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John Bowden Writes From Glenochil Prison

Leeds ABC | 07.05.2007 12:08 | Repression | World

Long-term prison resister John Bowden writes about his recent 'ghosting' to Glenochil maximum security prison, and about attempts to smear the Anarchist Black Cross as a "terrorist" and paramilitary" organisation.

On the 18th April 2007, nine months after my transfer to Castle Huntly Open Prison, and less than a month before a critically important parole hearing to decide my suitability for release after 25 years in prison, I was placed into solitary confinement and the following day transferred back to a maximum security jail. Incredibly, I was accused of involvement with a 'terrorist organisation' on the outside, a claim emblazoned across the front page of the local Dundee Courier ('Castle Huntly killer has terror links') on the day I was locked into solitary. In the current political climate such a claim was obviously made with the deliberate intention of keeping me imprisoned indefinitely.

In fact, the claim was a lie and reveals the extent of the prison system's determination to deny me freedom even after a quarter of a century behind bars. That such a ludicrous and easily refuted lie should have resulted in my return to conditions of maximum security and the almost certain denial of parole also reveals the Kafkaesque nature of power within the police state world of the prison system. There is, however, a certain vicious rationale motivating the absurd claim made against me.

The persecution and victimisation of prisoner activists by the prison authorities is as intrinsic to the role and function of the prison system as the injustice and abuse of power that characterises its treatment of all prisoners. In the eyes of the prison system and those who enforce it, however, the most feared and hated prisoners of all are those identified as 'ringleaders' and 'subversives', prisoners who attempt to collectively organise and mobilise their fellow prisoners into resistance and protest. For these 'troublemakers' the system reserves its most vicious and vindictive treatment, and an appetite for revenge that blights the lives of such prisoners throughout their entire sentences. If the targeted 'subversive' happens to be serving a life sentence then every means will be employed, including the collusion of prison employed social workers and probation officers, to try and keep the prisoner inside until they die. There are no civilised limits to the vindictiveness of the prison system when it comes to punishing those who have challenged and threatened its power.

For more than two decades in prison I had pursued and fought for the cause of prisoners' rights and tried with every means at my disposal to highlight and expose the frequent and often horrendous abuses of power that I had witnessed and experienced. As a consequence, my name had become synonymous in the minds of prison officials with sedition and defiance, and the spectre of something that has always frightened, enraged and driven them to use every method and means to eradicate and destroy it: prisoner power.

In January this year as I approached the end of a 25 year recommendation life sentence, the administration at Castle Huntly Open Prison were obliged to prepare reports on me for what should have been a final parole tribunal to decide my release. As part of my preparation for release, I 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 I had been allowed frequent home leaves. The two fundamental criteria determining a life sentence prisoner's suitability for release, the expiry of the recommended period of time served in the interests of retribution, and the absence of any risk to the public, were both sufficiently established in my case.

Of all the reports compiled on life sentence prisoners approaching final parole hearings and potential release, few are more important and influential than those written by social workers. It is the opinions and views of these supposedly impartial professionals that exert a critical influence on the deliberations of the parole board. In my case, the prison authorities chose to dispense with the services of ordinary prison social workers at Castle Huntly following an allegation that I had formed an 'inappropriately close friendship' with a member of the social work team there, and instead commissioned an outside social worker to prepare my parole report. They chose Matt Stillman, a right-wing American entrenched in punitive ideas about the role of the parole and probation system.

During two brief interviews he attempted to interrogate me about my political views and philosophy, and focused his questions almost entirely on my contact and relationship with prisoner support groups on the outside. He seemed particularly interested in my contact with the Anarchist Black Cross movement and claimed to have researched their website and read articles of mine featured on it. In Stillman's limited right-wing imagination he associated anarchism with violence and terrorism, and despite what he had actually seen and read to the contrary on the ABC website, he decided to write the following critically damning remarks in his report on me to the parole board: '.Bowden has written for a self-proclaimed anarchist website called Brighton ABC and he says he supports many of their ideas and actions. A review of this website brings into question the nature of the group. The members of this group appear to be primarily eco-terrorists or paramilitary members involved in what they see as battles against political systems and principles.'. He then adds: 'Whilst at Edinburgh prison it was reported that Bowden had received a visit from terrorists.' This refers to two members of Brighton ABC who had visited me at Edinburgh jail, neither of whom had a criminal conviction between them.

As Stillman was well aware, particularly as an American with firm right-wing opinions, levelling the accusation of 'terrorist' sympathies and associations against me in the current political climate would effectively terminate any possibility of the parole board agreeing to my release. And of course those who invited Stillman to write his report on me knew only too well that the opinions of an apparently unbiased and neutral professional would be given infinitely more weight by the parole board than those offered by conceivably prejudiced prison staff. The social work unit manager at Castle Huntly, Christina Brown, despite having also reviewed the ABC website, submitted a report endorsing Stillman's views and attesting to his impartiality and professionalism.

The entire administration at Castle Huntly deliberately colluded in supporting Stillman's ludicrous report, and reacted viciously when I contacted the ABC and suggested they pursue legal action over Stillman's definition and accusation of them as 'terrorist'. On the 18th April, during the afternoon, all prisoners at Castle Huntly were locked down in their cells as I was escorted to the office of the prison's deputy governor, James McKay. He informed me that I had 'compromised the corporate reputation of the prison' by highlighting Stillman's remarks (my intention exactly!), and that my 'continuing contact with a paramilitary organisation on the outside rendered my continuing presence in an open jail unacceptable'. I was then placed into solitary confinement and the following day moved to a maximum security prison.


I had committed no offence against prison discipline at Castle Huntly, breached no prison rules and had fulfilled every bona fide criterion determining life sentence prisoners suitability for release, and yet on the basis of an obviously ludicrous allegation made by an idiotic, redneck social worker, I was swiftly entombed back in high security conditions and denied any possibility of release for the foreseeable future.

The truth is that my treatment is politically motivated and inspired by a determination to continuously punish me for having fought the system in the past and encouraging others to do so, and also by a determination to render me intellectually and politically compliant and submissive. As far as the prison system is concerned, the imperative now is not about negating any genuine risk that I might pose to the community, that stopped being an issue many years ago, but primarily about eradicating my political identity and spirit. From this point on, therefore, my continuing imprisonment is nakedly political and centres wholly on what I continue to represent to a prison system ever fearful of a politically awakened and militant prisoner movement.

John Bowden
HMP Glenochil
May 2007


Please keep up the pressure on the Scottish Prison Service (SPS). Send cards reading 'Hands Off John Bowden!' to Scottish Prison Service Headquarters, Communications Branch, Room 338, Calton House, 5 Redheughs Rigg, Edinburgh, EH12 9HW. Scotland

Letters in support of John's parole application and complaints about his treatment can be sent to John's solicitor: Simon Creighton, Bhatt Murphy Solicitors, 27 Hoxton Square, London N1 6NN. England.

Cards and letters of support can be sent to John at: John Bowden, 6729, HMP Glenochil, King O' Muir Road, Tullibody, Clackmannanshire, FK10 3AD. Scotland. John may receive stamps and postal orders (left blank or made payable to 'The Governor'.)

Please distribute as widely as possible.

Leeds ABC
- e-mail: leedsabc@riseup.net
- Homepage: http://www.myspace.com/leedsabc


Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

PEN pal

07.05.2007 16:27

It's not easy to break me - Mansur Muhammad Ahmad Rajih

I am not broken
For you, I would not allow myself to break
I have not collapsed in shame before your eyes
Your eyes ignited
the flame of defiance within me
It means you are here

I would not moan, for you would hear me
I sang
with all my passion
so that you would dance for me
I sensed your steps, following,
hearing the movements
of your breasts:
A sound
that merged with my song
Echoes of song
undulating between us
Your sweating body dancing exuding a fragrance
which healed the eternity of disease within me
I burrowed deeply into my song -
into you
Prison cannot contain me
A sentence cannot limit me
Because I live in you
nothing can break me



Goodbye to Prison - Thich Tue Sy

Goodbye to Prison
I live emptily in this world:
Within borderless realms I study Zen
Nothing, no one
Nothing to do but watch the flowers stren amid the heavens



Consicence on Trial - Koigi wa Wamwere

If I tell you where I am sick
You ask prison officers
'Is that so?'
You treat me to satisfy prison officers
And not to cure my disease.
You consult police and prison officers
Before you prescribe me anything.
Prison doctors,
You recommend that poor food
Is wholesome for me.
You recommend that my health is all right
with a sisal mat and two worn out dirty blankets for my
beddings
You recommend me fit for hard labor
When I am so sick that I am on the verge of death
You refuse to recommend for me good food
When my ailing health desperately needs it
You shut your eyes to
Disease-causing prison conditions
And pretend to be an enemy of diseases
That are born out of those very conditions.
You free prison authorities from blame
When they murder me with their brutality
You recommend that I am fit
To be given sterilizing strokes
You recommend that I am fit
To be hanged
You have become servants of death.
Prison doctors,
Your spotlessly white robes Deceive us
They make you look clean
But in your service of death and oppression
You 'are like unto whited sepulchres
Which indeed appear beautiful outward
But are within full of dead men's bones And of all uncleanliness.'
Doctors, Serve life Fight death
Unchain prisoners' and detainees' health From the shackles of prison oppression
Don't be in prison to imprison life
Be in prison to give free rein to life
Be in prison to alleviate suffering and oppression
And not increase and excuse them.
If you let prisoners see liberators
If you let prisoners see
The antitheses of prison guards and officers
In you let prisoners see hope and life.

Danny


Good luck John

07.05.2007 20:54

I was in gaol with John Bowden back in the late 90's. I have never met a less selfish or more staunch bloke. He is well respected throughout the entire British jail system. That he doesn't get as much respect from some people passing themselves off as revolutionaries says far more about them than it does about John.

Tom


Fuck Luck Tom

07.05.2007 21:46

Luck is reserved for the sons and daughters of the rich and famous. If you knew John you should take the time to expand on your brief comment to save John some time. John isn't as short of words as you are. Tell us more about him.

Now there has only been one snidey comment on IM about John (  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/04/368913.html?c=on#c172024 ) and that was decried. I have no idea who ABC are but they seem to have been offering some prisoner support and much needed publicity, but it also seems to have backfired badly by allowing the right-wing prison service to equate anarchist to terrorist and thus smear John by association. This is blatant bullshit but this is Blairs Britain - so far.

Now John has slagged off Mark Leech, a supposed 'prison reformer', and Matt Stillman, a supposed 'social-worker' but they can't be construed as 'passing themselves off as revolutionaries'. So you are slagging off someone here. If it is me, then make that clear and I'll argue the toss with you, I wouldn't call myself a revolutionary anyway - though I wouldn't mind a revolution. If it is just everyone on IM in general, then I think that is unfair, there are a lot of issues and injustices posted here and everyone tends to get into their own small thing, this is a newswire and imo not a great place to organise mass action. If you want more action on Johns behalf then I agree, he could do even more good on the outside - so suggest other ways to support this. Although I think of myself as an anarchist, I couldn't organise a jail-break let alone a revolution, my first instincts in obvious cases of injustice like this are to reach out to the mainstream sources of power and try to shame then into action. Each to his own though.

You were obviously in prison as you spell jail 'gaol' - I'm betting you've probably played a lot of Scrabble in your time. So have I. I'm guessing John has played more Scrabble than both of us and so might appreciate those poems when I post him them. I hadn't heard of John a month ago and wouldn't have if his story hadn't been posted here, thanks ABC. I do want to visit him myself, and if you ,Tom, want to visit John anytime, arrange it with him and come to Scotland. I will get you a free floor to sleep on and I'll drive you to GlenOchil.
I have the greatest respect for anyone who survives the British penal system for 25 years and who is still articulate and can be described as unselfish and staunch by someone who knows him.

Danny


Learning my A B C 's

08.05.2007 19:07

I did a bit of reading and the Anarchist Black Cross network started out as a prisoner support network in Tsarist Russia at the height of the pograms and at the birth of anarchy. Sorry for not knowing that but I bet many IM readers don't. They started off as the 'Anarchist Red Cross' but politely changed their name when the Swiss Red Cross started working in Russia. They support all prisoners but specialise in Anarchists and politicos targetted by the state, as well as those prisoners who other prisoner support organisations won't support because their crimes weren't non-violent. ( Nelson Mandela springs to mind).

There was a British ABC movement but it disbanded when they realised they were being conned into supporting prisoners who even anarchist prisoners wouldn't support, fakers and chancers. From the remnants of that group there are now several, more world-wise local ABCs such as Leeds ABC.

I never knew any of that an hour ago, I just searched on it, so apologies to ABCers for oversimplifying or misrepresenting you. You seem somewhat more humanitarian than Amnesty International, slightly less scary than the Red Cross. I just wish John's parole board had taken an hour to read up on you instead of labelling you 'terrorists'. You should publicise your work more on forums like this and in mainstream newspapers too.

My first thought was to start a local ABC. Upon further reading I doubt I am a good enough anarchist or a 'staunch' enough person. My current thought is 'How do I get myself on a parole board' - I mean, who the fuck staffs these things except for the obvious idiots already there ?

Danny


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