Squatter Take Camberwell Cop Shop (2.0) [Full Statement]

NFA Anti-Fascists

The Serious Annoyance has returned to occupy the empty Camberwell Police Station, Camberwell Church St SE5, as we continue in our fight to #killthebill and highlight the destructive role of the police. 

This week, the draconian PCSC Bill passed its third reading in the commons as the state continues to enforce the expansion of police powers that do nothing but increase the ruling class’s ability to repress us. We know the cops don’t protect us – their resources aren’t focused on catching so-called “criminals”, but on protecting the wealth and power of the capitalist class. We also know that no demand to defund the police is enough – the bastard Tories have already been defunding the police for years! As all these empty cop shops prove… Instead we must build a world which abolishes the police by organsing our own communities and making the cops completely unnecessary. 

We do not…

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People Set Fire to Police Station in Medellín in Response to Police Rape

Abolition Media Worldwide

A few days ago, during the anti-government protests in Medellin, Colombia a 15 year old girl was raped by the police. On July 2, groups of feminists set fire to the police station with Molotov cocktails.

This is not an isolated case, since the protests started, more than 2 months ago, 28 women have been raped.

The uprising in Colombia has hit its 67th consecutive day. Despite hundreds of people being killed and disappeared, and police shooting out the eyes of demonstrators, people have been returning to the streets, fighting back valiantly, burning police stations and attacking police.

Bow crane collapse one year on – June Harvey vigil, Thursday 8th July

Cautiously pessimistic

The Hazards Campaign, Construction Safety Campaign, and Families Against Corporate Killers are supporting a vigil in memory of June Harvey, who was killed by a crane crashing through her house one year ago.

For more information, see this article in the local press, the Hazards Campaign or Families Against Corporate Killers.

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World Report 2019: Breaking the Buzzword Fighting the “Gender Ideology” Myth

Love it or hate it, ‘gender identity’ is now at the front line of Class War, along with prisons, homelessness and mental health. In former times it was antisemitism, witch-hunting, slavery or land enclosure. We don’t always choose where we fight, only how hard.

-ed

Human Rights Watch

This month we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To mark the occasion, we have asked Human Rights Watch experts to reflect on some of the key human rights challenges in their area of specialty.

Like its buzzword brother “fake news,” “gender ideology” hasn’t taken long crossing borders into nationalist lexicons. The vacuous but dangerous term was adopted  by the Holy See decades ago to refer to a supposed gay and feminist-led movement to subvert traditional families and social values, a reaction against the rights of women and expanding protections for sexual and gender minorities.

Since then, it has developed into a catch-all phrase and short-hand for various anxieties about social change—a Hydra-like global conspiracy myth that, despite being mildly ridiculous and readily exposed, has significant traction.

In recent years, “gender ideology” has been used as a secular rallying cry against same-sex marriage in France, an alliance-building initiative between nationalists and religious conservatives in Poland, a boost to anti-Muslim groups in Austria, a popularity enhancer for Costa Rican presidential hopeful Fabricio Alvarado, and a mobilizing tool against the recent peace accord in Colombia.

Which is a lot. How can one concept have so many purposes?

In France, anti-gender activists tried

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Red and Black Telly roundup.

My son Ekim Can Polat’s heart could stop at any moment.

By e-mail:

I’m Songül Ilker. I’m a mother and I’m waiting every moment for the news of my child’s death. I can’t sleep at night. I can’t open the phones. Tears fill my eyes when my doorbell rings. My son, Ekim Can Polat, has been imprisoned since 2016.

I want to tell to you about how he was arrested, his court process, his exiles, the systematic physical and psychological tortures against him and his current situation. My son, Ekim Can, was a child who saw people’s troubles as his own troubles and was always worried about their troubles. He was never indifferent to what happened in his country. He was detained during the Gezi Park protests at the age of 15. He was held in the detention room for 3 days. In the same period, he was provoked and exposed by some media organizations as “Baby-Faced Terrorist”. Those who shot Berkin at the age of 14 made my son look like a terrorist when he was 15. In 2016, when my son was only 19 years old, he was arrested and he has been in prison ever since.

He was exiled continuously and is now in Denizli T Type Prison, which is his fourth place of exile. He had been exiled to Silivri, Bandırma and Akhisar prisons before that. During his trials, false witnesses were heard. As a result of the trials, the person who committed the crime was sentenced to 9 years, but was released on the same day. As a result of the trials, a predetermined court decision was read and my son was sentenced to 24 years.

So why is my son a prisoner?

The truck belonging to a private company burned down. Eyewitnesses describe the person who burned the truck as follows; He is 1.60-1.70cm tall and weighs around 65-70 kg. Fingerprints belonging to one person were detected in the crime scene investigation. Fingerprints described by eyewitnesses and detected in the crime scene investigation showed a person named M. Sezen.

On the day of the trial, Sezen’s father held a dialogue with the driver of the burning truck at the courthouse. This dialogue took place in the field of view of the security cameras, with a specific date and time, in no way hidden. Likewise, I witnessed this dialogue. The content of this dialogue is as follows. The driver of the burning truck said, “I had a hard time coming here, I spent a lot of money.”  Sezen’s father said, “I will cover all your expenses, I will give you money, but you should say in court that it was the tall man who burned the truck.”

In addition, on the day of the trial M. Sezen’s uncle came to me at the the courthouse and he threatened me the following. “Mustafa is engaged and will get married. He can’t stay in prison. Ekim has no one to support him. You are his only supporter. ”

The court’s decision was as follows; my son, Ekim Can Polat, was sentenced to 24 years in prison, despite the fact that Mustafa Sezen’s fingerprints were found on the gas can and eyewitnesses described him. He was released that evening.

Ekim was with his father, who was a construction worker, the night he was taken into custody. The police officers who searched the house took his father’s work materials (hammer, nails and gloves) as evidence. As a result of the investigations, only his father and the fingerprints of the police who took the materials were found on these tools. The court thought that this “evidence” could be used in a terrorist act.

My son has been in prison for 5 years for these ridiculous reasons. As if that wasn’t enough, he is systematically tortured physically and psychologically. In every prison his “right to treatment” and “use of medicine” was denied.

He was subjected to forced nude searches in every prison. They exiled him, saying he would be taken to the hospital. From the first day in Silivri Prison No. 5, his treatment was prevented and he was not transferred to the hospital. He was left alone in a cell in Bandırma T-type prison. They moved him to Akhisar Prison, where he was threatened  with death  and tortured. For these reasons, he started a hunger strike and during this action suffered a heart attack. Head guard Kazım Demirtaş threatened him saying, “If you don’t cooperate with us, we will kill you”.

Ekim Can is currently in prison for an incident that he has nothing to do with. This time, pressures began to form because he did not fulfill their wishes.

He was forcibly removed from the place where he was left, saying that it would be renovated. Then he was placed opposite a convict who had attacked him earlier. When they look, they can see each other. Judicial detainees, seeing what was done to Ekim, reacted by writing a petition to the administration, saying that this will not happen. The guard says, “Are we going to feed him, not put him to death?” They are doing what Yazid did. When he asks for water from the canteen, they say no, but they give it to other detainees.

Hear my voice, be my voice, don’t let my son die. Everyone is acting like three monkeys. There are dozens of sick prisoners like Ekim. You are our voice. They do everything to kill sick prisoners.

What I wrote offended them. I said ‘naked searching is torture’. The director of the prison said, ‘Your mother says so, but it’s not a crime, it’s in our rules’. Upon Ekim’s objections to these words, a guard threatened “we will bury you here, we will kill you”, and the prison director did not interfere.

At the time Ekim had a heart attack while on hunger strike, he was also diagnosed with a heart rhythm disorder, COPD, osteoporosis, and pituitary hormone imbalance. He is seriously ill and needs hospital treatment as soon as possible, but is not even given his medication. The last time we spoke, he said to me, “Your would be ashamed of your humanity if your saw the tortures here.”

They have been dealing with hospital referrals for months. He is subjected to physical violence when he is taken to the hospital. In February, at Denizli State Hospital the gendarmerie came to the doctor and gave information about Ekim’s case. After that, the doctor did not examine him. Treatment for Ekim never started. He was taken to hospital, subjected to violence there, and brought back to prison.

He wants to be treated, he wants the torture and violations of prison rights to end. They broke his belongings. Somehow, his money is running out even though his canteen needs are not given to him. The money I sent to him is not delivered to him on time and it is said that this money I sent is over.

They say to him, “if you don’t do what we say you will have trouble here”, “if you don’t want to have problems here, do what we say”

As of today (27.06.2021), my son is on the 19th day of his hunger strike and his heart can stop at any moment.

International Solidarity for the political prisoner Ekim Can Polat – Turkey

Songul Ilker : 0534 978 1315

Twitter : @ekim_songul

Mail : ekimcanpolataozgurluk@gmail.com

World Report 2021 Turkey: Human Rights Watch

U.S. State Department Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Turkey

Amnesty International Report Turkey 2020

CHILE: COMMUNICATION FROM ANARCHIST PRISONER MÓNICA CABALLERO

via: anarquia.info Translated by Act for freedom now!

In the last days of the first week of June, the Gendarmería de Chile (Genchi) carried out a massive transfer of prisoners from the Cárcel de Alta seguridad (CAS) to the prison of Rancagua, capital of the O’Higgins region, 87 kilometres south of Santiago.

The prisoners include the Anarchists and Subversives: Juan Aliste Vega, Marcelo Villarroel, Mauricio Hernández Norambuena, Juan Flores, Joaquín García and Francisco Solar.

The transfer of these prisoners was motivated by modifications in the infrastructure of the CAS, which will last approximately one year. Once the works are finished, the prisoners will be returned to the prison according to the information provided by GENCHI, meanwhile my comrades will be away from their affective and political environment. In this way, not only is the prisoner being punished, but also their friends, comrades and family members.

It is also important to emphasize that in the territory dominated by the Chilean State, free transit between regions is not allowed due to measures for the prevention of the spreading of Covid 19.

In the Metropolitan region there are at least three prisons to which they could have taken my comrades, perhaps the powerful took advantage of this transfer to isolate and further segregate the prisoners, perhaps none of the nearby prisons meets the security conditions to guard high-risk prisoners, or it could simply be just another form of revenge.

The transfer may be justified with this and other arguments. What is clear is that no movement of power is haphazard. Each change in the infrastructure of the prison, as well as the transfer of prisoners, must be carried out with caution and detail.

On the one hand, the possible changes they are making in the CAS, cannot bode well for the prisoners. I could make endless speculations on possible new control measures and I would probably be coming up short.

To foresee what could change in the CAS, it must be taken into account that this prison is not and was not conceived like any other, the CAS is the prison of Democracy. This was devised using the German and Irish model in the fight against revolutionary organizations.

In the year 94 ‘it was inaugurated as an unprecedented and good prison complex in which it was tried to implement a strict internal regime that contemplated visits through call centres, one hour in the courtyard, among others.

In addition, the prison is practically imperceptible from the outside, so achieves greater isolation and invisibility.

From another perspective it is not clear under what prison conditions or regime the prisoners will be transferred.

La Cárcel de Rancagua is a concessioned prison, meaning that a large part of its operation depends on external companies, unlike the CAS, which depended almost entirely on State entities. This translates for example, among other things, that the prison food is brought in by an external company such as Sodexo, and does not meet even the most minimal nutritional conditions. In addition to this, in concession prisons the entry of parcels by friends and family is restricted in practically every kind of food, books, etc.

Currently all the transferred prisoners are being kept locked in their cells for 24 hours, to be continued for fourteen days due to possible contagion of Covid, a completely unjustified measure since they would not have contact with any other prisoner who is not from the same module, nor would they have contact with the rest of the prison population. Faced with this scenario of total isolation and a new prison regime, the prisoners have begun a liquid hunger strike, demanding an end to the conditions of total confinement and improvements in their quality of life.

Among the mobilized prisoners are the anarchist and subversive comrades whose health condition could become more complex, as it is just over a month since they ended a fifty-day hunger strike.

With these words I make a call to all anti-prison, antagonistic, anti-authoritarian individuals and groups to be aware of the situation of the anarchist and subversive comrades transferred to Rancagua prison, our prisoner comrades can never feel alone.

Hand outstretched to the comrades
Closed fist to the enemy
Active combative solidarity

Mónica Caballero Sepúlveda, Anarchist prisoner
First days of June of 2021

THE STRUGGLE FOR PALESTINE

Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group

This article first appeared in The Anvil, Vol 10 No 3, published 30 June 2021.

The dust has settled on the latest Israeli attack on Gaza, but the fundamental position remains.    Israel continues its slow process of ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem and on the West Bank, while failing to demolish the military capacity of Hamas in Gaza.  And yet, the situation is not stable.

Protests in Jerusalem and on the West Bank exploded on 6 May, when Israeli authorities moved to enforce evictions of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem.  Israeli law allows Jews who fled during the war over the establishment of Israel to reclaim their property, but prevents Palestinians from doing the same.  The double standard in Israeli law is deliberate.  It’s what being a “Jewish State” is all about.

The #SaveSheikhJarrah protests started in Jerusalem, but then swept the West Bank and into…

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