How can one live freely in the shadow of a prison?
There are moments, like today in Syria, when we can only rejoice. See the statues of Bashar and his relatives looted, the crowds in the streets, the open prison doors. These moments that remind us that all regimes, including the most authoritarian ones, can fall.
If there is a constant in the revolutions, it is that of freeing prisoners. Symbol of power, of who can decide the freedom of its subjects, prison is one of the nodes on which rests submission to the State and acceptance of social norms.
One of the worst prisons in the world, Sednaya, has apparently been completely emptied of its prisoners, allowing people to see their relatives whom they had not heard from for many years or even meet them for the first time. But let’s not be mistaken, while the «rebels» are emptying the prisons of the fallen regime, those under their control are already filled with opponents.
Revolutionaries have already fallen in the trap of supporting pro-State organisations, by third-worldism, against imperialism, seduced by kurdish communalism or the romanticism of the guerrilla. Unfortunately it is more a religious alliance, wishing to give direction to “the will of the people” than the insurgents in Syria who managed to overthrow the regime. Such structures using military practices will never be desirable. We want to carry an anti-authoritarian and without borders solidarity with the revolted in Syria, because our hopes in the Syrian revolution go beyond the perpetuation of a society held by arms, subjected to a celestial power as earthly, which requires prisons to exist.
While we welcome the liberation of syrians from the shackles of Assad’s clan, we can only hope that what was in seed during the 2011 insurrections can go even further, towards a self-organisation of all spheres of daily life, attack and the total questioning of power and property.
Here as there, so much remains to be destroyed. Prisons, Religions, States.
Happiness to the reunion of the freed, force to the ones locked up all over the world!
Anarchists, confident as wary,
France, December 9th 2024
Join us on Sunday, December 8th at 6:30pm at Wooden Shoe Books for the next session of our letter-writing series illuminating facets of resistance movements for a free Palestine. This month, we’ll be writing to the Merrimack Four, a group of young women currently serving a 60-day sentence for a direct action that temporarily halted operations at an Elbit Systems facility in Merrimack NH. Elbit is Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, targeted with direct action for several years now by Palestine Action . We’ll also sign cards for political prisoners with birthdays in December: Fred “Muhammad” Burton (December 15th) and Casey Brezik (December 30th).
On November 20 2023, activists working under the banner of Palestine Action US blocked the driveway to Merrimack NH’s Elbit Systems facility, spraypainted the front of the building, smashed its windows, locked its front doors with bicycle locks, doused its logo with fake blood, scaled its roofed, smashed its skylights and HVAC equipment, and released smoke flares in green, white, and red: Palestine’s national colors. Prosecutors originally charged the arrested activists with five trumped up felonies that could have amounted to sentences of 37 years. Unsurprisingly, none of these felony charges held up in court, and the Merrimack Four were eventually sentenced to 60 days in jail and a 24-month suspended sentence.
Elbit Systems develops and builds the infrastructure of apartheid and genocide in Palestine, including military electronics, training simulators, surveillance systems, drones, and security systems. It then markets this “field-tested” equipment to repress people all over the world. Calculating the scale of suffering caused by these systems in Palestine is difficult due to Israel’s blockade of journalists, but researchers estimate that in the first year of the genocide (October 2023-October 2024), 53,887 people were directly murdered by Israeli munitions, and another 67,413 died of starvation caused by Israeli destruction of civilian infrastructure and blockade of food aid. In May, Elbit CEO Bezhalel Machlis told Reuters that the company’s sales goal of $7 billion by 2026 would be reached “much earlier” because of intensified demand.
Snacks and letter-writing supplies will be provided. We’ll tune in to a related podcast while we’re writing. If you are unable to join us, you can write to the Merrimack Four at:
Include a name and return address on both the envelope and the letter because the envelopes will not be given to them. For general prisoner letter-writing suggestions, see this how to.
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]In this column, we present our monthly roundup of political prisoner, prison rebel, and repression news, happenings, announcements, action and analysis. Packed in as always are updates, fundraisers, and birthdays.
There’s a lot happening, so let’s dive right in!
Repression Continues Against the Palestine Solidarity Movement
According to The New York Times, just last semester more than 3,100 people were arrested on 73 campuses across the U.S. While the state attempts to frame the Palestine solidarity movement as violent (despite evidence to the contrary), the real violence has emerged from law enforcement and the far-Right. Harkening back to the police-facilitated far-Right street violence against antifascists several years ago, there has also been violence by Zionists, most notably at UCLA, where a far-Right mob attacked the Gaza solidarity encampment for hours as police watched. And the state and its allies in the universities have only ramped up for more repression this fall.
Whether it be through the purchase of drones and less-lethal weaponry, the creation of new policies designed to stifle student expression, firing tenured professors, or deeming Zionists a “protected class,” the overall pattern, as summarized by Palestine Legal, is that “these policies have ultimately consolidated administrative and state power while undermining freedom of expression, the right to assembly and protest, academic freedom, and safety for students and faculty on campuses across the country.” As this article was being put together, pro-Palestine organizers in Philadelphia at Penn State had their home raided by armed police who made no arrests. This follows the university banning Penn Students Against the Occupation back in April. Combined with statements from Donald Trump that he’ll deport radicals and protesting students, or attention seekers like Republican Senator Tom Cotton calling for protesters to be thrown off bridges, there is a perfect storm of hate, fear, ignorance, repression, fascism, and genocide.
This moment has also seen the ongoing weaponization of anti-Semitism. Rather than deal with the very real threat and severity of anti-Semitism in the United States, what can be seen is a continuation of Trump-era policies, where as president he embraced the anti-Semitic far-Right while deploying his administration, notably under the tenure of Department of Education Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kenneth Marcus, to crack down on speech critical of Israel in the name of fighting anti-Semitism. Recently, the Heritage Foundation, author of Project 2025, released “Project Esther,” which calls for the government to go after anti-Zionists in the name of combating anti-Semitism. The report claims groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine form an elaborate “Hamas Support Network” and should be targeted using counter-terrorism, immigration, and RICO laws. On Palestine, the state, the university “liberal elite,” and the reactionary far-Right all speak in one voice: Question the genocidal settler-colonial status quo, and we’ll come for you.
Join us on Monday October 28th at 6:30pm at Wooden Shoe Books for the next session of our letter-writing series illuminating facets of Palestinian resistance movements. This month we’ll be discussing and writing to one of the pre-Oslo Palestinian political prisoners. There are approximately a dozen men, most of whom are serving life sentences for resisting the occupation forces, who have been imprisoned since before the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. These men have been intentionally excluded by occupation forces from release deals. Many of them remain active from behind bars through writing essays and founding the Palestinian Prisoners Society.
Snacks and letter-writing supplies will be provided. We’ll tune in to some related podcasts while we’re writing. If you are unable to join us, you can write to Palestinian prisoners via Samidoun’s website.
Marwan Hasib Ibrahim Barghouti was born in the West Bank village of Kobar in 1962. He is a prominent and popular political figure associated with Fatah, currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison. He is a member of the Fatah Central Committee, and of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Often described by Palestinians as the ‘Palestinian Mandela.’
In the run-up to the First Intifada, Barghouti was a student leader at Bir Zeit University involved in popular protests. He was deported by Israel to Jordan in May 1987 and was only allowed to return to the West Bank in 1993 as part of the Oslo Accords. The following year, in 1994, he became secretary-general of Fatah in the West Bank. During the Second Intifada, he allegedly directed military attacks against Israeli targets. Israel accuses him of having established the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (AMB) at the time.
Barghouti was arrested and sentenced by an Israeli military court in 2002 to five consecutive life sentences for orchestrating attacks on Israelis. Since his imprisonment, Barghouti has been active in the prisoners’ movement and has published various articles from prison to communicate with the outside world. While in prison, he helped draft the 2006 National Conciliation Document of the Prisoners — which he co-signed with Abdulkhaleq al-Natsheh (Hamas), Bassam Sa’adi (PIJ), Abdel Rahim Mallouh (PFLP), and Mustafa Badarneh (DFLP). In 2017, he led a large-scale hunger strike to demand improved rights and conditions for prisoners.
The campaign for Barghouti’s release was launched in 2013 from Nelson Mandela’s cell on Robben Island, in South Africa, where many leaders of the anti-apartheid struggle were imprisoned. Signing the Robben Island declaration calling for Barghouti’s release were eight Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu, himself a veteran of the South African campaign.
Update on anarchist prisoner Hybachi LeMar. For more information, check out Free Hybachi LeMar.
We are sad to announce that, although Hybachi LeMar was scheduled to be released on parole from IDOC Jacksonville Correctional Center on October 4, 2024, he was instead picked up by Pennsylvania authorities on a warrant for an alleged parole violation. He was transported overnight from Illinois to Pennsylvania and is now incarcerated at SCI Smithfield.
Update Message from Hybachi LeMar:
Solidarity Greetings.
The following are the events surrounding my October 2024 transfer from Jacksonville, Illinois.
On October 4th, I was exported by U.S. Security Transportation Services van from Jacksonville Correctional Center, first to Connersville, Indiana, where I slept in a hallway of its county jail overnight, en route to Pennsylvania. I arrived the next evening at SCI Smithfield.
And while the other two passengers who were picked up from different parts of the country were given their customary browns, clothing exchange, I was put in a cell in order to place all the clothes I had on into a box. No socks. No shirt. No underwear.
I was handed a smock—a thick, blue, velcro, padded observation garment with no sleeves, too hot to wear, ostensibly under the pretext that the nerve medication prescribed at the previous institution had to be taken and re-prescribed. And with me having to be monitored in such a way in case I would undergo any detox symptoms.
Doing jumping jacks; recalling knowledge I memorized from an almanac that Midwest Books to Prisoners mailed me in Cook County Jail; and planning what to do to assist uplifting communities once I’m released, were resourceful in centering my mind and keeping it balanced on a solid foundation of constructive thoughts, the two days I spent in that particular cell.
Due to my history of clairvoyance and clairaudience, which has been misnomered as schizophrenia, I was moved upstairs on the psychiatric wing for “closer observation” to see how I do.
In spite of it all, I remain cool and collected, and hope you are too.
Before closing this message, it’s important to always remember, whether you find yourself alone in your room, or naked inside of a cell: as we drift 67,000 miles per hour around the sun, no one can take away the fact that you can center your mind on a thought along the way.
The thought you choose is yours to make, yours to keep, one to be appreciated with genuine understanding. And it’s a gift, a primordial power that no one can take away.
Sending you solidarity, love, and strength.
Sincerely Yours,
Hybachi LeMar
You can continue to write Hybachi using this form or by sending a single sided letter to this forwarding address:
Hybachi LeMar c/o Midwest Books to Prisoners 1321 N Milwaukee Avenue PMB 460 Chicago, IL 60622
“A call to action .. a modern-day George Jackson, with all the pain, anger, determination and soaring prose, but with the loving care of a genuine anarchist.” – Anthony Rayson
“Forged from the front lines of the struggle, “The Ghetto-bred Anarchist” is an incendiary underground classic that burns bright with revolutionary wisdom. Hybachi’s hard-fought reflections and strategies show how we can liberate ourselves from within the cracks of capitalism.”
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]In this column, we present our monthly roundup of political prisoner, prison rebel, and repression news, happenings, announcements, action and analysis. Packed in as always are updates, fundraisers, and birthdays.
Join us for a night of revolutionary education and communication as we learn about, and reach out to, some of the 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners held in Zionist dungeons. We’ll talk about conditions in the prison, prisoner organization and resistance and what we can do to get their voices outside of the prison walls. Organized by Philly WAWOG and Samidoun.
Laura Martin is a labor historian and a member of Philly WAWOG and the Bay Area Anti-Repression Committee, a bail fund and political education collective.
Abu Ali is a coordinator with the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity network, an international organization that supports and uplifts Palestinian political prisoners
Thursday, October 10, 2024
6:00 PM 7:30 PM
Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center210 South 45th StreetPhiladelphia, PA, 19104United States
Philadelphia, PA — The unionized workforce that handles concessions at the South Philadelphia Sports Complex started to strike on Monday, September 23. Hundreds of Aramark stadium workers that bargain with the UNITE HERE Philly Local 274 union are demanding new contracts.
Unicorn Riot was told that Aramark, which is headquartered in Center City Philadelphia with a market capitalization value of $9.8 billion, has tried to prevent the unionized workers from qualifying for healthcare plans by dividing their hours between the three stadiums – Citizens Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field and the Wells Fargo Center. (In a statement to NBC10 Aramark claimed it has now offered to count all stadium hours towards health coverage in a new contract.)
“Our contracts have all expired in all three buildings so we’re trying to consolidate the work. So, three different buildings doing the same job, you get different pay rates now. We want it to be the same pay rate. So if you’re a cook, a cook, a cook [at those locations] you get the same pay. It’s not like that. We want the hours to count from all three buildings to qualify people for health care. Right now they keep the hours separate.”
Kathy Hazel, Aramark concessions worker at Wells Fargo Center for 24+ years
“We might have worked all three buildings in a week, we still get one check from Aramark. But we get three different wages, that’s the issue here. […] They don’t want to agree to benefits like PTO. I understand it’s a ‘part time’ in one building, but when you’re in all three buildings you’re working like full time, you’re getting full time hours… but they’re still trying to treat us as if we are part time.”
Tarell ‘Doe’ Martin, Aramark concessions worker
On Sept. 24, outside a Phillies baseball game, union members called on fans to avoid purchasing food, drink and clothing inside the stadium, to pressure the company to negotiate a better deal. Aramark touts that “total income inclusive of wages and tips for this group of employees have risen 61% over the past five years,” while we heard from the workers that this is disingenuous because the tips have come from the public, not their employer. For an hourly cost of living increase, Aramark offered fifty cents a year, then another ten cents on top of that a year,
Many of the Aramark workers are not tipped at all, so they want to improve their base pay and benefits. “I noticed that they did not thank the Philadelphia fans for helping pay the salaries of their workers,” said picketing union member Kathy Hazel. “They don’t get any credit for any money I get from tips. […] There’s a lot of workers that are not tipped workers. And we’re here to support them, so that the hourly workers get an increase. They’re not getting tips, and we stick together.”
Down the street, independent vendors offered pretzels with notes on their carts saying that Aramark was on strike. Anthony Oliver with the striking Aramark workers pointed out that once again the ‘Counter Terrorism’ unit of the Philadelphia Police has turned up at Aramark labor protests. Forty-five Aramark workers were arrested in June by a force that included the same type of police we saw outside the recent presidential debate with ‘Counter Terrorism’ markings. Outside a Biden fundraiser last December, one officer on that team told Unicorn Riot that they are always deployed to protests but declined to name the specific policy which enables this.
UNITE HERE Philly Local 274 represents about 4000 private sector hotel and food service workers throughout the Philadelphia region, according to their website.
Aramark Notorious in Prison Food World
Prison labor is “remarkably common within the food system,” according to the Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center, and Aramark is at the heart of this game: it is notorious for its role in the food side of the prison-industrial complex. Its subsidiary Aramark Correctional Services provides services to hundreds of U.S. prisons and jails, privatized Immigration and Customs Enforcement jails operated by CoreCivic, along with contracts in at least 35 states, according to an investigation by American Friends Service Committee. It has long been notorious for substandard, contaminated and undercooked food.
This isn’t the only major political issue with the stadiums and sports construction in the city. The 76ers professional basketball team is seeking to move away from the Sports Complex and into Center City in 2031, by demolishing part of the Fashion District mall and building a $1.55 billion new sports arena site called “76Place” which is said to include 395 residential units.
Earlier this month, we heard from local activists trying to “ban artificial turf installation on city property including parks and recreation centers,” specifically in a huge set of proposed soccer fields at the large FDR Park which is directly west of the Sports Complex. (The FDR Park construction project has attracted opposition and protests since 2022.)
from Anarchist Black Cross Federation[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]What follows are recaps from many of the runs that took place on September 15, 2024. This was the 25th anniversary of Running Down the Walls. Since 1999, prisoners and supporters throughout North America have participated in this annual event, often running or walking simultaneously in many cities and prisons at once. As reportbacks come in, they will be posted here. Read more about Running Down the Walls and the ABCF Warchest.
Philly ABC held 2024 RDTW on Sunday, September 15th in solidarity with Palestinians resisting genocide. Philly ABC’s RDTW cleared 400 participants: 2 from inside prison and 398 outside plus multiple dogs and a kitten. People rolled in wheelchairs, bikes, and roller skates aswell as participating on foot. A Samidoun member joined us to speak about their important work supporting political prisoners in Palestine.
In addition to our very popular main shirt design by Sugarbombing, wemade two limited edition shirts in solidarity with Gaza and commemorating 25 years of RDTW. We are selling the last of the stock on our website at phillyabc.org/merch/, with the proceeds going towardsthe ABCF Warchest/Gaza mutual aid split.
Due to ongoing shirt sales, our total funds raised is still growing. Wealso are working with two matching donors to maximize the impact, which should help us clear over $40,000 in total. We will post the full reportback with details to phillyabc.org in November.
West Philadelphia, PA – Over 100 people came out early Sunday afternoon for a banquet celebrating political prisoners and their loved ones and other supporters.
The 8th annual ‘Prisoners’ Families Brunch’ was held at the OneArt Community Center on 52nd Street, with this year’s event honoring the late Russell Maroon Shoatz (whose autobiography ‘I Am Maroon’ was just released) and Anthony ‘Ant’ Smith, a Philly community organizer and teacher who recently got out of prison after being locked up on federal charges stemming from George Floyd protests in Philadelphia in 2020. Speeches included a few readings from the book and remarks from people Shoatz inspired over the years including other former prisoners incarcerated alongside him.
Organizations endorsing the event included The Care Space Project, Philly Anarchist Black Cross, The Abolitionist Law Center, Ubuntu Freedom, Building Fearless Futures, Landing Freedom and Black Lives Matter Philly.
Watch Unicorn Riot’s full coverage of the event below:
On October 30, 2020 Unicorn Riot streamed a press conference after Smith was arrested by federal authorities for events during the 2020 uprising:
An annual 5K run/walk/roll benefit organized called “Running Down the Walls” aims to amplify the voices of political prisoners and provide support – different “Running Down the Walls” are organized by chapters of the Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) network are held yearly both inside and outside prisons. Over 300 people attended this year’s event in Philadelphia, the largest local turnout yet, according to Philly ABC (phillyabc.org).
Join us on Monday September 30th at 6:30pm Wooden Shoe Books as we send letters to Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a Lebanese militant for Palestinianian liberation and the single longest-held prisoner in Europe. We’ll also send cards to prisoners with birthdays in October: Jamil Al-Amin (October 4th), Malik El-Amin (October 8th), and Toby Shone (October 20).
Georges Abdallah’s case has built significant support in Lebanon and in France, and Palestinian prisoners have highlighted the importance of Abdallah’s case as part of the struggle of the Palestinian political prisoners for freedom and liberation. He has always refused to in any way capitulate or renounce his political vision and commitment to the Palestinian cause, to the people of Lebanon, and to international struggles for liberation. He remains a committed anti-Zionist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist. In part because of that very refusal, he remains today imprisoned in the French prison of Lannemezan.
Legal Case
He was sentenced to life imprisonment in France, accused of participating in actions in France targeting U.S. and Israeli interests during the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon. During his arrest and trial, one of his original lawyers was a spy against him, working for French intelligence. He has been eligible for release under parole since 1999, yet has been repeatedly denied. At times when his release to Lebanon has been approved by the French judiciary, the highest forces of the state, including then-Interior Minister Manuel Valls – with the clear involvement of the U.S. government, including the personal intervention of Hillary Clinton – have intervened to keep Georges locked up in French prison.
The imprisonment of Georges comes alongside the persecution and arrest of BDS activists in France for urging the boycott of Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian people, ongoing racist targeting of Arab and Muslim communities in France and the “state of emergency” being used to repress popular movements for justice, while the French state promotes itself as a supporter of “peace” in the region while acting directly in support of the Israeli occupation and Zionist colonization.
Life in Prison
Throughout his time in prison, Georges has remained politically active and, indeed, a leader, extending solidarity and full support to struggling prisoners and peoples’ movements around the world. He and fellow prisoners – Basque and Arab, among others – in Lannemezan prison returned their meals in solidarity with Palestinian hunger striker Bilal Kayed, and he has previously participated in hunger strikes in solidarity with Palestinian individual and collective strikes for justice and freedom. He recently expressed his solidarity with Toulouse BDS activists under attack and has constantly remained an active thinker on Arab, Palestinian and international liberation struggles.
If you can’t join us in person this month, you can still write to Georges at:
Mr. Georges Ibrahim Abdallah 2388/A221
CP de Lannemezan
204 rue des Saligues
BP 70166
65307 LANNEMEZAN
France
