Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Prisoner list for October 2010

Andy B | 17.10.2010 23:20 | Repression | Social Struggles | South Coast | World

Bristol ABC produces a monthly updated prisoner list that is made available so people are aware of anarchist and radical prisoners in the UK and internationally who welcome support, and can take approrpiate action to support them.

Our October 2010 list is attached as a pdf. You can also find it in pdf and open office formats here  http://bristolabc.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/october-2010-prisoner-list-and-letter-writing-night/

Brighton ABC also maintain a permanent list on their website at  http://www.brightonabc.org.uk/prisoners.html and another list well worth checking is the Earth Liberation Prisoner Support Network here  http://www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk/addresses.html. All lists welcome updates, corrections, and of course any additions.

At the London Anarchist Bookfair this coming Saturday, 23 October, Brighton & Bristol ABC groups are holding an open meeting titled 'What is the role of the Anarchist Black Cross?' It is from 1pm to 1.50pm in Room 325, 3rd floor of the Engineering building. Here's the text for the meeting:
'What is the role of the Anarchist Black Cross? Comrades are invited to consider what is the role of the ABC in the current UK context? What can be done to build a militant prisoner solidarity network? There will be brief introductions to the history of the ABC, and the changes to its role in the UK over the last 20 years. Then let the debate rage!'

A comrade from Brighton ABC has also had the following article published in Freedom newspaper, 9 October issue, on page 4. Have a read...

What is the role of the ABC?

The Anarchist Black Cross has been around for over a century now and, like many other organisations, it role has changed over time. It started as the Anarchist or Political Red Cross sometime between 1900-05 to provide aid to comrades in Tsarist Russia and grew from there, changing its name to avoid confusion with the International Red Cross in post-Revolutionary Russia. It continued to send aid to anarchist prisoners in Russia but became an increasingly intermittent presence on the international scene during the
1930s, often under different names, as donations became scarcer and the remaining anarchist in the Russian prison system were finally killed in the Stalinist Terror.

The ABC name was resurrected in the late '60s when Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer set up a group to provide support to anarchist in the prisons of Francoist Spain. From London, the ABC idea gradually spread across Europe and then the Atlantic, eventually forming an international network of often short-lived groups. Even before the end of the Franco regime, ABC groups had begun to widen their purview, supporting prisoners from the wider anarchist movement and other class struggle prisoners. And this involvement of ABC groups with other non-anarchist class struggle prisoners has often been criticised by some within the anarchist movement from our supposed role, but is in reality a natural development of our involvement in prisoner support in general.

Not every country is witness to a high level of active anarchist resistance against the State, the sort of thing that produces a steady stream of movement prisoners that demand our support. But, even where there are high numbers, those same prisoners inevitably develop ties with other class struggle prisoners by being involved in resistance against prison regimes alongside them. Unfortunately, many in the movement, often those with no experience of prison life, dismiss these prisoners as 'social prisoners', as though they are incapable of developing an active class-based political consciousness and are therefore not worthy of our support and solidarity.

It has been the experience of those rare long-term anarchist prisoners in this country, as well as those for example in the U.S. where there is a vast swathe of long-term non-anarchist prisoners, imprisoned for their political activities since the '60s or who have become involve in radical and class-struggle based resistance whilst inside, that one finds comrades in struggle where one can. And the dictates of mutual aid and solidarity require one's comrades outside prison to share those principles.

If we are to build an active anarchist presence in society, one of the first places we should be doing this is inside the prison walls. So if we cannot find it in our ideologically pure hearts to show some solidarity to those on the inside who continue to resist the State's frontline weapon against non-conformity and dissent, even if they have come to that non-conformity and dissent late in life and do not necessarily call themselves anarchists, then we are not really worthy of the mutual aid and solidarity that we expect our comrades to show us.

Andy B
- e-mail: bristol_abc@riseup.net
- Homepage: http://bristolabc.wordpress.com

Comments

Hide the following comment

Dean cain

19.10.2010 23:37

Dean's been out for a while!
old news, although he appretiated the support he got when he was inside.

mate of a mate


Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech