UK Indymedia | Actions In Support of John Bowden

Solidarity with long-term prison-resister John Bowden

As part of the 2nd International Day of Solidarity in support of John Bowden and in defence of the Anarchist Black Cross (see main feature on UK Indymedia), various solidarity actions and events are already being organised. A list of the UK actions we know about follows. If you are unable to attend one of these events we strongly urge you to organise your own protest or to spend a few minutes writing out some postcards or making a few phonecalls. John Bowden needs and deserves our fullest possible support.

London

Solidarity Picket of the Parole Board HQ, Grenadier House, 99-105 Horseferry Road, London, SW1P 2DD. 12.30-2.00pm. Please bring placards and banners.

Edinburgh

Solidarity Picket of the Scottish Parliament. Commencing 3pm. Please bring placards and banners. Also see Scottish Indymedia for details of a support meeting to be held in Edinburgh the previous week.

Brighton

A day of solidarity at the Cowley Club, which will include card-signing, letter-writing, and access to a phone provided by Brighton ABC. 12.00-5.30pm

Leeds

Solidarity actions will take place plus a get-together at The Common Place to sign cards, write letters, etc starting at Noon and running throughout the afternoon. Copies of John’s pamphlet Tear Down The Walls! will also be available.

Useful addresses:

John Bowden, 6729, HMP Glenochil, King O' Muir Road, Tullibody, Clackmannanshire, FK10 3AD. Scotland. (Please sends letters and solidarity cards, SAEs, postal orders made payable to ‘The Governor’.)

Audrey Parks, Governor, HMP Glenochil, King O' Muir Road, Tullibody, Clackmannanshire, FK10 3AD. Phone: 01259 760471. Fax: 01259 762003. (Messages of protest.)

Social Services Department, Perth & Kinross Council, 2 High St, Perth, PH1 5PH. Phone: 01738 475000. Fax: 01738 475710. (Complaints about social-worker Matthew Stillman.)

Scottish Prison Service HQ, Communications Branch, Room 338, Calton House, 5 Redheughs Rigg, Edinburgh, EH12 9HW. E-mail:

gaolinfo@sps.gov.uk Phone: 01259 760471. Fax: 01259 762003. (Postcards reading ‘Hands Off John Bowden!’ and other forms of protest.)

ACE Location

The first meeting of the new Scottish prisoner support group will be at ACE in Edinburgh on Saturday the 7th of July from 6pm - 8pm. 7/7/7 wasn't chosen as an auspicious date, it was the only time ACE was free to be booked !

This is a new group, and unfortunately many people who have expressed an interest in joining can't be there on that date though they will join later. Those who can be there will be able to shape the group. We need to choose a name, a structure, a platform, an agenda, all that boring stuff. I'll introduce everyone then sit at the back quietly until we get onto the proposed actions.

People have been trying for years to start such a group, but nothing has happened yet. I have been informed and inspired by the Leeds ABC demo for John Bowden outside the Scottish Parliament. I hope we can network with ABC but you don't need to be an anarchist to support Scottish prisoners, please come along and help decide what form we take, what we can and should do to help.
If anyone needs a lift from anywhere in Scotland then email me.

20 June 2007

On the 29th May, less than a week after a demonstration staged outside the Scottish Parliament in protest at my treatment, the administration at Castle Huntly Open Prison, from where I had been transferred at the pretext of having ‘links with a terrorist organisation’, hurriedly held a ‘case management’ meeting to decide on a strategy of neutralising further protests on my behalf and prolonging my time in prison on less obviously vindictive and politically motivated grounds.

The meeting, held at Glenochil high security prison, where I’m currently being held, was attended by an array of prison service employed social workers, psychologists and governors, and chaired by the Deputy Governor of Castle Huntly Prison, James McKay. No-one at the meeting dissented from the view of McKay that although my stay in maximum security should be prolonged and intended to negatively influence the decision of a Parole Board hearing to consider my release in August, in terms of trying to nullify further protests on my behalf and adverse opinion of the prison system it was no longer expedient to maintain the lie that my removal from an open jail had been as a result of my contact with a ‘terrorist’ group on the outside. The public protestations of the group concerned, Anarchist Black Cross, a perfectly legitimate and non-violent prisoner support group, now rendered the lie untenable. It was therefore considered necessary to fabricate other, less potentially counter-productive justifications for sabotaging my chances of parole and keeping me buried in a maximum security prison. Unfortunately for McKay, who had obviously not anticipated the storm of protest that followed my ghosting from Castle Huntly, he had written a report to accompany my transfer in which he explicitly stated that I was being returned to a maximum security prison pending an investigation into my ‘ongoing contact with an extremist group’. I had been provided with a copy of the report which I then passed on to my lawyer Simon Creighton.

I was called briefly before the ‘case management’ meeting and informed by McKay that because of suspicions that I had formed an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with a social worker whilst at Castle Huntly the previous year, I would soon be transferred to Perth maximum security prison and required to do a course in ‘personal relationships’ before being allowed to return to an open prison. When I asked why an allegation without evidence had not been investigated and acted on at the time I was confronted by a hostile silence. It was clear that everyone at the meeting, social workers, psychologists, senior prison staff had colluded in supporting and providing legitimacy for what was in reality a blatant stitch-up; a senior psychologist from Perth prison who was also at the meeting agreed that I should be transferred to Perth for a course that in fact did not exist. No prison in the Scottish Prison Service provides any such courses in ‘personal relationships’ and everyone at the meeting must have known that. The real purpose of the meeting of course was to rubber-stamp my continued stay in maximum security conditions to coincide with my parole hearing in August.

A fortnight after the meeting I was informed by a senior member of staff at Glenochil that because the ‘personal relationship’ course had been a fiction I would remain in high security conditions to be ‘psychologically risk-assessed’ instead. In fact, I had already been ‘risk-assessed’ by a senior forensic psychologist in 2003 and his opinion was that I presented absolutely no danger or risk to the public and should be transferred to an open prison in preparation for complete release. Nothing whatsoever had occurred between that ‘risk-assessment’ in 2003 and my removal from Castle Huntly open jail in April this year to justify either my ghosting back to a maximum security jail or yet another ‘risk assessment’. Nothing that is apart from the rubbish written about Anarchist Black Cross by the reactionary American social worker Matt Stillman.

There is now little doubt that a suitably compliant prison system hired psychologist will be used to provide yet another pretext to extend my time in prison and shore up with a degree more apparent plausibility the absurd lies of the now discredited Stillman.

The solidarity shown towards me by supporters on the outside, however, has produced cracks and divisions in the ranks of prison officialdom, and Audrey Park, the Governor of Glenochil, has now broken rank and insisted that the inexorable intensification of protest on my behalf be defused by returning me to an open prison. On the rock of solidarity their wave of repression is being broken and there is now a mood of desperation characterising their attempts to keep the cell door closed on me. In the face of their deceit and inhuman attempts to deny me freedom after 25 years in prison my defiance remains implacable and unyielding, and I will continue to fight their vicious abuse of power as I’ve done for the last quarter of a century. In the words of the Uruguayan poet and writer Eduardo Galeano, “We are as small as the fear we feel, and as big as the enemy we choose”.

John Bowden
June 2007

Good luck with the meeting Danny, it would be great to see an effective prisoner support group coming together in Scotland. I really hope that everyone will make every effort to attend, About time we were prepared to back words with actions.

Further to the Brighton ABC event on the 2nd International Day of Solidarity in support of John Bowden and in defence of the Anarchist Black Cross. It will take place during the Cowley Club cafe [cheap vegan food in a friendly atmosphere @ 12 London Road, Brighton]. We will be providing free phone/fax/e-mail access from 12:00 - 5:30, letter/card writing materials and stamps and carrying out street leafletting in the area.

Come along and join us for a coffee and help protest against the victimisation of John Bowden and the vilification of the ABC.

I won't be there myself. A young, capable Irish guy called jaime will chair the meeting. Please show him and the prisoners some support.

I've got caught up in the Glasgow attack, apologies.

...I didn't know you were a doctor ; )

This surely proves the need to intensify the protest against the snide bastards at the SPS. Next Friday needs to be a big affair and we should try to get as much media coverage as possible.

Is there any way of contacting the psychologist that conducted John's 2003 assessment? Perhaps he might care to weigh in, as it seems the SPS are not happy with his work.

Sorry, I meant I got caught up in the violent aftermath of the Glasgow attack, the retributions that has been promoted here by I-Know-Who. There have been racist attacks in my locality conducted by fascists I believe to be working for/with the UK security services. My region has never required an anti-fash group so far so I've been busy setting up a crude equivalent - friends, neighbours and family who aren't afraid of a fight. That's the reason I won't be attending the prisoner support group, to avoid being a discredit to them ala anarchist=terrorsist, though if this spate of violence calms down and I'm at liberty then I will contribute later.

The impression I got from talking to John the one time I met him is the social-worker who smeared him is a US citizen not employed by the SPS. The social worker he replaced was a female who recommended his release. They sacked her for recommending his release, smearing her (and John) as having an inappropriate relationship. Now none of that makes any sense. The prisoners meet their social-workers in open spaces full of people and watched by prison officers. So the SPS social-worker must have been sacked for saying what the authorities didn't want to hear. Even then, why would they have to hire an outside - foriegn - social worker in to say what they want to hear, why not just coerce another SPS social worker into declaring John unreleasable ? Why are US social workers even allowed to work in the Scottish Prison Service ? I'd presume because the union wouldn't tolerate that but I don't know. It is worrying that the people in the SPS aren't smart enough to think up plausible lies.

I don't have much info on John except what I've read here, one visit and a few letters. I hadn't heard of him or ABC before the last Edinburgh demo. I can see from other posts on IM about John my support is just drawing flak, I have 'history' here I realise now I have to sort out once and for all. For instance, I got followed home from his demo by two CID and I was able to leaflet them about him to my amusement, but they were following me for an unrelated post on IM that I'd been grassed up on. I will keep supporting him and the new group from afar, and I'll keep engaging with the prison authorities and politicians and prisoners, but it is best if I work alone for now.

As for publicity for the 13th, I have been on that, radio stations etc, but the name Rudeboy just gave me another idea, thanks. There is an active Ska revival in Scotland, I'll hit their messageboards.

Leeds Support For John Bowden – Friday 13th July

John Bowden is a long-term prison militant, who has been in jail for more than 25 years. While not originally imprisoned for anything political in nature, John has been a bulwark of the prison struggle and of prisoner solidarity throughout his time inside. He is a highly articulate political writer; a fierce critic of injustice wherever he sees it. His willingness to speak out, and to support other prisoners, (he was for example instrumental in first helping to publicise the case of the ‘Birmingham 6’), has not been without personal consequences. John has spent years in segregation, being ‘ghosted’ to every corner of the British penal gulag, and has suffered countless beatings and years of daily abuse. Even after more than 25 years the harassment and victimisation continues.

Until very recently John was in an open prison at Castle Huntly in Scotland. He had spent two years working unsupervised in the outside community as a volunteer on projects for the mentally ill and socially vulnerable, and had qualified as a literacy tutor for people with learning difficulties. For almost a year he had also been allowed frequent home leaves, and was not regarded as any form of risk to the public. All this changed however, when Matthew Stillman, a right-wing American social-worker (who for example, insists on calling Irish people ‘Micks’), accused John of having links with a ‘paramilitary’ and ‘terrorist’ organisation – namely the Anarchist Black Cross (ABC)!

The ABC are a perfectly legal and entirely legitimate prisoner support organisation, with origins that go back to Tsarist Russia. Autonomous branches of the ABC exist all over the world, including groups in Brighton and in Leeds.

Stillman’s lies are easily refuted, but they were eagerly taken up by the Scottish Prison Service, who used them as a pretext for ‘ghosting’ John from Castle Huntly to a maximum security prison at Glenochil. Since a massive campaign was launched in support of John however, and Stillman’s report came under more scrutiny, the SPS have begun to waver. John remains in maximum security conditions though, with all that entails, and Stillman’s enormously prejudicial report currently remains on his parole dossier.

John Bowden’s parole application is due to be considered in August, and the latest Prison Service campaign is clearly aimed at preventing his release. More than that however, it is designed to intimidate other prisoners thinking of supporting their fellow prisoners, and to damage the ability of the ABC to function as an arm of assistance.

For months, since the ABC was vilified, and John Bowden victmised, Leeds ABC have been helping to co-ordinate an international campaign of protest, which has seen solidarity actions everywhere from Edinburgh to Japan, and a constant stream of protest aimed at SPS HQ. This Friday, July 13th, sees the second International Day of Solidarity in support of John and the ABC (see

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/scotland/2007/06/373463.html and

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/leedsbradford/2007/07/374935.html).

In Leeds various support actions are planned, and Leeds ABC will be holding an info stall at the Common Place on Wharf Street (between Calls Lane and Swinegate.) There’s a large card to sign for John, and there’ll be postcards to send for the SPS (who you can also e-mail.) Come along and show your support and find out more about the work of the ABC, we’ll be there from 12 noon until 3.00pm. It’s also an opportunity to purchase John Bowden’s excellent pamphlet Tear Down The Walls! The café will be open as usual on Fridays, selling tea and coffee and a range of vegan food.

If you’re unable to be there you can still help:

John Bowden, 6729, HMP Glenochil, King O' Muir Road, Tullibody, Clackmannanshire, FK10 3AD. Scotland. (Please sends letters and solidarity cards, SAEs, postal orders made payable to ‘The Governor’.)

Audrey Parks, Governor, HMP Glenochil, King O' Muir Road, Tullibody, Clackmannanshire, FK10 3AD. Phone: 01259 760471. Fax: 01259 762003. (Messages of protest.)

Social Services Department, Perth & Kinross Council, 2 High St, Perth, PH1 5PH. Phone: 01738 475000. Fax: 01738 475710. (Complaints about social-worker Matthew Stillman.)

Scottish Prison Service HQ, Communications Branch, Room 338, Calton House, 5 Redheughs Rigg, Edinburgh, EH12 9HW. E-mail:

gaolinfo@sps.gov.uk Phone: 01259 760471. Fax: 01259 762003. (Postcards reading ‘Hands Off John Bowden!’ and other forms of protest.)

For more information e-mail Leeds ABC at

leedsabc@riseup.net (Website: www.myspace.com/leedsabc)

To find out more about John Bowden and the campaign in support of him see www.myspace.com/friendsofjohnbowden or the main feature on UK Indymedia.

The demonstration in support of John Bowden is taking place at 3pm outside the SCOTTISH PRISON SERVICE... NOT Scottish Parliament!

The SPS is located in The Gyle, which is 15-20mins west of Edinburgh, on the outskirts of Corstorphine and just off the Glasgow road.

Actions In Support of John Bowden – Friday 13th July The Zoo Cafe.
Newland Av, Hull. Call by between 5 and 6
Solidarity with long-term prison-resister John Bowden will include

Card-signing, letter-writing

Letters and solidarity cards

Messages of protest

Complaints about social-worker Matthew Stillman

Postcards reading ‘Hands Off John Bowden!’ and other forms of protest

Idea are very welcome

Suggested donation, stamps as postcard etc will be provided.

Johnny ex
- e-mail:

Hullanarchistgroup@yahoo.co.uk

Actions In Support of John Bowden – Friday 13th July

Additions

Scottish Prisoner Support - ABC Scotland - 7/7/7

Update from John

Comments

Good luck

Brighton Event addition

Apologies

Was that you then Danny...

Cheating, snivelling, Gits.

Is there a doctor in the airport ?

Leeds Support For John Bowden – Friday 13th July

John Bowden Demo @ SCOTTISH PRISON SERVICE. ->NOT Parliament

Hull

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