AR prisoner Dan Wadham has had his prison 'enhanced' status removed in a petulant move by the Prision.
Dan was organising a sponsored walk in his 'enhanced' wing in Camp Hill prison to raise money for Sea Shepherd the anti whaling group.
In a petulant response to Dan's challenging move and unwillingness to be ground down by state oppression Dan has lost his enhanced status and been placed on a normal wing.
Dan has three more years to serve.
In a petulant response to Dan's challenging move and unwillingness to be ground down by state oppression Dan has lost his enhanced status and been placed on a normal wing.
Dan has three more years to serve.
Comments
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This is intersting but...
15.04.2010 08:10
Much more infomration, please.
Did he get to do the sponsored walk? What exactly was the response from the screws? How did they find out what he was up to? How did they go about removing his status, what prison rule did they claim they were doing it under, and how did he find out about this?
Annie Citizen
More....
15.04.2010 09:50
HMP Camp Hill, Newport, Isle of Wight PO30 5PB
In January 2009 Dan was sentenced to 5 years in relation to charges in connection with HLS campaigns. (One of the UK SHAC 7) Support page
Birthday: 3rd February
What you can send: Only cheques and postal orders can be sent in made out to ‘HMPS’ with Dan’s name and number and the sender’s details on reverse.
** Updated 14th April – Dan has had his Enhanced Status removed because he raised money for Sea Shepherd whilst in prison!**
Letter from Dan, 16th November 2009
Dear Chums,
Thanks for your letters. I’m useless at responding but they are appreciated.
I’ve been doing loads of running recently, (well I can’t let an old fogey like Gregg beat me, can I?), I’m on the enhanced wing which has a path around the garden that is my personal running track. I’ve actually decided to run a sponsored marathon for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in the New Year. I need help though, to collect sponsors and raise money and to publicise the run, so if you want to help, get in touch! That’s all for now.
Love Dan x
http://www.arprisoners.org/dan-wadham
Is this even real?
15.04.2010 10:20
a) A marathon isn't a sponsored walk.
b) Dan got a 5 year sentence and has served 17 months. Seeing as in the UK you get released halfway through your sentence he hasn't actually had three years left to serve at any point... at this moment he actually has 13 months left to serve.
Skeptic
Solidarity
15.04.2010 10:31
I personally don't want Dan losing his enhanced status for nothing so I will be sending a donation to Sea Shepherd in solidarity.
If any one else wants to show him support then please donate too:
Sea Shepherd Supporter
I think it is right
15.04.2010 12:18
I'm not sure about the automatic release at 50% - I think that depends on behaviour and the parole board - you end up on licence for the balance of sentence anyhow and you can get recalled etc
Solidarity and donate to SeaShepherd
Vegie
Parole etc
15.04.2010 13:53
Prisoners Fightback
other nitpicks
15.04.2010 22:51
* Used the word "petulant" twice.
* Put an hyphen inbetween "anti whaling"
* Need to put a comma in this sentence
...ground down by state oppression, Dan has lost his enhanced status...
Kev
Yeah - it's the punctuation and syntax that matters....
16.04.2010 07:32
Distraction watch
A little info is...
16.04.2010 21:20
The 1991 act was changed last year to bring in line sentences with the 2003 act but it doesn't count for sex offenders and violent offences. Blackmail doesn't kick in the 1991 act and he will do half.
"Stuff the fact that an activist has been 'punished' for organising a charity fundraiser - the spelling is off!!!!"
You will find that he will be punished in more ways than having his enhanced status revoked. He will now be on a heavy lock down when he finally gets released and that's why others just get their heads down, do their time.. Campaigning for jailed ar activists will be squashed.
same old
Thanks to Indymedia for changing the word "loose" to "lose". Poor Dan.
17.04.2010 04:30
As for Dan losing his enhanced status just for this, that sucks. All kinds of things go on in prison and punishing Dan over a sponsored walk is a bit much. Just shows how far HLS tentacles reach!
anon
Just to say
17.04.2010 10:43
mmm
re: Just to say
18.04.2010 17:52
It's nothing like letting a paedophile organise a save the children event. Your logic is totally round the twist. You "failed Logic 101" as I believe you say in your country. A slightly better analogy would be a paedophile organising an abuse the children event. But in Dan's case it's an animal protector organising an event to raise money for animal protection. The big difference of course is that Sea Shepherd are a legal organisation that are actually about enforcing international law and saving abused animals, whereas paedophiles are about breaking the law and abusing children.
And I fail to see how this will affect him when he gets out of prison.
Fuck me, the quality of trolls on Indymedia are going downhill.
anon
Logic or how the system works?
19.04.2010 09:39
It's nothing like letting a paedophile organise a save the children event. Your logic is totally round the twist. You "failed Logic 101" as I believe you say in your country. A slightly better analogy would be a paedophile organising an abuse the children event. But in Dan's case it's an animal protector organising an event to raise money for animal protection. The big difference of course is that Sea Shepherd are a legal organisation that are actually about enforcing international law and saving abused animals, whereas paedophiles are about breaking the law and abusing children.
And I fail to see how this will affect him when he gets out of prison.
Fuck me, the quality of trolls on Indymedia are going downhill. "
My logic is around the twist? You assume I'm from across the pond because I used the word ass? Well you are wrong.
You don't seem to understand the very basics of how the whole system works. Dan's index offence was animal rights related "campaigning" and any connection to animal rights campaigning while in the grip of the system will be stamped out.
Dan will have to spend some time on licence and before he is released he will have to sign his licence and agree to abide by the conditions that will be set for his continued supervision while serving the rest of his sentence in the community. His level of supervision will also be affected by how he responds to his rehabilitation while in prison. I hope this is starting to sink in by now. Attempting to raise money for a militant animal rights organisation, legal or no, will be seen as a massive step back in this process.
Maybe you should crawl back under your bridge?
mmm
lets get this straight
20.04.2010 07:37
It is an offical charity and they are a Conservation Group supported by the Austrialian Government and it's PM. Sea Shepered do not break the law, they just try to inforce the law by stopping illegal killing of whales. Even by boarding the ships and even throwing things at the ship and ramming, it is not breaking the law. They get away with it because it's the whale killers who are breaking the law and in this instance sea shepherd are allowed to do the actions they do to stop the illegal killing.
Sea Shepherd even say they are not Animal Rights and the founder of sea shepherd is not really into Animal Rights, its a well known fact.
So for dan to be punished for this is very wrong.
Maybe he was punished though because maybe you are not allowed to raise money for charity at all in prison unless its an offical prison charity even?
I don't know. Maybe someone who has been to prison can clear this up?
Intelligence
Really?
22.04.2010 15:49
It is an offical charity and they are a Conservation Group supported by the Austrialian Government and it's PM. Sea Shepered do not break the law, they just try to inforce the law by stopping illegal killing of whales. Even by boarding the ships and even throwing things at the ship and ramming, it is not breaking the law. They get away with it because it's the whale killers who are breaking the law and in this instance sea shepherd are allowed to do the actions they do to stop the illegal killing.
Sea Shepherd even say they are not Animal Rights and the founder of sea shepherd is not really into Animal Rights, its a well known fact."
Well known fact? The fact is that Sea shepherd society have links to animals rights and people heavily connected to animal rights. Jerry Vlasak and Joan Court is a prime example. The fact they attend ARC meetings and go to the animal rights gathering to discuss tactics would suggest an interest in animal rights.
Are you aware of all the arrests over the years? Did you know about the arrest warrant out for Watson for sinking a ship with limpet mines? He was lucky it ran out. Not to mention the latest arrest for piracy!
"So for dan to be punished for this is very wrong.
Maybe he was punished though because maybe you are not allowed to raise money for charity at all in prison unless its an offical prison charity even?
I don't know. Maybe someone who has been to prison can clear this up?"
You don't have to have spent time in prison to know that prisoners are allowed to raise money for charity.
mmm
Possible room for challenge
18.05.2010 18:13
It wouldn't surprise me if this is true, but wonder if it is a new thing - it's not something I've heard about before, so I strongly suspect it is rule-bending by these particular screws, maybe trying to set a precedent. We're definitely getting into "would never get past the European Court of Human Rights" territory here, and worth looking into legal challenges - there will be some criterion as to what grounds screws are allowed to violate rights under. The index offence in this case would not be 'SHAC campaigning' but 'conspiracy to blackmail' (or whatever the official charge was), hence activities would presumably have to be related to blackmail to count as related to the index offence. Prisoners have a lot of reason to want to keep their heads down but it's important that these things get challenged before they harden as practices - this sounds to me like a step towards introducing the American 'security threat group' system where entire swathes of political prisoners are banned from all kinds of political contact and kept on lockdown (which is clearly about making repression as harsh as possible).
screw screwfuckers