of conjugal visits, with neither family nor partners.

In summary, in Germany 'duties' and obligations are imposed, but you cannot count on any rights. There is also no Execution Court and no General Penitentiary Act.

The fact that most of the prisoners are foreigners (most of them do not speak the language and know little about the country's laws or their own rights) makes them perfect victims in the hands of the lawyers, judges and other individuals without morality, ethics or qualms.

The number of illiterate is amazing and most of them come from countries where they are treated more brutally (mainly those with origins in ex URSS or Africa) so it is pointless to explain to them that what they are doing to them is not only illegal but also immoral. The most, they shrug their shoulders and ask, what's the meaning of amoral or what's the meaning of human rights?

Many of them work because in that way, they can send part of their salaries to their families, who live in countries that are in subhuman conditions.

Not only poverty gets punished, but they abuse the ignorant, being this what it is so immoral about one of the motor countries of the European Union. The EU, as everyone already knows, is the European capital and their jailers.

A europe where goods are free to move, firms can go from an already profitable area to a more profitable one, a europe that sucks the blood of its workers to kick them on their arses when they are no longer "productive", that control, lock up and torture people, without a fucking feeling of guilt, from any of these swines, or responsibility towards the interest or the "referendums" (let's remember for example the referendum about the European Constitution, the Rights and the Human Dignity.

There are so many things that fail to get a mention, but this time I am going to leave it with those statements, that are always good to brush up on the "big bosses" that go around talking about "Human Rights", "Democracy" and so on.

And like the Polla Record sings, "It will arrive, It will arrive - each bourgeois will get - its joke, its joke - we will get revenge for the humiliation".

Combative greetings to all who fight all around the world."

Gabriel


Gabriel is an anarchist who along with another, Jose Fernandez Delgado, escaped from the brutal F.I.E.S prison system of the Spanish State. Gabriel and Jose are now residing in the Jails of Germany, after attempting to escape a police control on the Belgium/German border.

Here is a link to a collection of texts written by Gabriel:
 http://325collective.com/until-we-are-all-free.pdf