10th Annual Running Down the Walls

Friends, comrades, and lovers!

We are pleased to announce our 10th Annual Running Down the Walls, a 5k run/walk/roll in solidarity with U.S.-held political prisoners and prisoners of war, happening this year on Sunday, July 8th, 2018.  In previous years, solidarity runs have happened in prison and free-world communities in Pelican Bay, USP Navosta, Albuquerque, Bloomington, Buffalo, Hamilton, Toronto, Riverside, LA, Tucson, Chico, Middletown, Minneapolis, NYC, Seattle, and more.  This year, join the hundreds of runners, walkers, bikers, skateboarders, etc all across North America in raising awareness and raising funds for political prisoners.

This year, Denver ABC is hosting our 10th annual (!) Running Down the Walls.  The event will take place on Sunday, July 8th kicking off from a to-be-announced location in town at 10:30 am.  Suggested donation is $50 per runner/walker/roller (folks often find one or more sponsors).  Participants will receive a really cute commemorative t-shirt and are invited to join us for a picnic (w/ vegan options) and fun field day in the park following the 5k.  Bring the whole family and your leashed furry friends; ALL ARE WELCOME – except for jerks 🙂

Please use the following form to register and click the link to donate (you can also donate in person on the day of the event)!  If you’d like to help otherwise, please promote our donation and event pages.  We’ll also likely need some volunteer support for the event.  Shoot us an email with an questions at denverabc@riseup.net.

❤ DONATE HERE ❤

 

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Empty the Cages: Former Political Prisoners Speak Out

https://www.facebook.com/events/754237618050159/

Join ABC and political prisoner support chapters across the continent in our annual panel discussion featuring former U.S. political prisoners:

Thursday October 13th
Doors open at 6:30pm
Speakers 7-9pm
Location: Whittier Community Center, 2900 Downing St.

Spanning generations of political struggle for liberation in the U.S., we are proud to help host this panel that will prove to be informative, inspirational and will help us build a stronger movement of support around resistance to repression by the State.

Speakers:
Sekou Kambui
Daniel McGowan
John Tucker
More TBA
———-
Sekou Kambui:
Sekou is a New Afrikan/Cherokee former political prisoner who survived 47 years of incarceration. Throughout the 1960’s, Sekou participated in the Civil Rights movement, organizing youth for participating in demonstrations and marches across Alabama, and providing security for meetings of the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Sekou became affiliated with the Black Panther Party in 1967 in Chicago and New York. While in Detroit, he became a member of the Republic of New Afrika, before returning to Birmingham. Back in Alabama, Sekou coordinated community organization activity with the Alabama Black Liberation Front, the Inmates for Action (IFA) Defense Committee and the Afro-American People’s Party in the mid 1970’s. Sekou was also a soldier in the Black Liberation Army (BLA) during these years before his capture.

In 1975, Sekou was falsely arrested and charged with the murder of two white men: a KKK official from Tuscaloosa and a multimillionaire oil man from Birmingham. There was absolutely no evidence against him, only coerced testimony from individuals who subsequently recanted their statements. The judge refused to allow the recanted statements to be stricken from Sekou’s record. He continued the fight throughout his time in Prison. On June 30th, 2014, Sekou was released on parole.
———-
Daniel McGowan:
Daniel is an environmental and social justice activist from New York City. He was charged in Federal court on counts of arson, property destruction and conspiracy, all relating to two actions in Oregon in 2001, claimed by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). McGowan was facing a minimum of life in prison if convicted when he accepted a non-cooperation plea agreement. His arrest is part of what the US government dubbed Operation Backfire; a coordinated, multi-state sweep of over 15 activists by the federal government who have charged the individuals with practically every earth and animal liberation action in the Pacific Northwest left unsolved. Many have considered this round up indicative of the government’s ‘Green Scare’ focus which has activists being arrested and threatened with life in prison. Many of the charges, including Daniel’s, were for crimes whose statute of limitations were about to expire. Daniel was released from prison on December 11, 2012.
———-
John Tucker:
John was one of five antifascists arrested in May 2012, after an altercation between white supremacists and antifascists in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park that left ten injured fascists, three of which needed hospitalization. The case of the Tinley Park 5 received an overwhelming amount of public support. Despite the fact that the meeting was organized by violent white supremacist organizations including the National Socialist Movement, Council of Conservative Citizens, and Ku Klux Klan, the state showed their cozy relationship with white supremacy by refusing the accused antifascist activist bail or a plea deal comparable to any other criminal defendant in Cook County. In January 2013 the Tinley Park Five accepted a non-cooperating plea deal. John Tucker was released in February 2014. As of September 2014, all of the TP5 are released.
———-
Donations are encouraged, and will go towards the 6th Annual North American Anarchist Black Cross Conference.

If you can’t make it and would like to help cover travel costs for the panel and the conference, please donate here!
https://fundly.com/na-abc-conference?showsteps=1

We’ll see you there!

Resisting FBI Repression – A speaking tour with Leslie James Pickering

Join us Wednesday, September 14th at 6:30PM!
Tivoli Room 442 (1363 E. 9th Avenue)
https://www.facebook.com/events/114894128966233/

Over the last two decades, Leslie James Pickering has been a target of the FBI, accumulating a file over 30,000 pages long.

Beginning with his work as Spokesperson for the Earth Liberation Front Press Office in the ’90s, Leslie has sustained two Joint Terrorism Task Force raids, several federal grand jury subpoenas, threats, infiltration and extensive surveillance.

This repression has continued through Leslie’s political prisoner support work and the founding of Buffalo’s radical bookstore, Burning Books. Between 2012 and 2014, the FBI used two informants in an attempt to paint Burning Books as a front to form a 9-person eco-terrorist cell and Leslie as its “mastermind sociopath.” See secret FBI files detailing this investigation for yourself and hear Leslie’s struggle to continue to be a voice for revolution in the face of decades of state repression.

 

Resisting Repression from the Inside Out: Former Prisoners Speak

Join ABC and political prisoner support chapters across the continent in our annual panel discussion featuring former U.S. political prisoners:

Lynne Stewart
Mark Cook
Jihad Abdulmumit
Kazi Toure
Eric McDavid
Jerry Koch

Thursday Sep 24th 7-9pm
Tivoli Turnhalle in the Tivoli Student Union on the Auraria campus 900 Auraria Pkwy, Denver, CO 80204

Spanning generations of political struggle for liberation in the U.S., we are proud to help host this panel that will prove to be informative, inspirational and will help us build a stronger movement of support around resistance to repression by the State.

Donations are encouraged, and will go towards the 5th Annual North American Anarchist Black Cross Conference.

If you can’t make it and would like to help cover travel costs for the panel, please donate here!
https://www.youcaring.com/north-american-political-prisoners-366217

We’ll see you there!  

https://www.facebook.com/events/1469467923382453/

 

—————————————————————————————————————–

Bios
Lynne Stewart:
Lynne Stewart, a radical human rights attorney who has devoted her life to the oppressed – a constant advocate for the countless many deprived in the United States of their freedom and their rights. Lynne was falsely accused of helping terrorists in an obvious attempt by the U.S. government to silence dissent, curtail vigorous defense lawyers, and install fear in those who would fight against the U.S. government’s racism, seek to help Arabs and Muslims being prosecuted for free speech and defend the rights of all oppressed people. She was arrested in April 2002 and arraigned before Manhattan federal Judge John Koeltl, who also presided over her trial in 2004. She was convicted, and received a 28- month sentence in October 2006. However she was free on bail until 2009, when the government appealed the sentence. In late 2009 Lynne was re-sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. Due to declining health from stage IV breast cancer, Lynne was freed from prison on December 31, 2013!

Mark Cook:
In 1967, Cook became active in a growing leftist paramilitary underground in Seattle, which perpetrated a series of high profile bombings and robberies. In and out of prison, he was co-founder of the Black Panther Party chapter in the Walla Walla State Penitentiary and served as its Lieutenant of Information for many years. In 2000, he was released after serving 24 years in prison for his
participation in a bank robbery and jail break associated with the George Jackson Brigade in Seattle. The GJB was a leftist urban guerrilla group in the Pacific Northwest that carried out bombings, bank robberies and other actions to overthrow the U.S. government.

Jihad Abdulmumit:
Jihad is a community activist, motivational speaker, author and playwright. As a youth he became intensely involved in the Black Liberation Movement and Vietnam War protests. He joined the Black Panther Party at sixteen and eventually went underground in the ranks of the Black Liberation Army. In the mid-seventies prior to his incarceration, Jihad was also the Coordinator of the Rochester Federation of Youth in Rochester, New York – a youth organization that sponsored community economic
development projects and weekly political education and black history classes, and worked with juvenile delinquents and high school drop outs. Jihad was a domestic political prisoner and prisoner of war and served 23 years of his life in prison for his involvement in the Black Liberation Movement.

Kazi Toure:
As a member of the United Freedom Front (UFF), Kazi was imprisoned for his role in 20 bombings combating Apartheid in South Africa and United States Imperialism in Central America. The UFF has been called “undoubtedly the most successful of the leftist [guerrilla groups] of the 1970s and ’80s” and struck powerful blows to South African Airways, Mobil, IBM, Union Carbide, & various courthouses and US Military targets. Toure was convicted on federal charges of possession of firearms,
and Seditious Conspiracy—conspiring to overthrow, put down, destroy by force and violence the US government. He is one of few, if any, New Afrikans to be charged of this act.

Eric McDavid:
Eric McDavid is a green anarchist who was entrapped by an FBI informant and charged with a single count of conspiracy to use fire or explosives to damage corporate and government property. After serving nearly 10 years in prison his judgment and sentencing were vacated when it became known that the FBI had failed to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense. Eric pleaded guilty to a lesser charge that carried a 5 year maximum sentence. He was released almost immediately. McDavid is a victim of a long history and concerted effort by federal and state entities in the United States to target anarchists and other radicals.

Jerry Koch:
Gerald “Jerry” Koch, a New York City anarchist and legal activist, was first subpoenaed in 2009, and again in 2013, to a federal grand jury investigating the same event. Jerry refused to testify both times and was found in contempt of court on May 21, 2013. He was imprisoned for eight months at Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, and released on January 28, 2014, after his lawyers filed a “Grumbles motion” arguing that the sentence had become punitive and should be ended. The grand jury is a secretive tool of repression that aims to intimidate and punish those who refuse to collaborate with the State. Grand juries have been part of a new, escalating wave of repression against anarchists nationwide.

International anarchist prisoner week: London Solidarity

From London ABC:

To mark International Anarchist prisoner week last Saturday London ABC & friends visited two prisons in north London Holloway & Pentonville.

Pentonville.

Holloway.

Summary of short reports about actions have occurred during the week of solidarity 2015

From Till All Are Free:

Actions and events reports overview during week of solidarity 2015*

Screening and a letter writing event at Columbus, Ohio was well attended and people there wrote letters to the Cleveland 4.
Also, the Chaos Virxus collective is putting out a 4 part monthly anarchist nihilist majik newsletter and the SEPT BLEAECK is out vi@ https://www.tumblr.com/search/anarchist+nihilist+majik

In Philadelphia, people have put up posters for international prisoners around different neighborhoods in Philly, West Philly, Center City and Grey’s Ferry.
There was also going to be a letter writing and information night, but, it was canceled due to a last minute emergency.
Posters were in solidarity with Tamara Sol and those arrested in the security Case in Chile, Alfredo and Nicola, and Gianluca in Italy, as well as a general poster about multiple kinds of repression in Mexico.

In Columbia there was some graffiti made, information day was occurred and special anti-prison brochure “Derriba los muros” (“Shoot down the walls”) entirely written by the CNA/ABC Bogotá was published.
Read online or download: boletc3adn-c3baltima-versic3b3n

As follow up for movie screening in Riga, Latvia the film “Cutting Edge: Confessions of an Undercover Cop” was shown in two different locations: in “Chomsky Bar” and in “Books, Tea, Coffee” club. The audience in both places was not numerous but those who came saw the film with big interest.

The series of deliveries of brochures and books to further deepen together in abolitionism topic and prisoner’s solidarity was made in Venezuela by some individuals.
They began these deliveries with the booklet “Unruly conspiracy, anarchist riot and evasion in French Guyana”, that could be readed online here.

Note: some actions was not mentioned here as they has complete reports, and you can find them in the News

Solidarity action for Kolchenko and Sentsov in Helsinki

From ABC Helsinki:

Today, Saturday the 29th August 2015, we participated in the international solidarity week and went around with few people in Helsinki demanding freedom for Aleksander Kolchenko and Oleg Sentsov, who got really long prison sentences few days ago.

Below the text from our leaflets, which we were spreading in Finnish, English and Russian.

– Helsinki Anarchist Black Cross

Free Kolchenko and Sentsov!

Alexander Kolchenko is sentenced to 10 years and Oleg Sentsov to 20 years in prison. They were both charged with committing ”acts of terrorism” and ”belonging to a terrorist community”.

Kolchenko, a Crimean anarchist, social activist and antifascist was kidnapped by the Russian FSB (ex-KGB) along with other Crimean activists and held as a political hostage in Lefortovo jail in Moscow up till now. Alexander has undeniably proved his antifascist stance over many years, but faced preposterous accusations of belonging to “Right Sector”, a radical Ukrainian right-wing organization, whose real role in Ukrainian events is blown out of proportion by Russian official propaganda.

The case against antifascist Alexander Kolchenko and civil activist and film director Oleg Sentsov (investigators enrolled them into the same ”terrorist” group) is political. The whole case is considered to be part of the Russian campaign to take over Crimea, which includes repressions against anyone who doesn’t comply with the new authority. It is meant to intimidate inhabitants of Crimea, prevent any resistance on the peninsula. Many people were obliged to leave Crimea because their life and freedom were threatened.

It is important to spread information about this case. We need to dissociate ourselves from any forces that support aggressive expansion of Russian nationalism, even if they cover it up with “leftist” and “anti-imperialist” rhetoric. Putin’s regime is doing just fine without your sympathy, better save it for those who have become its victims.

No one is free until all are free!

1. Repressions against Crimean activists: political context (also the bank accounts for donations) –

https://avtonom.org/en/news/repressions-against-crimean-activists-political-context

2. The call of international solidarity campaign in April –

https://avtonom.org/en/news/join-international-solidarity-campaign-alexander-kolchenko

International Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners!

TILL ALL ARE FREE:

International Week for Anarchist Prisoners

In summer 2013 members of several ABC groups discussed the necessity of introducing an International Day for Anarchist Prisoners. Given there are already established dates for Political Prisoners Rights Day or Prison Justice Day, we found it important to emphasize the stories of our comrades as well. Many imprisoned anarchists will never be acknowledged as ‘political prisoners’ by formal human-rights organisations, because their sense of social justice is strictly limited to the capitalist laws which are designed to defend the State and prevent any real social change. At the same time, even within our individual communities, we know so little about the repression that exists in other countries, to say nothing of the names and cases involving many of our incarcerated comrades.

This is why we have decided to introduce an annual Week for Anarchist Prisoners on August 23-30. We chose August 23 as a starting point, because on that very day in 1927 the Italian-American anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in prison. They were convicted of murdering two men during an armed robbery at a shoe factory in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Their arrest was a part of a bigger anti-radical campaign led by the American government. The State’s evidence against the two was almost totally non-existent and many people still today believe that they were punished for their strong anarchist beliefs.

Given the nature and diversity of anarchist groups around the globe, we have proposed a week of common action rather than a single campaign on a specific day making easier for groups to be able to organize an event within a longer target period.

Therefore, we call on everyone to spread the information about the Week for Anarchist Prisoners among other groups and communities and think about organizing event(s) in your city or town. The events can vary from info-evenings, screenings and benefit concerts to solidarity and direct actions. Let your imagination run free.

Check out the flyers in different languages. Please send reports of your activities to tillallarefree (A) riseup.net

Till all are free.

Translations:
Turkish
Russian
French
Spanish
Finnish

“325” anarchist counter-information group
ABC Belarus
CNA/ABC Bogotá
ABC Brighton
ABC Bristol
ABC Cardiff
ABC Czech Republic
ABC Denver
ABC Dresden
ABC Forssa
ABC Helsinki
ABC Hurricane
ABC İstanbul
ABC Kiev
ABC Latvia
ABC Leeds
ABC London
ABC Mexico
ABC Moscow
Nizhny Novgorod antirepression group
NYC ABC
Publicacion Refractario
ABC Rio de Janeiro
ABC St.Petersburg
ABC Tampere
ABC Vienna
ABC Warsaw

—————————————————————————————

Denver ABC Event:

Join us for a very special movie night, as we engage with comrades world wide for the International Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners. Hosted by Denver Anarchist Black Cross at the Mutiny Information Cafe on Broadway and Ellsworth.

Wednesday 8/26 at 8pm we will be showing Vivir la Utopia
https://www.facebook.com/events/669951106482742/

Vivir la utopía es un documental de 1997, producido por TVE y dirigido por Juan Gamero, en el cual se describe la experiencia anarcosindicalista y anarcocomunista vivida en España que transformó radicalmente las estructuras de la sociedad en amplias zonas del bando republicano, evento denominado revolución española, durante la guerra civil de 1936-39.

Live the Utopia is a 1997 documentary, produced by TVE and directed by John Gamero, which describes the experience anarcho-syndicalist and anarcocomunista lived in Spain that radically transformed the structures of society in large areas of the Republican party, event called revolution spanish, during the civil war of 1936-39.

A-Radio Interview: Week of solidarity with anarchist prisoners August 2015

From A-Radio Berlin:

In the following interview we ask about the „Week of solidarity with anarchist prisoners“ (August 23 to 30, 2015), who is promoting it and what it is about. For security reasons, this interview has been re-recorded using our own voices.

Length: 4:47 min

You can download the audio at: archive.org (wav | mp3 | ogg).

Here you can listen to it directly:

Letter from Anarchist Prisoner, Emma Sheppard, in support of the International Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners

From Bristol ABC:

Letter from Anarchist Prisoner, Emma Sheppard, in support of the International Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners.

For more info on Emma’s case see: https://bristolabc.wordpress.com/support-emma/

“The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings for freedom”
– Maya Angelou

Our fearful trill is the combination of frustration, despair, indignation and defiance. The “Incentives and Earned Privileges” scheme that dominates prisons today goes a long way to silencing our songs through its passive coercion and pastoralism, but they always erupt sporadically.

“We count ourselves among those rebels who count storms, who hold that the only truth lies in perpetual seeking”
– Madya Tulokonnivan (Pussy Riot)

Being in prison has made me feel humble. My fixed-term sentence is short, and unlike many, I have a release date. I am humbled by the fire and conviction which fuels long term anarchist prisoners, and the many rebels in prison who are “perpetually seeking” in their own ways, free from (and often unknown to) the anarchist subcultures. Quietly rejecting and challenging authority everyday in a way to keep sane inside. These rebels and actions give me hope.

“Tigers are more beautiful than sheep but we prefer them behind bars”
– Bertrand Russel

I do not consider myself a tiger! But as Michael Gove said in his first speech as ‘Justice Minister’: “Civilisation depends on clear sanctions being imposed by the state on those who challenge the rules”. So they put us behind bars and try to drown us in petty regulations. But being here has just made me stronger and given a depth of my understanding of concepts such as privilege and solidarity. They labelled us ‘criminals’ and try to shame us into compliance, or rely on other prisoners to do their work – policing, pandering and grasping of imagined rewards and “earned privileges”. But knowing I am not alone in my struggle gives me strength and vigilance.

Gove has begin to change the rhetoric surrounding prisoners: we are now potential assets, we are to quote him, “a literally captive population”. He is promising early release for those who ‘show their chained attitude that they wish to contribute to society’.

We are led through our time by those benign dictators, our ‘Offender Managers’, who calmly construct our sentence plans and ‘therapeutic’ programmes (also known as prisons-within-prisons). The Prison “Service” is like an abusive partner: offering calming reassurances whilst deliberately alienating, excluding, and physically and mentally controlling us. This can never be a therapeutic environment.

Martin Luther King said we are all “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. What affects one directly affects all indirectly”. These networks bear down on us in biased and relentless ways. Prison is often the final step for those who have been excluded and controlled by the wider mechanisms of the state their whole lives. The numbers of deaths (at the hands of the screws, filth and suicides) in custody and on the streets continue to rise, discussed and minimized. Self harm is rife within women’s prisons.

The Ministry of Justice plan to sell off many parts of the prison estate, its so called ‘dark corners’ (many of which happen to be in prime locations). Gove claims that it is this cleansing desire and economic, which is driving the developments. But whether its the Queen or rich landlords who will benefit, or the Ministry, is irrelevant… It’s all capitalist expansion.

“Whoever has passed by the front of a court house or prison and his look didn’t darken at the thought that he could be there as a culprit, then he did not live his life with integrity and dignity”

– Quote from Greece, unsure of author

I hope that I can serve the rest of my time and license with integrity. I mourn the loss of my anonymity every day. Writing can be terrifying, especially with limited resources, but I will finish with a quote from Audre Lorde:

“When we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
or welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it’s better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive”

Solidarity to all anarchist prisoners and everyone harmed by the prison system.

With love and rage,

Em