On the morning of January 10, about twenty members of the assembly of solidarity with the case of Revolutionary Struggle (Epanastatikos Agonas, whose trial is currently underway), joined the corporation flash.gr radio station in the Kifisias Avenue and stopped the program from the station to transmit a message of solidarity with the accused.
Although neither the direction of the station or its staff formally requested the intervention of the police, dozens of them (DIAS motorcycle units, such as MAT squads, plainclothes police officers, among others) soon arrived at the scene and surrounded the building. At about 14.00 hours, after hours of being locked in the offices of the radio, the anarchists who participated in the intervention of solidarity were arrested en masse and taken to police headquarters on Alexandras Avenue: two prosecutors , along with squads of police, stormed the radio station, forcing the partners to leave the premises, all were handcuffed and held in police buses, while their mobile phones were confiscated.
As soon as the news spread, anarchists gathered outside the police headquarters (GADA), where a solidarity protest of about 100 people was conducted.
Here is part of a text published by the same 20 detainees’ s:
Today, January 10, 2012, the companions of esapcio anarchist / anti-authoritarian we conducted an intervention in the company’s FM radio station Flash 96 in the context of a series of solidarity actions in the case of Revolutionary Struggle, trial was conducted from October 5, 2011, in the special court Koridallos prison.
We have taken this action in an effort to break the wall of silence and the political order of muzzling the judicial and political discourse of the defendants in the case of Revolutionary Struggle.
It appears that all comrades l @ s @ s s are accused of a misdemeanor of “inciting violence”. ‘S are now threatened to be arrested and should be tomorrow at the hearing, 11 / 1, in the courts Evelpidon in Athens, around the 12:00 BHRS. We call for unconditional absolution!
End the persecution s @ s comrades who participated in Flash 96 FM!
Freedom now to everyone!
Solidarity with the three members of the revolutionary struggle, Nikos Maziotis, Pola roupa, Kostas Gournas, otr l @ s @ s @ s Plead in the same case, Vaggelis Stathopoulos, Nikitopoulos Sarantos, Christoforos Kortesis, Beraha Katsenos Marie and Kostas. We demand the immediate release of K. Katsenos hostage remains in custody.
new graphic to go with ch 32 ‘Smash the Prison Gates’ from the novel The Free..(available as a free download here https://thefreeonline.wordpress.com )
denverabc We hope these words find our comrades around the world in the best of health and spirit, during this time of massive social upheavel and revolt. The world has definitely seen a spread of anarchist influenced and revolutionary praxis throughout the last half of 2012, and we’ve definitely been feeling the massive change in current here in Denver.2011 saw the busiest time yet for our collective, as we worked to support social movements active in Denver, and across the world.
GENERAL/INTERNAL:
The most recent formation of the Denver Anarchist Black Cross has now been active in the Denver metro area for 2 1/2 years. During that time our collective has seen a lot of ebb and flow with our membership and our work. However, the last 6 months of 2011 saw our collective solidify to a consistent membership base. At the close of 2011, we had 11 dues paying members, with three more people expected to complete their membership process sometime in January 2012……..
LONG TERM POLITICAL PRISONER/POW SUPPORT:
One of the mainstays of Anarchist Black Cross work will always be support for long-term imprisoned comrades, classified as political prisoners and prisoners of war. Denver ABC has continued our dedication to supporting our kidnapped warriors through a variety of ways.
Since our inception, Denver ABC has worked to maintain a comprehensive listing of political prisoners and social movement prisoners held captive within the U.S. An electronic version of our listing is continuously updated and available at our blog at denverabc.wordpress.com. An 11th edition of a print version of that listing was made available in November, with a new edition to be made available sometime in January 2012…….
For the second year, Denver ABC maintained a $30 a month stipend for long held Black Liberation prisoner, Mutulu Shakur.support website: http://mutulushakur.com
In July, DABC held our 3rd annual Running Down the Walls 5k benefit for U.S. held political prisoners. The run was held in solidarity with the chapters of the Anarchist Black Cross Federation and other ABC chapters across North America. This year’s run was the most successful by far. 40 participants helped us raise over $1,100. $800 was sent to MOVE prisoner Michael Davis Africa. More information: http://denverabc.wordpress.com/political-prisoners-database/michael-davis-africa/ Our efforts at supporting individual political prisoners also included sending $300 each to the last two members of the United Freedom Front held captive within the United States, Tom Manning and Jaan Laaman. More information on Tom, Jaan, and the United Freedom Front can be found here: http://denverabc.wordpress.com/political-prisoners-database/jaan-karl-laaman/
Our work to support our long held comrades has included a myriad of other programs and initiatives, including participating in a night of action for long term anarchist prisoners which took place on June 11th. DABC members helped plant dozens of flowers throughout Northwest Denver, accompanied by vibrant full color posters explaining the cases of two comrades, Eric McDavid and Marie Mason………
FORMER POLITICAL PRISONER SUPPORT:
The struggle a political prisoner faces does not end once they are released from prison, no matter how long they have been outside of the prison gates. It is with this contention in mind that DABC also believes it is important to support our previously imprisoned comrades. They have lost years of their lives to our social movements, and they deserve our continued support……..
PRISON ABOLITION/MIGRANT DEFENSE:
Throughout 2011, Denver ABC continued our commitment to supporting local movements resisting mass imprisonment throughout Colorado. Our work focused on two fronts: the Colorado state prison system and the ICE detention system.
Our work within the Colorado state prison has been multi-pronged. We still maintain a free literature program for prisoners; sending radical, revolutionary, and anarchist titles into prisons across Colorado. 2011 finally saw the release of a new catalog of titles, as well as the solidification of the project, which had stalled last year for various reasons.
DABC held several solidarity rallies with women prisoners actively struggling against violence and sexual assault at the hands of guards at the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility in northeast Denver.
Twice in the spring, a group of 20-30 people held banners proclaiming solidarity with the women struggling inside. The reactions from the women inside were supportive and excited, as women banged on the windows of prison cells and raised fists in solidarity. Our efforts to create a solid working relationship with these women has stalled out, after some correspondence with women who got our address off of a large banner held outside the prison, encouraging them to write us. We hope to work more on this in 2012 and correct our mistakes.
Our solidarity with prisoner struggles was not just limited to the geographic confines of Colorado. During both rounds of hunger strikes that spread across the California prison system, Denver ABC took a role in organizing local solidarity. In July, we helped organize local movement members to call and write the prison system, and to write and develop relationships with the prisoners active within the hunger strike. In October, we organized a march and rally, where we handed out hundreds of fliers with information about the strike. We continued our phone call and letter writing campaigns, and also held a teach-in and strategy session where we were able to get Bo Brown, a former member of the George Jackson Brigade and a member of the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike Support Committee, to video chat with the participants about the strike and the efforts to offer support.
Our work supporting the efforts of local migrant and Chican@ liberation movements was not as active as it was last year, but still took up a considerable amount of our organizing efforts, particularly in early 2011….DABC maintained our presence at monthly vigils against the ICE Detention Center in nearby Aurora. …..For the second year, DABC has maintained our involvement with Colorado AID (Abolish Inhumane Detention)…..
LEGAL SUPPORT:
DABC has been providing legal support to local social movements since our inception. 2011, however, pushed this work to a whole new level, as we worked to support participants in the local anti-police movement, including an attempted murder case.
the case of Amelia Nicol
The most serious case we have ever offered our support for was the case of Amelia Nicol, a woman arrested during the “March Against Police Terror” that took place in May. Amelia was accused of throwing a molotov cocktail (or a bomb, depending on which capitalist media source you choose to read) at police officers. She was charged with two counts of attempted murder of a police officer, arson, use of explosives, possessing explosives, and a host of other felonies and misdemeanors. In all, Amelia faced over 100 years in prison for these charges. Denver ABC took the initiative to offer the support necessary to win this court case. Our support took on a myriad of roles; starting with providing correspondence, speaking to Amelia on the phone everyday, and working to develop a pressure campaign against the District Attorney. DABC organized a letter and phone call campaign, where hundreds of postcards, letters, faxes, and emails were sent to the District Attorney from all over the world, demanding that the charges against Amelia be dropped. We organized a press conference outside the DA’s office, and a half dozen supporters went inside to drop off hundreds more postcards directly to the DA. This was the first time DABC had organized anything like this. Video of the press conference can be found here:http://denverabc.wordpress.com/2011/06/09/amelia-nicol-press-conference-rally-and-da-confrontation-6911/
On June 9, after being imprisoned for over a month, Amelia had her most serious charges dropped in court. She was bonded out by DABC members on June 13, facing one felony count for possession of explosives, and 3 misdemeanor charges for assault and resisting arrest. DABC provided Amelia with a place to live, a job, clothing, and other physical resources that she needed upon release. By September, the remainder of Amelia’s charges were dropped in court. Amelia went from facing over 100 years in jail to being completely free and clear in a matter of months. This was the first time DABC has ever performed a support role of this magnitude and with these dire of consequences. It was
version of graphic titled ‘Re-Creating’ used for Act 2 of the novel ‘The Free’ ( available as a free download here https://thefreeonline.wordpress.com )
definitely a learning experience, and one that will continue to inform our legal support work. It also was a major victory for our collective and for local revolutionary movements.
OCCUPY DENVER:
A lot can be said about our participation in Occupy Denver. The comments, history, analysis, and insights we have gained could fill an entire periodical at this point. However, we’ll just offer a brief overview of our involvement. Denver ABC was present from the first General Assembly ever held at Occupy Denver. In fact, members of our organization facilitated the first five general assemblies. We were also a part of helping to adopt guidelines that would ensure an acceptance of a diversity of tactics, embodied by the St. Paul’s Principles, four guiding points drafted and adopted by organizers of a diverse array of political and tactical persuasions during the 2008 protests against the Republican National Convention in Minnesota…..much more……
The Denver ABC Mutual Aid Fund provides emergency financial relief to social movement members in dire economic need. Since its inception, the fund has provided thousands of dollars to local movement members………The Denver Armed Resistance Committee is a working group of Denver ABC that works on providing tactical and self defense skills and resources to members of local social movements…
CHILD AND FAMILY SUPPORT:
DABC continued our work to build a multi-generational movement and support parents and families throughout 2011. In the early part of the year, DABC members helped construct a new room at the 27 Social Centre that would act as a childcare room and a base for our Nurturing Liberation program. . DABC also provided childcare at several events for outside organizations.
NORTH AMERICAN ANARCHIST BLACK CROSS CONFERENCE:
In August, Denver ABC hosted a conference for North American Anarchist Black Cross chapters and other anarchist based prisoner support formations. Around fifty participants representing at least 14 different organizations and defense committees active in the United States and Canada participated in the weekend long conference……….
P&L PRINTING/27 SOCIAL CENTRE:Members of Denver ABC have been running a collectively owned commercial print shop for nearly 3 years. P&L Printing is a union, worker owned shop, affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World, and the Communications Workers of America Local 7777………..
OTHER SUPPORT/ANTI-REPRESSION WORK:In April, DABC organized to support one of our members and close comrades, Stefan Martinez, in response to mounting FBI pressure against him. Stefan had been contacted and harassed by the FBI for years, demanding information on Earth and Animal Liberation activities and groups, and other radicals. Stefan always refused to answer their questions or to talk to them, and after months of harassment, they stopped contacting him……..
SUPPORTING DENVER ABC:In 2011, the workload of Denver ABC increased exponentially from the previous year. We were able to support dozens of legal cases, provide thousands of dollars worth of financial support to movement members inside and outside of prison, and ensure that many people would no longer sit in jail cells, and would not spend their lives inside of them. We’ve only been able to accomplish what we have because of financial and physical support and solidarity from hundreds of supporters in Denver and across the world………….
-Donate to the DABC Mutual Aid Fund or our Prisoner Warchest! Just contact us to find out how to make a donation!
Support your local ABC or other anti-authoritarian projects!
To inquire about purchasing posters, t-shirts, or making a donation, drop us a line at denverabc@rocketmail.com or visit http://plpress.bigcartel.com
In love and solidarity! Your comrades at Denver Anarchist Black Cross
The final logic of Capitalism is war. The excuse of a ‘nuclear program’ in Iran is as false as Saddam’s secret weapons. This time round more millions of innocents will die, to boost the profits of the US ‘War Economy’ Corporations who control the US Congress. This time round there is little protest, nobody believes they can be serious, but with the latest sanctions set to choke Iranian banks and the next to stop their vital oil exports, this war is becoming daily more certain. Now is the time for the US and UK public to stop a barbaric genocide.
Paul Joseph Watson..Iran’s newly announced “massive” naval drill, set to take place within the next few weeks near the Strait of Hormuz, will coincide with a major US/Israeli exercise in the same region, increasing the chances that a war provocation manufactured by either side could take place.
“The newly announced Iranian drills, codenamed The Great Prophet, may coincide with major naval exercises that Israel and the United States are planning to hold in the Persian Gulf in the near future,” reports RIA Novosti.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s naval commander, Adm. Ali Fadavi, told the Fars news agency last night that the upcoming exercise would be “different” from previous ones.
Iran’s announcement of yet more naval drills follows an escalation in rhetoric after the United States sent the massive battleship USS John C. Stennis
Corporate warcrimes: In Iraq they did not even keep count of civilian casualties.
The US/Israeli naval exercise, named Austere Challenge 12, is set to be the largest ever naval drill between the two powers and is based around “(improving) defense systems and cooperation between the U.S. and Israeli forces.”
The overlapping of the naval exercises amidst escalating tensions serves as a reminder that the Bush administration once debated staging a false flag wherein fake Iranian patrol boats would be used to attack a US ship as a means of creating a pretext for war.
In January 2008, the US government announced that it had been “moments” away from opening fire on a group of Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz after the boats allegedly broadcast a warning that they were about to attack a US vessel.
The January Strait of Hormuz incident taught Cheney and other administration insiders that, “If you get the right incident, the American public will support it”. Hersh said: “There were a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build, we in ‘our shipyard’, – build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our
''Who are the murderers? These are the murderers!''
boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up. Might cost some lives”.
Given the fact that the Obama administration’s foreign policy of pre-emptive warfare has mirrored that pursued by the Bush administration, the potential for a stage-managed provocation to create a pretext for an attack on Iran during the next round of naval wargames is clear.
Sat 7 January London Rally Trafalgar Square: Shut Guantánamo – End 10 Years of Shame
Saturday 7 January 2012: 2.0pm – 4.00pm Public Rally Trafalgar Square, London
January 2012 marks ten years of torture, abuse and arbitrary detention at Guantánamo Bay – one of the world’s most notorious symbols of injustice. The illegal US military prison has held more than 800 prisoners – most of them released without charge or trial. 171 prisoners remain, without prospect of release.
Over a dozen British nationals and residents have been illegally imprisoned at Guantánamo. Two remain: Shaker Aamer, a UK resident with a British family in south London, including a son he has never met; and Ahmed Belbacha, an Algerian national from Bournemouth. Both men were cleared for release in 2007.
President Obama promised to close Guantánamo but has not. Now prisoners may beheld indefinitely without evidence. The vast majority have never faced any charges.
Kidnapping and imprisoning people indefinitely without charge or trial, denying them their freedom and human rights,gratuitously denigrating and abusing them physically and mentally: Join the rally on 7 January 2011 to say all of this must end now.
An Occupy movement for 2012 could gain strength and staying-power with strategies suggested by an emerging feminist critique.
As women of the Arab Spring are rediscovering, being participants, even leaders, of the uprisings hasn’t led to women’s equality—a depressingly familiar scenario, notoriously reminiscent of the 1960s aftermath of the Algerian revolution. In fact, the phenomenon is historically omnipresent (including the American revolution).
Here in the Global North, for example, women were active early in the Occupy movement. Yet that movement has presented an optic of being predominantly male (and in the United States, white and young)—as well as indifferent to the fact that capitalism simply cannot be transformed without confronting its foundation: patriarchy, itself reliant on controlling and exploiting women. And women, by the way, comprise 51 percent of the 99 percent (and virtually zero of the 1 percent).
Who then is the real constituency in need of economic justice?
The United Nations acknowledges that the world’s poor are 70 percent female. Women’s unpaid labor is worth $11 trillion globally, accounting for 41 percent of the GDP in, for instance, North America. It could well be argued that, given women’s massive amount of unpaid labor—and since women are the means of reproduction who produce the labor force itself—most women exist more under feudalism than under capitalism.
WAMMToday is now on Facebook! Check the WAMMToday page for posts from this blog and more! “Like” our page today.
Equal pay, reproductive rights, maternity leave, childcare—all are economic as well as human-rights issues. So are sweatshop labor/maquilliadores, sex trafficking/slavery/tourism, and war’s impact on women, who with their children comprise some 80 percent of refugees and displaced peoples. Women are the primary caregivers for the ill, the young, the aged, and the dying—so health costs are “women’s issues.”The pornography and prostitution industries each run into the hundreds of billions of dollars annually; China spends $27 billion just on Internet pornography. We only have statistics for a few “developed” countries on the staggering cost of domestic violence. We do know that domestic violence costs $5.8 billion a year in the United States alone.
One would think that such “women’s issues” would make unarguable the centrality to economics of female human beings. Wrong. Too often, the Occupy movement has betrayed its own vision by revealing itself as a sexist microcosm of the society it opposes. Harassment and assaults required women to define safe sleeping areas—immediate necessities yet questionable strategically, since these can become “ghettos,” while the problem, a male sense of entitlement, goes unchallenged.
Nor does this happen only in the United States, although North American sites got more press attention. Incidents of sexual assault and rape have been reported not only in New York, Cleveland, Dallas, and Baltimore, but in Glasgow, Montreal, London, and more. In some locations, male site monitors were reluctant to call police for fear that negative attention would be deleterious
by Christy C. Road
to the Occupy “message.”
Brooklyn, Occupy Imnop, from Occuprint.org
Now, however, women are protesting that kind of protest. In Bristol, England, feminists called for “Carrying Our Safe Space With Us,” aiming to empower women to speak at Occupy general assemblies. On November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Feminists Occupy London took to the streets denouncing rape; that same day, Italian women marched in Rome, defining economic austerity measures as a form of violence against women, and citing policies that in effect force women to work multiple jobs, paid and unpaid. In Manila, Occupy was taken over by women, becoming Occupy RH (reproductive health), Filipina-led. Women in Slovenia, New Zealand, and Australia publicly decried the lack of safety for women at Occupy sites.
Such international groups as Code Pink, WomenOccupy, RadFem, the Filipina network Af3IRM/GabNet, and others raised women’s profile, thus challenging men’s hegemony. The Feminist Peace Network established the Occupy Patriarchy website, to provide a supportive, global space for feminist analysis, response, organizing, and networking within the global Occupy movement.
Having caught the world’s imagination with an admirable energy, seemingly spontaneous and seemingly grassroots, the Occupy movement is now poised at a crossroads. It has enormous potential—but lasting change will require consciousness that doesn’t ignore the majority of humanity. It needs to break free of being “a guy thing” or risk drowning in its own rhetorical generalities.It’s not as if certain models aren’t there. The women of England’s Greenham Common “occupied” turf decades before OWS—they endured, and won. Irish women barred doors to keep men from storming out of Northern Ireland peace talks. Women in Liberia sat singing for months in a soccer field to birth a revolution. Market women in Ghana brought down a government. Gandhi acknowledged copying the concept of Satyagraha— nonviolent resistance—from India’s 19th century women’s suffrage movement.
These are different—and long-lasting—techniques of protest, by which at first it seemed the Occupy movement was influenced. (At the risk of offending anarchists, I’ll paraphrase two of the Women’s Media Center slogans: “You have to name it to change it,” and “You have to see it to be it.” As a woman who once agreed “Level everything, then we’ll talk politics,” I recommend examples and clearly articulated demands as pretty good stuff.
It’s not too late. As the Occupy movement in many areas moves away from the tactic of claiming physical space, a change of protest style is in order: more hit-and-run, engage-disengage, morning-long, afternoon-long, or day-long (not open-ended) demonstrations—plus focused, doable demands.
Most women have far too many other responsibilities—including children—to spend months in tents playing drums, even if the tents were safe spaces. The Occupy movement needs women—the numbers, the economic analysis, the different strategic approach—to survive, let alone succeed. Yet women’s engagement with it might well require turning up in numbers massive enough to effect a de facto transformation of leadership and focus;:occupying Occupy in a “women’s style” could make all the difference.At the minimum, it should be possible to demand that men become the change they claim they want to see. (I mean,really, guys.) If Occupy men can dare be unafraid of that different kind of leadership—can even seek it out and welcome it—everyone wins and the paradigm is transformed.
If not, they will at least have radicalized a whole new generation of feminists.
Cardinal compares gay pride to KKK. Isn’t Catholic hierarchy more Klan-like?
When Catholic Cardinal Francis George of Chicago compared the city’s gay pride parade to a Ku Klux Klan rally intentionally disrupting church services, he obviously pissed off more than a few people. Some are demanding his resignation.
But what concerns me more than the comparison is that George fails to see the obvious similarities between Catholicism and the Klan. Indeed, the Catholic Church’s legacy is one of genocide and mass murder.
The church was instrumental in the violent colonization of Native Nations in the Americas. The church’s complicit silence and lack of political perspective aided the Nazi party. Indeed, the current pope was a Nazi.
The church’s ongoing denial of the value of condoms promotes the widespread death and sickness of people whose sexual proclivities fall outside of the narrow scope of what the church deems moral.
Ultimately, which is more disruptive—genocide in the Americas, tacitly supporting the holocaust, appointing a former Nazi as your leader and directly aiding the AIDS epidemic for nearly 20 years; or a bunch of singing gays, passing a church and by their presence, somehow disrupting the service?
The hypocrisy the Cardinal demonstrates, to compare a hate mongering group that wills genocide–not unlike the historical Catholic Church—with the LGBTQ community, a fundamentally oppressed group (indeed oppressed by the church itself), demonstrates the ongoing commitment Catholic leadership has to denying their roots, their privilege and the power they secured through mass murder.
Until the Catholic Church atones for its sins and quits committing political violence against oppressed communities, the biggest disruption to its spiritual practice comes from within the church hierarchy.
George’s careless comment pales in comparison to the horror of the church casting a former Nazi in the role of most infallible living person on earth. The institution is rotten.
Crédito: Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica
BUENOS AIRES, 27 dic (IPS) – Cobró impulso en Argentina una causa judicial sobre graves delitos cometidos durante la Guerra Civil Española y la posterior dictadura de Francisco Franco (1936-1975).
La jueza federal argentina María Servini de Cubría abrió este mes una investigación a raíz de la querella presentada en abril de 2010 por abogados humanitarios de Argentina en nombre de familiares de víctimas del régimen franquista……….
……..El objetivo no es cuestionar la vigencia de la ley de amnistía española, ratificada recientemente ante un intento de derogarla, sino ejercer la jurisdicción argentina respecto de crímenes “que ofenden y lesionan a la humanidad y que permanecen impunes”, remarcaron los abogados.
Organizaciones de derechos humanos estiman en 113.000 la cantidad de personas desaparecidas en la guerra civil y el régimen de Franco, muchas supuestamente enterradas en unas 2.500 fosas comunes. Pero habría además unos 30.000 casos de menores supuestamente sustraídos de sus familias y apropiados ilegalmente….. “En el caso de España, cuando presentamos la querella había al menos 13 militares vivos, y además están los casos de 30.000 personas que desconocen su verdadera identidad”, dijo el abogado.
“Queremos una investigación a fondo, que se determine la verdad y se establezcan las responsabilidades. Si no lo hace España, lo haremos acá. Ojalá que haya colaboración”, agregó. (FIN/2011)…
(Epanastatikos Agonas, whose trial is currently underway), joined the corporation flash.gr radio station in the Kifisias Avenue and stopped the program from the station to transmit a message of solidarity with the accused.
The Free 