BREAKING NEWS!!! HMP Oakwood rooftop protest

SOLIDARITY TO THE PRISON RESISTANCE!!!

capitalist scumbag press report from November:

1st report:

Prisoners at a heavily-criticised prison near Wolverhampton have staged a rooftop protest this afternoon – for the second time in a matter of weeks.

Six men scaled the walls of HMP Oakwood and set up camp on the roof this afternoon.

The men, most of whom were wearing orange hi-vis jackets, were heard shouting down to people on the ground while security firm G4S, which runs the prison, patrolled the area.

The protest comes just weeks after three men climbed to the top of the prison in a similar protest last month.

A report released earlier this year slammed the prison for its inexperienced staff and high levels of violence and self-harm, as well as failures including not giving prisoners toilet roll.

==================================

2nd report:

Bosses at security firm G4S, which runs HMP Oakwood in South Staffordshire, have put contingency plans in force as a rooftop protest continues at the prison.

A spokesman confirmed six prisoners were involved in the incident.

We can confirm that an incident involving six prisoners is taking place at HMP Oakwood.

The Ministry of Justice has been alerted and our normal contingency plans have been enacted.

– G4S SPOKESMAN

=============================

3rd report:

A rooftop protest by inmates at HMP Oakwood prison in South Staffordshire has come to an end.

At around 11am this morning, six inmates scaled the walls of the building near Wolverhampton.

It is understood no staff or prisoners were injured during the incident and that no damage was done.

===================

FREEDOM NOW!!!!
FIRE TO THE PRISONS!!!

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Poster – Some Anarchist Attacks in Bristol

This list of actions over the last few years around Bristol has been complied to show that successful strikes against the system are not only possible, but are being regularly
carried out. Even lockdown UK with its surveillance and control has weak points and opportunities – we’re only as pacified as we let ourselves be! For sure there’s much more happening than these “claimed” actions, as well as many different forms of struggle against authority.

The common thread in these actions is direct attack targeting the many forms of
domination, in the age-old struggle for freedom. Beyond that, the motivations and analysis of the individuals and groups behind them are varied. For more info on such actions and others across the world, see
325.nostate.net / contrainfo.espiv.net (multi-lingual) / earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports

POSTER DOWNLOAD
Continue reading

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Arsons strike luxury vehicles and police

A Merc and a BMW were set on fire at the Barry Town FC grounds in Barry, south Wales. (source)

In Ipswich (suffolk) the media report vehicles were torched and police cars vandalised.

 

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squatters fight back! in London

from ActForFreedomNOW!:
 
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/images/2013/07/511382.jpg

Protesters and police clashed today as squatters who have occupied six mansion blocks in Brixton south london for up to 32 years were evicted.
A group of up to 10 protesters tried to resist police and chanted: “Stop,” and “No eviction” as bailiffs broke down doors. The Met(cops) confirmed at least one activist was arrested for criminal damage and assault.

Police and High Court Enforcement Officers evict Rushcroft Road squats in Brixton, Monday 15th July 2013

Police and High Court Enforcement Officers evict Rushcroft Road squats in Brixton, Monday 15th July 2013

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‘Borderless Solidarity Cell / FAI’ attack border agency (Bristol)

the capitalist media state:

Bristol Anarchists Set Fire to Border Agency Cars in Deportation …

Anarchists have claimed responsibility for setting six vehicles on fire outside a UK Border Agency office near Bristol

Anarchists are running a campaign of intimidation against immigration officers, including setting fire to vehicles and publishing photographs of them on the internet.

An anarchist group calling itself the Borderless Solidarity Cell (BSC) claimed responsibility for an attack on 21 June in which six vehicles – a prison van, two people carriers and three cars – were set on fire outside a UK Border Agency office in Portishead, near Bristol.

The BSC claim that the people carriers are used for dawn raids on immigrant family groups.

COMMUNIQUE

from 325:

Hidden inside a quiet business park in Portishead, just outside Bristol, is a UK Border Agency office from where an immigration crime team work with police, including launching raids in the south-west. We visited Thursday night into Friday (with the death of anarchist Carlo Guiliani in combat with police during the G8 summit 12 years ago still fresh in our minds) to set fires that damaged the building and burnt 6 vehicles stationed there – 3 cars, 2 blacked-out people carrier vans (known to be used for dawn snatches of immigrant family groups) and 1 large van. The border regime mercenaries draw the attention of our total contempt the same as any other cop does, and now this long arm of the State has felt that we are close and we don’t stop.

A couple of weeks earlier, high noon on Sunday 2nd at a Tascor corporation depot at a Cribbs Causeway/Patchway area trading estate, 2 minibuses with barred passenger windows had their windscreens smashed and multiple dents to the bodywork of the cabs. Tascor (formerly Reliance Secure Task Management) work for the Border Agency and Border Force to ‘escort’ detainees between immigration prisons and to their deportations, utilizing the consequence-free violence their position furnishes them with such as during the recent forced removals of Marius Betondi and Raul Ally, and are the largest private sector provider of this ‘service’ worldwide (having taken over these duties in the UK from Group 4 Security in 2011). They also run designated holding rooms and short-term holding facilities throughout the UK as well as for UK border forces in Calais and Coquelles, France.

Capitalism profit greatly from a pool of cheap migrant labor, including known ‘illegals’ who are even more vulnerable to the bosses’ blackmail. The State criminalizes those they decide are non-productive, utilizing poisonous nationalism to further divide the exploited (like the recent wave of hatred against anyone thought to appear ‘Muslim’) and to win elections. The ‘lucky’ migrants get to arrive in the slums of alienated Western society and are thrust into competition with other urban poor, the ‘unlucky’ or unprofitable in deportation prisons, in both cases governed by fear and racialized policing. However this sorting of human bodies doesn’t always go as smoothly as planned: mass hungerstrikes in Dutch detention facilities and heavy rioting on the streets of Sweden are recent instances of refusal to submit to such degradation.

We don’t want a world where the tyranny of immigration bureaucrats can mean the difference between life and death, and unique beings are categorized and labelled to wring the maximum profit and subordination from us all. We don’t want the indignity of every movement being scrutinized for the purposed of social control and enclosure, whether at borders, on the housing estates, in school or at work.

The legend has it that ‘we’ are lucky to live here, under democratic totalitarianism with some comfortable cages and technological addiction to escape from reality. But infact we are surrounded by depression, divides of wealth and race and gender, devoid of any earth-based selfsufficiency and dependant on the very machine we hate. This machine is only fuelled by rampant exploitation here and largely in the countries that migrants have fled from, creating a disgusting feedback loop as industrial civilization consumes everything in its path. We want to demolish the myth that there is any good place to be within a global system of interconnected misery.

Our struggle is far from the calls for peaceful (re)integration of ‘illegals’ into this faceless society. We also don’t want to set ourselves up as advocates of homogenized groups of migrants, nor to sanctify them all for their specific oppression. Instead of abstract humanitarian charity, we search for the rebel affinity that may be found with migrants who maybe want more than a different regime, and who breach borders, wound guards and destroy prisons from the Mediterranean to Australia; that may be found in the hearts of those who self-organize, with or without accomplices.

Borders are just one significant expression of the currently dominant order, in a world of divisions both physical and psychological, of walls segregating populations, classes and imaginations. Our attack carries the seeds for another world. One where each and every creature is free to roam as they choose. Our borderless solidarity bursts out like our flames for people struggling for life unchained, for Gabriel Pombo da Silva, the CCF imprisoned members, comrades raided in Belgium, Marco Camenisch, Henry Zegarrundo, the anarchists held in Italy and Denmark, the dignified criminals, lawless fugitives, rebellious migrants and other socially disaffected who arm their rage to fight for liberation.

We would consider this our leaving gift to the UK Border Agency, due to be renamed and reorganized in the future – except it turns out it’ll mainly be “the same jobs”, “in the same places”, “with the same mission”. We know that their same regime of exploitation will continue more adapted and integrated, so likewise our war is perpetually against all forms of categorization and control that attempt to hinder free movement and wild life on Earth. Nothing is over, everything continues.

Borderless Solidarity Cell (Informal Anarchist Federation)

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Suspected Irish freedom fighters jailed

from the regime press (20 june 2013):

Photographs found during a probe into suspected dissident republican terrorism appear to show targeting of Merseyside police headquarters, the High Court in Belfast has heard.

Police also seized a deactivated sub-machine gun and explosives during searches of a husband and wife’s home in Londonderry last week.

Details emerged as bail was granted to US woman Lesley Concannon.

The zumba dance teacher denies the charges.

Mrs Concannon, 32, faces charges of possessing high explosives with intent to endanger life, and having articles for use in terrorism.

She was arrested and charged along with her 39-year-old husband Kevin Barry Concannon, following police raids on their home at Beechwood Avenue, Derry, last week.

Searches were carried out as part of investigations into the discovery of four mortar bombs in March.

Opposing Mrs Concannon’s bail application, a prosecution lawyer said police believe the couple are linked to dissident republican activity.

A laptop computer taken from the home led to the discovery of photographs taken earlier this year that appeared to depict a show of strength involving three masked men holding weapons and a gun.

Fuck the British state and its forces! Free up the Concannons!!

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Men charged with city centre arsons (Stamford)

from ze capitalist press (30 july 2013):

A man and a teenager have appeared in court charged with starting five fires that caused more than £7,000 of damage to six Stamford shopfronts.

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Animal liberation news


anonymous report (direct action):

“116 chickens liberated from a intensive farm in the south of england, this raid is dedicated to our imprisoned comrade george house.

until all are free”

——————


anonymous report (direct action):

“on june 11th in solidarity with eric mcdavid and marie mason and all animal liberation prisoners 150 hens were liberated from an oppressive intensive farm in the south of england.all the hens are now in safe new homes for life.untill all are free”

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Wrexham rooftop resistors sentenced to 6yrs

from the capitalist press (31 July 2013):

TWO youths who brought a busy town centre street to a standstill, causing chaos to businesses and local people during a 30 hour rooftop siege, have been locked up this evening.

Joshua Hughes, 19, received six and a half years youth custody and James Haden, 18, got six years, after they admitted affray following the incident when they hurled slates and other items at police and laughed as they did so – together with two earlier robberies and two attempted robbery.

Respect.

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Three inmates escape from HMP Sudbury

(source) In June and July three prisoners escaped from Category D prison HMP Sudbury in Derbyshire. Run free!!

 

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They dont like it up em: FUCK THE POLICE

from ze capitalist press (Daily Star, 12 April):

A MAN who shone a laser beam at a police helicopter stuck two fingers up outside court after he was spared jail.

The Cleveland Police helicopter was dealing with an incident in Middlesbrough when Jack Waistle pointed a laser pen at the aircraft.

The pilot had to change the direction of the helicopter to minimise the effects of the bright light.

Waistle, 21, admitted a charge of endangering the safety of an aircraft.

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unruly anarchists in Bristol celebrate Thatchers croaking

SOLIDARITY TO THE BRIS INSURGENTS! FUCK THE GOVERNMENT, NO PEACE UNTIL THEY ALL JOIN THATCHER ROTTING IN THE GOUND!!

“To celebrate the news of Thatcher’s death we smashed the front windows of the Conservative Club on Fishponds Road in Bristol in the early hours of this morning. […] Finally, our team takes responsibility for the recent arson on a police 4×4 in a garage off Pennywell Road in Easton. These servants of the state should never be safe on the streets from our attack, here as in Moscow, Cairo or Montreal.” -unruly anarchists (in the spirit of Millbank) [full communique]

“Over the weekend we attacked 2 different Mitie vans. Behind the “Bush” pub 5 minutes from Templemeads, on a sunny evening during rush hour we took the opportunity to spike two wheels and pour paint stripper over the vehicle. We may have been seen, so what, good luck to em, we look just like everyone else. We chose not to only push our struggle in the hours of darkness, recognising that our expressed anger, if witnessed, probably leaves a question in the mind of the onlooker. On this occasion we decided the risk was worth it. We also burnt a Mitie van in East Bristol, setting fire to it at night. Mitie are one of several companies to have benefited hugely from the privatisation started by Thatcher in the 1980s. The outsourcing of immigration prisons such as Campsfield was one step in building an empire which now includes prisons, youth offender institutes, probation services, and extends to housing and “sustainable” energy sources. We are not asking for state controlled versions of the above. But calling for fire to all prisons – immigration, youth or otherwise.” [full communique]

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some tidbits of news

Dunfermline Press (12 april ’13) reports “vandals caused £2000 of damage to Forestry Commission equipment in Crossford.” Fuck the diggers, save the woods!

Dorset Echo (17 April) reports the front doors of a Waitrose superstore smashed in the early hours.

And the Lancashire Telegraph (16 April) reports CCTV cameras and security lights were sabotaged/destroyed at Rossendale “community center”.

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‘FAI/Circle Slab Cell’ celebrate death of Maggy Thatcher (London)

from actforfree

On the celebration of Thatcher’s death, we smashed a window of Barnardo’s ‘charity shop’ in Brixton using a concrete slab from a bin on the street. And it was easy. We would of done more if it weren’t for self-proclaimed pacifists violently attempting to arrest us.
This action was in solidarity with all migrants detained, deported and struggling to cross borders. Barnardo’s was targeted because they fund and administrate Cedars detention centre in Croydon. They detain children, families and individuals who merely seek freedom from poverty, persecution, murder, rape and other oppression the borders.
Freedom to all migrants.
For a world without borders and states.
Fire to the prisons!
Fuck maggie!
Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) – Circle Slab Cell

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Nottingham: G4S vans damaged

325 receives and transmits:

“In the very early hours of Wednesday morning [9/1/13], we carried out a couple of swift acts of love and self-defence. Two G4S vehicles had their tires slashed, paint stripped and windows smashed. We did this as signal of solidarity to our friends in Nottingham HMP and as special message to our friend in Rome Elisa Di Bernardo whose courage and devotion is inspiration to us.

G4S are a global corporation which profits from the torture and caging of the working class throughout the world. They imprison and torture in order to maintain the capitalist order of things, and in our view should be attacked at every opportunity. The men and women murdered by G4S and the industrial prison complex it is inseparable from increases every day. The numbers whose lives are ripped apart by G4S every hour. Our hatred for G4S and our love for our brothers and sisters increases every second. Our gesture on Tuesday night was small, but it was repeatable, and we will repeat it and others like it.

Fuck the prisons.

For freedom, for friendship.”

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Bristol: Screws cars damaged

reposted from 325:

“on the 9th jan 2013 not long before noon vehicles belonging to prison officers at bristol prison, cambridge rd, horfield were damaged using paint-stripper & slashing the front tyres, this took place on brynland ave in ashley down. the officers are intrinsically linked to a system that keeps people down & in their place, everyday we are monitored, but on this day jan 9th those officers with damaged cars will feel that they have been watched. this was a very accessible thing to do, no elite skills were needed. our fight is on both sides of the wall & both sides of the coin, there are lessons to be learnt by all, those for security reasons have choose to fight from a position of underground & those that are a public face, networking, reaching out & bringing in new blood. this small attack was done with all the caged animals & humans at the for-front of our minds.”

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Speed camera burned out (Spen Valley)

from the regime press:

A SPEED camera has been torched by arsonists.

The unknown vandals threw three car tyres round the camera, situated in Spen Lane, Gomersal, before setting them alight.

The incident happened at 3am on Monday.

The camera is believed to have been left out of action.

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Letter from John Bowden, UK political prisoner

Solidarity and respect to John Bowden unbowed prisoner of a wicked system! 

From 325:

State Using ‘Secret Evidence’ To Try And Keep John Bowden Behind Bars

For the past 30 years John Bowden has been at the forefront of the British prison struggle, and is by far our most prolific prisoner writer. Time and again, John’s articles have shone a searchlight into the State’s murky dungeons, exposing brutality and repression, and challenging the very nature of prison. For many years now, John has been held in jail because of his political views and his willingness to challenge injustice. That has never been clearer than now, as the State attempts to use ‘secret evidence’ to keep him behind bars. Leeds ABC

It is relatively rare that prisoners, originally sentenced for non-political offences, become so politicised whilst in jail, that their release is opposed by the prison authorities for exactly that reason.

In the case of life sentence prisoners who have served the “tariff” part of their sentence (or the length of time the judiciary stipulates they should remain in jail), the legal criteria determining their release, or not, are clear and straightforward: Has the prisoner served a sufficient period of time to satisfy the interests of punishment and retribution? Does the prisoner remain a risk to the community? Can the prisoner be safely and effectively supervised in the community post-release?

Of course the prison authorities would never openly admit that apart from the above criteria, there is another “risk factor” that would prevent a life sentence prisoner’s release: Their identification with a progressive or radical political cause. Opposing a life sentence prisoner’s release, purely on the basis of their having exposed and organised against human rights abuse in the prison system, would of course make a complete mockery of the claim that, apart from its punishment function, prison also exists as a place of reform and rehabilitation, a place where supposedly brutal and anti-social criminals are made better people by a system administered by humane and just-minded individuals. The entire legitimacy of the prison system is based on the premise that, essentially it exists to protect the public from individuals who represent a threat , so denying that some life sentence prisoners are kept locked-up solely because they embrace an ideology that actually believes in a society and world free from violence, exploitation, and inequality, is imperative if the myths and fallacy used to justify the existence of prisons is to remain intact.

The prison system actually employs a whole legion of compliant ‘Criminal Justice’ system “professionals”, like social workers, probation officers, and psychologists to provide, if necessary, the politically neutral lexicon of “risk-factors” and “Personality Disorder” to legitimize the continued imprisonment of life sentence prisoners, who in reality are viewed as politically motivated and likely to become politically involved on the outside if released. The narrative of my own life and experience from brutalised and violent young criminal to politically conscious prisoner activist, and how the prison system continues to respond to that, is illustrative of how that system actually considers politicised life sentence prisoners far, far more worthy of continued detention than those who might genuinely pose a risk to the community.

In 1982, I was sentenced, alongside two other men, to life in prison for the killing of a fourth man during a drunken party on a South London council estate. At the time, I was 25 years old, and a state-raised product of the care and “youth justice” system. The prison system that I entered in the early 1980’s was a barbaric and de-humanising place, where in terms of the treatment of prisoners, the rule of law stopped dead at the prison gate. My almost immediate response to prison repression was one of total defiance and resistance, that was met with physical and psychological brutality in the form of regular beatings, (in 1991 a civil court in Birmingham found that prison guards in the notorious Winson Green jail had subjected me to a sustained and gratuitous beating-up within minutes of my arrival at the jail), and many years held in almost clinical solitary confinement. Far from breaking my defiance, such inhuman treatment only deepened my determination to fight the system, and to use the only method truly effective in that regard – solidarity with other prisoners. As the years passed, I began to politically contextualise the struggle I was involved in against the prison system, and understand it as a part of a much wider struggle that transcended prison walls and essentially characterised all societies and places where the powerful brutalised and de-humanised the powerless.

The length of time that my original trial judge recommended I should remain in jail has now long passed, and yet I remain in a maximum security prison, and what can best be described as a campaign by the prison system to keep me here intensifies with the approach of my second parole hearing in over 30 years.
It is essentially my contact with prisoner support groups on the outside, or “subversive” and even “terrorist” groups, as the prison authorities have defined and described them, that is now claimed in some prison system reports, as the main “Risk-Factor” preventing my release. Of course , if necessary, for the purpose of officially legitimising my continued imprisonment, for the convenience of the Parole Board, the usual array of morally compromised and corrupt social workers and prison-hired psychologists will attest to the fact that my enduring “anti-authoritarianism” is just a symptom of my psychopathy and continuing risk to the public. But if there are any doubts that I remain in prison, first and foremost, because of my efforts to expose the prison system for what it truly is, then a document sent to the Parole Board by the Scottish Prison Service on the 2nd December last year, lays them firmly to rest.

The document, an “intelligence report” compiled by the Security Department at Shotts Prison in Lanarkshire, was comprised of two parts, one that I was allowed to read, and another part described as “Non-Disclosure”, which means secret information that I would not be allowed access to. It is rare for “Non-Disclosure” intelligence reports to be submitted to the Parole Board, and it represents a total negation of any pretence of open and natural justice, very much like the secrecy employed to imprison “terrorist suspects” without legal due process. Obliged as it is to officially inform prisoners if “Non-Disclosure” evidence is to be used against them at parole hearings, I received a letter from an “Intelligence Manager” at Shotts Prison in late December of last year, informing me that a portion of “intelligence” on me was so detrimental to “public interest” if it was revealed that it had to be kept secret. I was, however, informed that the “intelligence” related to articles written by me that were critical of the prison system and then placed on political websites. One seriously wonders how the posting of articles and information on the internet that expose abuses of power by the prison system, would so endanger “public interest”, unless of course we replace “public interest” with the more precise “state interest”. The purpose behind the use of “Non-Disclosure” evidence in my case is obvious – To convey to the Parole Board the clear message that my current “risk” is not so much about a danger to the public, but much more about my willingness to publicly expose the brutal nature of the prison system, with the assistance of “subversive groups” on the outside. The part of the “Intelligence Report” that I was allowed full access to confirms this.

Virtually every single one of the “entries” in the part of the report I was allowed access to focuses on what it describes as my “internet activity” and links to “subversive groups” on the outside:

“Bowden continues to leak information through a social networking site.”

“Website features articles relating to Bowden asking people to protest and fight for freedom.”

“Bowden continues to be involved in internet activity and there are plans to have a day of action in support of Bowden.”

“Intelligence provides that Bowden sends correspondence out of prison that is then posted on the internet.”

There is also a reference to what was described as my attempt to set up a debating society in the prison’s Education Department to “platform his current political views, which are focused on poverty.”

This is the evidence that the prison system claims justifies my continued detention after more than three decades in prison. Not a single entry in the “intelligence report” suggests I pose a genuine risk to the community or am likely to re-offend in a criminal way, and yet the Parole Board, a wholly white middle-class body, will inevitably rubber-stamp my continued imprisonment in compliance with the prison system’s wishes.

The two men who were originally imprisoned with me in 1982 were released almost twenty years ago, and I, as a direct result of my struggle to empower and organise prisoners in defence of their basic human rights, remain buried in a maximum security jail, probably until I die.

I will of course continue to write and distribute articles exposing and criticising the brutality of prison as a weapon of social control and ruling class violence, and also highlighting my own victimisation as a consequence of that.

John Bowden

You can download John Bowden’s pamphlet ‘Tear Down The Walls!’ free of charge from the Leeds ABC website at: http://leedsabc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Tear-Down-The-Walls-2010.pdf

Also check out a pamphlet recently produced by our comrades at Bristol ABC to which John contributed: http://leedsabc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/cscs-torture-units-in-the-uk-screen31.pdf

You can read a recent interview with John here – http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/11/503068.html

Other articles by John can be read on the Leeds ABC website (www.leedsabc.org), as well on the websites of our sister ABC groups in Bristol ( http://bristolabc.wordpress.com), Brighton (www.brightonabc.org.uk), and London (https://network23.org/london/abc).

Please send letters/cards of support to John at:
John Bowden, 6729,
HMP Shotts,
Cantrell Road,
Shotts,
Scotland,
ML7 4LE.

You can also send e-mails to John (or any other prisoner) via: http://www.emailaprisoner.com

A guide on writing to prisoners can be found here: http://leedsabc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/writing-to-prisoners-2012.pdf

Leeds ABC have printed 4000 ‘Free John Bowden stickers’ – see http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/10/500839.html

Show your support for John by wearing a ‘Free John Bowden’ T-shirt – see http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/10/501867.html

FREE JOHN BOWDEN!

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‘ALF-ELF’ take action against Bexhill-Hastings link road project


reported anonymously on DirectAction.info:

“Combe Haven. 7th-8th January 2013.

Acting in solidarity with the campaign against the Bexhill-Hastings link
road, activists sabotaged contractors attempts to force local wildlife to
migrate away from the site of the proposed road.

Wire mesh and wooden doors covered all but one entrance to each badger
sett in the area, in an attempt to encourage the badgers to move into
human-built setts prior to mating season. The mesh and doors surrounding
the badger setts have since been dismantled to encourage the badgers to
stay in their habitat of choice.

Newt-nets have also been set up by contractors with the same goal in mind,
plastic sheeting staked along the route of the road a foot below and above
ground, forcing newts, insects and other small animals out of the area.
Thus these nets have also been attacked, torn out of the ground and
smashed.

Not only do these actions allow wild creatures to exist where they choose,
but slows the build of the road, as the contractors attempt to greenwash
their mindless destruction of animal habitats and local natural
environments by ‘sparing the animal’s lives’ in this manner and cannot
proceed with the road building until they say they are certain that the
local wildlife has migrated away from the site of ecological destruction.

After witnessing the surveyors dismay upon noticing the trashed nets,
these acts of sabotage will only continue and increase in their severity
until those who choose convenience and profit over life have suffered at
least equally in their fight for the absolute control and destruction of
the natural world.

ALF/ELF.”

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Bristol Zoo facade smashed up on New Years Eve

anonymous report, from Indymedia UK:

“We started 2013 as we mean to carry on, with an attack on the front entrance building of Bristol Zoo. All the glass front doors and windows were smashed. The building and ‘Bristol Zoo’ lettering was attacked with paint bombs as well as a paint bomb inside the building. ‘Liberate’ was sprayed across the front.

Zoos put themselves forward as champions of conservation but the reality is very different. Their ‘conservation’ is part of the same arrogant hypocritical mindset that places humans separate and above all other living things, and aims for domination and subjugation of nature. Wild creatures are hunted, some to extinction, exploited, and their habitats wrecked. The ones that are lucky enough to be ‘saved’ are put in cages and this is presented as somehow protecting and helping them.

Zoos are upheld as bastions of education. We can know all we need to know about this or that creature except how to show them basic respect. What it’s really about is teaching people that non-human animals are there for our entertainment, and that the entire non-human world exists only for our use. People’s need to see and experience something wild is very marketable and exploitable. Behind all the rhetoric and reinvention of zoos lies the cruel reality as always of money and profit by all means necessary. Once we see through their carefully constructed image there is no defence such institutions of slavery can employ against our reasons to attack them.

In the zoo, people get used to the necessity and desirability of cages. Once free animals, pacing their cages and staring vacantly at the bars are a sad reflection of our own captivity.

With this small but successful act we draw a line in the sand between us and the dominator of every creature including ourselves.

On New Years Eve there is a tradition around the world of taking action against the prison system and showing solidarity with prisoners. We continue and extend this tradition in the spirit of total liberation for human and non-human animals alike. We also have not forgotten or forgiven the violence used by the police against demonstrators outside Horfield prison last new years eve.

We will keep hitting them where and when they don’t expect it – They can never be everywhere and we will never accept captivity or imprisonment of any sort. We dedicate this action to anarchist prisoners Marco Camenisch, Cristobal Franke ‘Mono’ and Osman Evcan.”

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