News & Views No. 11 Diarmuid Breatnach (Reading time: 5 mins.) The Irish State is one of four of the European Union which are not also members of the US/NATO military organisation1 but the Irish national ruling class keeps up propaganda to get its citizens to accept the “need” for membership. The UK’s colony of […]
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG 67) Press TV | December 21, 2023 Bahraini authorities have ordered the seven-day detention of a leading opposition figure after he denounced the Al Khalifah regime’s participation in the US-led coalition against Yemen in the Red Sea. Bahrain’s office of public prosecution ordered Ebrahim Sharif’s detention pending […]
An eight-year-old boy was suspended from Barclay Primary School for wearing a pro-Palestine badge to commemorate his family members in Gaza. Parents are protesting outside the school gates in support of him.
We create the anarchy we’d like to see in the world
Farewell, Alfredo
I heard today by telephone as the morning winter sun shone through grey clouds into the confines of my cell that our comrade Alfredo Bonanno passed away during sleep surrounded by the love of his close ones.
I too send my incendiary embrace to all those who feel his loss and assert that a combative memory will remain.
Alfredo’s contributions to the anarchist movement are undeniable, critical, insightful, and prescient.
One of Alfredo’s texts, ‘What are Anarchists?‘ had appeared in an investigation file against me for which I was accused of distributing.
His booklet published under the title ‘Locked Up‘ by Elephant Editions is one of the most important documents on the topic of imprisonment in my opinion.
Alfredo’s writings for which he was investigated and incarcerated are never mere collections of words but emerge directly from lived experiences, his own and that of the comrades that participate in our struggle for freedom.
Affinity groups, informal organization, direct action and the critique of technology and systems: these concepts form the most potent section of today’s Anarchy, let’s put them into practice!
Anarchist prisoner TobyShone was sentenced to 3 years 9 months in prison for 8 drug charges after all political charges against him related to the website 325.nostate.net under the Terrorism Act were dropped on 1st October 2021 due to lack of evidence.
In November 2020 a series of coordinated raids against anarchist website 325.nostate.net were executed by Counter-Terrorism cops in UK as part of “Operation Adream.”
Several properties in the South-West of England were searched and one person was arrested and charged under the Terrorist Act.
Toby Shone was originally charged with providing a service enabling others to access terrorist publications contrary to section 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006, fundraising for terrorist purposes contrary to section 15 of the Terrorism Act 2000, and two counts of possession of information likely to be useful to a terrorist contrary to section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
TobyShone, 43, was charged with four terrorism offences in February over an anarchist website that allegedly published bomb-making instructions.
He had pleaded not guilty to these charges earlier that year and was due to stand trial at Bristol Crown Court on 6 October 2021. However, with no evidence to put before the court, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was forced to drop these charges on 1st October, 2021.
This was a landmark attempt by the British State and the deranged Home Secretary Priti Patel to prosecute an anarchist under modern terrorism legislation.
The attack on 325.nostate.net is a landmark attempt by the state to silence dissent and radical critical thinking and can be seen as part of the general crackdown in the UK against protest, counter-information and alternative thinking and lifestyles as evidenced by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021 (which resulted in the Kill the Bill protests), the Covert Human Intelligences Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021 which extends the powers of spycops and the reforms of the Judicial Reviews procedure.
The investigation into 325 continues and cops continue to harass and attempt to intimidate people.
Instead Anarchist prisoner Toby Shone was sentenced to 3 years 9 months in prison for 8 drug charges after all political charges against him related to the website 325.nostate.net under the Terrorism Act were dropped on 1st October 2021 due to lack of evidence.
My name is Toby Shone, and I’m an imprisoned anarchist held in Bristol prison who was kidnapped at gunpoint by the anti-terrorist unit, as part of Operation Adream in the UK. The repression was aimed to target the anarchist group of critique and practice, 325 collective and the website 325.nostate.net.
Operation Adream is an attack by the British State in conjunction with European partners against anarchist direct action groups, counter-information projects, prisoner solidarity initiatives and the new anarchist critique of the technological singularity and the fourth and fifth industrial revolution. Operation Adream is the first time that anti-terrorist legislation has been used against the anarchist movement in the UK.
I was taken hostage by the regime on the 18th of November 2020 by a team of tactical fire arms cops after a car chase through the remote Forest of Dean, which is on the border with South Wales, one hour north of Bristol.
At the same time coordinated raids took place at five addresses in the Forest of Dean against collective living projects, hangouts and a storage unit. I was taken under armed guard to a nearby police station where I was held in incommunicado and interrogated many, many times. I refused to speak during the interrogations and I did not cooperate with the murderers in uniform.
I was charged with four counts of terrorism. One charge of Section 2, dissemination of terrorist publications as a suspected administrator 325.nostate.net. Two charges of section 58, possession of information useful for the purposes of terrorism. Those being two videos.
One of which showed how to improvise an explosive shaped charge. And the other demonstrated how to burn down a mobile phone transmitter. I was charged with Section 15, funding terrorism, which was related to cryptocurrency wallets hosted on 325.nostate.net which were for the support of anarchist prisoners and publications. I denied all the charges.
I was also accused during the interrogations of membership of FAI/IRF, the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front.
I was accused of writing five documents and carrying out several actions in the Bristol area, which were claimed by cells of the FAI as well as those of the Earth- and Animal Liberation Fronts. These included an incendiary attack against the police station, the burning down of a mobile phone transmitter and liberation of animals.
Bristol is an area of the UK where there has been countless anarchist sabotages and direct actions taking place over the last two decades and which remain unsolved by police, despite multi-million pound investigations and joint media witch hunts against anarchists in the city.
From the collective spaces and hangouts that were raided during Operation Adream the cops seized hundreds of copies of 325 #12 magazine, dozens of anarchist pamphlets, books, stickers, posters and flyers, laptops, mobile phones, printers, hard drives, cameras, radio frequency jammers, gps units, smoke-, noise- and flash charges, replica firearms and cash.
I was remanded to Wandsworth prison in London after appearing at Westminster Magistrates Court and held under anti-terrorist conditions.
I was denied to make any phone call in the prison for ten days as well as a similar embargo on my mail. I was denied to see my lawyers for six weeks. 23.5 hour solitary confinement with sometimes up to 48 hours without being able to leave the cell for anything other than to collect a meal.
No yard time for the first 3 weeks and then only allowed to go outside on the yard once a fortnight for 35 minutes. No gym, no library, no education, no activities. I was held in a dungeon like cell with no natural light and subjected to deafeningly loud construction noise as I was placed by the counter-terror unit next to a new section of the prison being built.
My letters, phone calls and associations all subject to routine monitoring and censorship with constant obstruction to access for my lawyers, post and books. I did not receive the full case against me for many, many months.
Operation Adream is a montage, fitting together disparate, unconnected elements, typical of repressive operations in Southern Europe which has spread across the continent. This is now being deployed by the British police.
Operation Adream seeks to present the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire as a continuation of the armed Marxist-Leninist revolutionary organisation November 17th. This is an important fantasy for the purposes of repression in this operation as November 17th is a proscribed group in UK.
Most importantly, Operation Adream sought to present the diverse range of anarchist groups, publishing projects and prisoner support initiatives as an array of organisational hubs for the execution and glorification of terrorism.
The case was authorised by the Director of Public Prosecutions Max Hill QC. The investigation revealed at least the participation of Dutch and German cops, the hidden hand of the security services and an international dimension to the operation based on previous waves of repression in Spain, Italy and Greece was evident.
During my interrogations, I was being asked a pre-written script of questions which , for instance, not even the detectives appeared to understand why I was being asked as the entire operation was a marionnette guided by others to achieve a political purpose.
About that, I can only quote the murdered anarchist Bartholomew Vanzetti who remarked, “The higher of them, the more jackass.” It is certainly appropriate as on the 6th October 2021 at Bristol Crown Court I was found Not Guilty.
However, I was condemned for the possession and supply of Class A and B narcotics: the psychedelic medicines LSD, DMT, psilocybin, MDMA and marijuana, as these were all seized from the collective spaces. I was sentenced to 3 years 9 months.
I am also fighting against a Serious Organised Crime Prevention Order which is demanded by the anti-terrorist unit and the prosecutors. The order would put me under a form of house arrest for up to 5 years when I finally get released with a punishment of up to 5 years if I breach the order.
Genocidal Settler colonial states have a terminal shelf life. Israel is no exception.
Israel may well appear triumphant if it ever finishes its genocidal campaign in Gaza and the West Bank.
Backed by the United States, it may achieve its demented goal. Its murderous rampages and genocidal violence can exterminate or ethnically cleanse many Palestinians.
Its dream of a state exclusively for Jews, with any Palestinians who remain stripped of basic rights, may be realized.
It would revel in its blood-soaked victory . Celebrate its war criminals.
Its genocide will be erased from public consciousness and tossed into Israel’s huge black hole of historical amnesia. Those with a conscience in Israel will be silenced and persecuted.
But by the time Israel achieves its decimation of Gaza — Israel is talking about months of warfare — it will have signed its own long term death sentence.
Its facade of civility, its supposed vaunted respect for the rule of law and democracy, its mythical story of the courageous Israeli military and miraculous birth of the Jewish nation, will lie in ash heaps.
Israel’s social capital will be spent. It will be revealed as an ugly, repressive, hate-filled apartheid regime, alienating younger generations of American Jews.
Its patron, the United States, as new generations come into power, will distance itself from Israel the way it is distancing itself from Ukraine.
Its popular support, already eroded in the U.S., will come from America’s Christianized fascists who see Israel’s domination of ancient Biblical land as a harbinger of the Second Coming and in its subjugation of Arabs a kindred racism and white supremacy.
Palestinian blood and suffering — 10 times the number of children have been killed in Gaza as in two years of war in Ukraine — will pave the road to Israel’s oblivion.
The tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of ghosts will have their revenge. Israel will become synonymous with its victims the way Turks are synonymous with the Armenians, Germans are with the Namibians and later the Jews, and Serbs are with the Bosniaks.
Israel’s cultural, artistic, journalistic and intellectual life will be exterminated. Israel will be a stagnant nation where the religious fanatics, bigots and Jewish extremists who have seized power will dominate public discourse.
Foreign interventions cannot solve security problems in Haiti, as long as they remain the main reason for insecurity in the country
By Dr. Westen K. Shilaho, scholar of Political Science and International Relations, Senior Research Fellow in Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation, University of Johannesburg
Last month Kenyan lawmakers approved a plan to send 1,000 police officers to Haiti ostensibly to counter gang violence and restore law and order, as part of the UN-backed Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti.
The mission, for an initial period of 12 months, was approved through the adoption of the Security Council resolution 2699 (2023). At the US behest, the Kenyan government agreed to head this multinational security force to stabilize the Caribbean nation paralyzed by crime.
The latest deterioration of the situation in Haiti, the poorest country in the northern hemisphere, came following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021.
But the country has been beset by turmoil since it gained independence in 1804. It was the first black nation to gain independence, and more poignantly, free itself from slavery.
What should be a symbol of black people’s resistance and triumph over imperial subjugation, a historic and gallant black nation, has been reduced to a metaphor for violence, chaos, and political instability.
Haiti’s homicide rate is so high that life expectancy “is conditionally renewable every 24 hours”. On top of that, its sorry state has been compounded by frequent natural disasters.
The existential threat to Haiti’s stability, however, is the erosion of its sovereignty by the French – its former colonisers – and the US. France for over a century brazenly looted Haiti’s resources and forced it to pay for loss of slaves and its slave colony.
This larceny hollowed out the state, obliterated its capacity and impoverished Haiti. Numerous coups, some engineered by the US, ensured instability.
For Haiti to stabilize, imperialism, and neocolonialism must be neutralized. Poorly thought-out UN-backed interventions failed before because there is no military solution to Haiti’s challenges, and this latest one is likely to end the same way.
Kenya’s decision to deploy police officers and other supporting personnel to Haiti has elicited mixed reactions
. The government insists that it has an “international” obligation to contribute to stabilizing Haiti, part of Africa’s diaspora.
The phrase “international standards” is ubiquitous among the Kenyan elite. It betrays a Eurocentric mindset that conflates Westernization with Modernization.
Critics question the wisdom behind deploying the police to Haiti, yet Kenya has insecurity issues of its own. Kenya’s acquiescence to lead this mission flies in the face of Pan-Africanism.
Kenya is seen as a lackey of the US in undermining the sovereignty of a fellow black country, perpetrating imperialism, and occupation.