Friday 25th May has been called as an international day of solidarity in support of long-term prison resister John Bowden, and in support of the Anarchist Black Cross
Please attend this Friday's demonstration in Edinburgh in support of John Bowden - 2.00pm outside the Scottish Parliament. Bring placards and banners. If you are unable to attend you can still help. Around the world supporters will be expressing their solidarity.
HANDS OFF JOHN BOWDEN!
STOP THE HARRASSMENT
John Bowden is a long-term prisoner who, until very recently, after over 25 years in jail, was in an open prison at Castle Huntly. John has spent two years working unsupervised in the outside community as a volunteer on projects for the mentally ill and socially vulnerable, and has qualified as a literacy tutor for people with learning difficulties. For almost a year he has also been allowed frequent home leaves, he was not regarded as any form of risk to the public.
All this has recently changed though after a right-wing American social-worker accused John Bowden of having links with a ‘paramilitary’ and ‘terrorist’ organisation. This is a base and easily refuted lie. WE are the so-called ‘terrorists’, John’s friends and supporters within the Anarchist Black Cross, an entirely legitimate and perfectly legal prisoner support organisation that can trace its history back to Tsarist Russia.
John Bowden is now being punished for challenging these lies. He has been moved to ‘closed conditions’ at HMP Glenochil, and damaging allegations hang over him, which we believe are specifically designed to prejudice the parole board and prevent his release.
The Scottish Prison Service has to take responsibility for this matter, with the eyes of the world watching, it cannot continue to cover it up and bury John Bowden in maximum-security conditions. We demand a full and swift investigation and an apology for the lies that have been told.
Find out more at: www.myspace.com/friendsofjohnbowden
Send a postcard reading ‘Hands Off John Bowden!’ to Scottish Prison Service HQ, Communications Branch, Room 338, Calton House, 5 Redheughs Rigg, Edinburgh, EH12 9HW. You can also e-mail them at
gaolinfo@sps.gov.uk Phone them on 01259 760471. Or fax them at 01259 762003.
Write to Glenochil prison, where John is being held: Audrey Parks, Governor, HMP Glenochil, King O' Muir Road, Tullibody, Clackmannanshire, FK10 3AD. Telephone: 01259 760471. Fax: 01259 762003.
Complain to the Care Commission about the lies being told by Matt Stillman, who is employed by Perthshire Social Services: The Care Commission, Headquarters, Compass House, 11 Riverside Drive, Dundee, DD1 4NY. Telephone: 01382 207100. Fax: 01382 207289.
Send John a card or letter of support: John Bowden, 6729, HMP Glenochil, King O' Muir Road, Tullibody, Clackmannanshire, FK10 3AD.
HANDS OFF JOHN BOWDEN!
STOP THE HARRASSMENT
John Bowden is a long-term prisoner who, until very recently, after over 25 years in jail, was in an open prison at Castle Huntly. John has spent two years working unsupervised in the outside community as a volunteer on projects for the mentally ill and socially vulnerable, and has qualified as a literacy tutor for people with learning difficulties. For almost a year he has also been allowed frequent home leaves, he was not regarded as any form of risk to the public.
All this has recently changed though after a right-wing American social-worker accused John Bowden of having links with a ‘paramilitary’ and ‘terrorist’ organisation. This is a base and easily refuted lie. WE are the so-called ‘terrorists’, John’s friends and supporters within the Anarchist Black Cross, an entirely legitimate and perfectly legal prisoner support organisation that can trace its history back to Tsarist Russia.
John Bowden is now being punished for challenging these lies. He has been moved to ‘closed conditions’ at HMP Glenochil, and damaging allegations hang over him, which we believe are specifically designed to prejudice the parole board and prevent his release.
The Scottish Prison Service has to take responsibility for this matter, with the eyes of the world watching, it cannot continue to cover it up and bury John Bowden in maximum-security conditions. We demand a full and swift investigation and an apology for the lies that have been told.
Find out more at: www.myspace.com/friendsofjohnbowden
Send a postcard reading ‘Hands Off John Bowden!’ to Scottish Prison Service HQ, Communications Branch, Room 338, Calton House, 5 Redheughs Rigg, Edinburgh, EH12 9HW. You can also e-mail them at
gaolinfo@sps.gov.uk Phone them on 01259 760471. Or fax them at 01259 762003. Write to Glenochil prison, where John is being held: Audrey Parks, Governor, HMP Glenochil, King O' Muir Road, Tullibody, Clackmannanshire, FK10 3AD. Telephone: 01259 760471. Fax: 01259 762003.
Complain to the Care Commission about the lies being told by Matt Stillman, who is employed by Perthshire Social Services: The Care Commission, Headquarters, Compass House, 11 Riverside Drive, Dundee, DD1 4NY. Telephone: 01382 207100. Fax: 01382 207289.
Send John a card or letter of support: John Bowden, 6729, HMP Glenochil, King O' Muir Road, Tullibody, Clackmannanshire, FK10 3AD.
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Comments
Hide the following 5 comments
reposted info regarding Mr Bowdens crimes
23.05.2007 10:41
10.05.2007 15:40
In 1980 John Bowden (22), then a heavy-drinking petty criminal who had already spent most of his life in various different types of penal institutions, killed Donald Ryan in the Camberwell flat belonging to Shirley Brindle (34). Bowden had been drinking at the flat, together with Michael Ward (27), David Beyley (48), Brindle and Ryan. In addition to drinking, they had been playing cards. They had also been making sandwiches with a joint of meat, which they cut with an electric carving knife.
In the course of this heavy drinking session an argument started between Bowden and Ryan Ryan pulled a knife, but Bowden grabbed the electric carving knife and cut Ryan across the hand severely injuring his fingers. Ryan was obviously in some distress, but his hand was bandaged with a cloth and they carried on drinking and playing cards. Eventually Bowden said he would take Ryan to the hospital, saying that first he would just dress the wound in the bathroom upstairs, but thinking that Ryan would later seek revenge, Bowden killed him, He then, together with the others, chopped up the corpse, and cut off the head. Various parts of Ryan's dismembered body were dumped around the area, but the head, which the gang viewed as harder to get rid of, was kept for several days in Bowden's fridge.
Eventually, the gang were arrested and the 3 men were given life sentences. Shirley Brindle was convicted of helping to dispose of the body. All the defendents had criminal convictions, as did Donald Ryan, who was a convicted child sex-offender.
John Bowden was represented at the trial by Michael Mansfield QC.
======first posted by 'LegalEagle' 10.05.2007 15:40=========
This is important information that people should be aware of.
helper
Satan's little helper
23.05.2007 14:20
How is it important information ? It isn't even relevant. John never denied his crime was brutal or political, he became politicised in prison. The reason he is still being held has nothing to do with the crime, it is to do with his prisoners-rights work in prison. Even so, he was due to be released and working in the community with handicapped children supported by the prison social workers. They were deemed to be to have 'too close a relationship' with him' and so a right-wing American social-worker from outside was assigned to him.
People make mistakes, and people change. Prison is supposed to be about rehabilitation but it is really about breaking the human spirit. The only reason John is still being held is that John received a visit from an anarchist prisoner support group. The prison authorities equated 'anarchist' with 'terrorist' and John refused to agree with that.
I hadn't heard of either ABC or John Bowden until a fortnight ago. I'm not even sure John would describe himself as an anarchist, he just refuses to condemn all anarchists as terrorists. I have followed the posts here with interest though and there are a few things that quickly became obvious.
1) ABC are a humanitarian anarchist organisation not a terrorist organisation.
2) John Bowden, who is widely respected within the prison system, deserves our support for being principled enough not to condemn us all for his own benefit.
3) There is a poster here who still seeks to demonise him in the crudest tabloid terms, which sort of indicates that the authorities fear what good John could do to reform the prison system when freed.
Danny
Help?
23.05.2007 14:57
Guy
For the record
23.05.2007 16:02
I've known John for many years, during most of which he has described himself as a communist, sometimes with anarchist leanings (!) More importantly he is an anti-authoritarian, non-sectarian, a defender of the rights of the oppressed in or out of prison to conduct their own struggles.and a welcomer of any solidarity offered to that struggle by progressive people, whatever ism they individually or collectively subscribe to.
Against a background of systematic destruction of prisoners' rights and ability to organise over the last 15 years, he has continued to write, speak and organise, and to point out that attacks on prisoners are not just attacks on prisoners but are attacks on the working class and oppressed. He shows this concretely to people he comes into contact with and helps them make sense of the awful experience of imprisonment and understand why they are there in a completely different way to the story told by the gaolers.
This is why the system hates him.
N
SOLIDARITY with John, even if not in Scotland pls HELP
24.05.2007 23:07
He was in an open prison being prepared for propable release in June, when he was due before the board.
The reason he then spent the night in solitary and was then sent back to a maximum security prison are political. His outside social worker with extreme reactionary ideas took offence at the fact that John has written many good articles for ABC's and others, showing solidarity with other cons and exposing the brutality and sometimes miscarriages of justice others experienced inside.
This social worker's report is basically condemning John for believing in anarchist ideas and principles; and for refusing to vilify Brighton ABC -from which 2 members visited John, as terrorists.
ARE WE GONNA LET THE STATE KEEP PEOPLE HOSTAGE FOR THEIR POLITICAL BELIEFS?
Even if you cannot make it to Scotland on Friday, please try and show some solidarity for john, as he has for so many others.
We cannot, in this time of repression and the S.O.C.P.A. allow the U.K. to become even more of a police state-where people are kept inside for no other reason than their political beliefs and affiliations. These new acts are being used more and more against protesters and dissidents; we cannot allow the state to use John to set a precedent whereby your politics become a reason to be locked up.
They are scared of John for his strong sense of solidarity and never being able to speak out about injustice. Now, we need to speak out for him.
The ABC's help a lot of prisoners; and we do not want to be in a position whereby prisoners are scared to approach them for support in case it reflects badly on them.
So, if you can't make it tomorrow, please PHONE, send E-MAILS and CARDS reading hands off John Bowden.
This will only take a few minutes; but if everyone does it it will send a strong message to the state that we refuse to let them treat John-and by extention-us or anyone else, like this.
m.caroline F.T.S.
e-mail:
kj10680@yahoo.co.uk