The struggle continues…

Download the December 2014 prisoner list here:

INTERNATIONAL PRISONER LIST Dec 2013 Open

INTERNATIONAL PRISONER LIST Dec 2013 PDF

INTERNATIONAL PRISONER LIST Dec 2013 Word

NOW AVAILABLE IN BRISTOL!!!

contact Bristol Anarchist Black Cross bristol_abc(a)riseup(dot)net

or the Kebele Infoshop (14 Robertson Road, Easton, Bristol, BS5 6JY)

cost: £7 or less to prisoners

The calendar is a joint fundraising and educational project between outside organizers in Montreal and Toronto, and three political prisoners being held in maximum-security prisons in New York State: David Gilbert, Robert Seth Hayes and Herman Bell.

This year the funds raised from the calendar will go to:

• The New York State Task Force on Political Prisoners
• Addameer
• TGI Justice Project

Free all political prisoners! Free all prisoners of war! Against the prison society!

On November 6th 2013 the Parole Board for England and Wales carried out its statutory obligation to review my continued detention after more than three decades in prison and many years beyond what the judiciary originally recommended I should serve in jail. Following an earlier parole hearing in May 2011 the board had recommended my transfer to an open prison in preparation for my release 12 months hence.

Almost three years later I remain in a maximum-security prison because of what the prison system and a criminal justice system social worker claim is my politicised anti-authoritarian attitude and “rigid belief system” that is antipathetic to my being properly supervised outside a custodial setting. No one who gave evidence at the parole hearing, even representatives of the prison system, claimed that I represented any sort of threat or risk to the community, the usual reason or criterion for the continued detention of a life sentence prisoner beyond what the judiciary had originally recommended as the appropriate length of time they should serve in jail. In my case the “interest of retribution” had long been served or satisfied and I continue to be detained because of what is viewed and defined as a “rigid” political belief system formed after 30 years of resisting and confronting abuses of power by the prison system. At the recent parole hearing reference was also made to what was described as my “internet activity”, my writing and distributing articles critical of the prison system through a political group on the outside.

A prison officer, Marten Whiteman, who gave evidence at the hearing, claimed that my attempt to publicly expose abuses of power by the prison system was an explicit attempt to “intimidate” and frighten prison staff such as himself. Whiteman, who routinely opposes the release of life sentence prisoners at parole hearings that he manages and administers within Shotts prison, claimed that my use of and access to the internet through radical groups on the outside represented little more than a weapon of subversion to undermine the power and authority of people like himself. His evidence was treated sympathetically by a parole board now focused on legitimising and rubber stamping my continued imprisonment. When asked by my lawyer why a recommendation made by the parole board in 2011 that I be transferred to an open jail in preparation for release was completely ignored by the administration at Shotts prison, Whiteman replied that following that recommendation the “programs Dept” at the prison, of which he is the manager, decided that I “qualified” for a lengthy “anti-violence” behaviour-modification programme; my refusal to co-operate with the programme, he claimed, was the reason why I remained in maximum-security conditions. When I asked why I “qualified” for such a programme considering that I had exhibited or shown no violent behaviour in over 20 years, during which I had worked outside of prison in community-based projects for the vulnerable and disadvantaged, Whiteman claimed to have no idea. When pressed to explain the decision of the “Programmes Dept” and what evidence it had considered to justify my qualification for such a programme, Whiteman said he couldn’t remember.

Two days after the parole hearing a prisoner who worked in the re-cycling and disposal facility at the prison retrieved a bundle of documents sent for destruction from the “Programmes Dept”. The consisted of downloaded articles from the internet written by me and a profile describing me as a “militant prisoner”. This, it would seem, was the evidence considered by the “Programmes Dept” who then arbitrarily used the system of programmes and behaviour –modification courses as a justification to prolong my imprisonment. Another critical witness at the parole hearing was a community-based criminal justice system worker authorised to supervise me in the event of my release. Brendan Barnett co-ordinated the opposition to my release in his role as committed “public protection officer”, whilst admitting that my actual risk to the public was minimal or none-existent. His reason for opposing my release was his stated belief that I would be difficult to supervise in the community because of my “entrenched and rigid anti –authoritarian attitude”. When asked by my lawyer about significant lies and distortions of truth in his report to the parole board, he simply smiled.

The board itself, chaired by a senior judge, remained silent when confronted by the lies in Barnetts report. Like Whiteman, Barnett claimed my writing and distributing articles critical of the prison and criminal justice system was little more than an attempt to “intimidate” people such as himself. As evidence of my ideologically-driven contempt for official authority he produced an article recently written by me and distributed via the internet entitled “Neo-Liberalism and Prisons” and then quotes the following paragraph:“The change of philosophy and policy as far as the criminal justice system is concerned is especially reflected in the treatment of those subject to judicial supervision orders and conditions of parole, and the changing role of probation officers and criminal social workers from a “client-cantered” and rehabilitative approach to one far more focused on strict supervision and “public protection”. Occupations that were once guided by to a certain extent by the rehabilitate ideal have now become little more than a extension of the police and prison system, and abandoning any vision of positively reforming and socially reintegrating the “offender” now instead prioritise punishment, social isolation and stringent supervision. This replacement of the rehabilitative model with a more managerialist one enforcing evermore “robust” and invasive conditions of parole and supervision renders it’s subjects increasingly less as prisoners being returned to freedom and more as ones waiting to be returned to prison for technical breaches of licence conditions.

As with all things neo-liberal the increased focus on the strict supervision and surveillance of ex-prisoners and “offenders” draws it’s inspiration from the U.S. and it’s parole system with a total focus on the straight forward policing of parolees. It’s also a form of supervision increasingly extended into the lives of the poor generally, especially those dependent on welfare and state benefits, the social group from which prisoners are disproportionately drawn. In a age of economic deregulation the marginality and inequality of the poor has increased to such an extent that they are now almost demonised and subject to the same penal-like supervision as ex-convicts.”This, Barnet claimed, was evidence of my contempt for any form of post- release supervision and a compelling reason why I should be detained in prison indefinitely. The parole Board appeared to agree with him.

There were other voices that were not heard at the parole hearing, like Kate Hendry, a lecturer and a teacher at the prisons education dept. In May of 2012 she submitted a report to the Parole Board in which she wrote: “In the 12 years that I have worked in prisons, I have never met someone so transformed while in prison, from criminal to citizen as John Bowden. His experience of imprisonment has enabled him to develop a more social and humane perspective; a rare achievement indeed. His energetic but gentle approach in assisting in the education of other prisoners, given his long imprisonment, is a testimony to his successful struggle to retain his humanity in the service of others. He is a generous and thoughtful person who has become a invaluable presence to staff and students alike”. Following her submitting that report to the Parole Board she was dismissed from her job in the prison on the grounds that she had become “inappropriately close” to me and was therefore a “potential security risk” in the prison. Her voice, in any case, would have been marginalised at the parole hearing, the agenda of which was obviously to construct a case against my release by any means necessary.

Towards that end the “evidence” of Whiteman and Barnett, no matter how dishonest and motivated by a desire to silence and crush me, held sway for an inherently conservative and risk obsessed Parole Board whose collective attitude was encapsulated in a question asked by one of them during the hearing : “Why haven’t you kept your head down and did all that was asked of you, like most other life sentence prisoners?” Absolute, unquestioning conformity within a prison system characterised by one of the worst records of human rights abuses in Europe is, it seems the sole prerequisite for release of life sentence prisoners on Britain.

Inevitably the formal decision of the Parole Board when it is delivered soon will authorise my continued and indefinite detention on the grounds that by my attitude and inclination I remain a “difficult” and “confrontational” prisoner who although not a risk or threat to society doesn’t quite know his place as someone with absolutely no human rights or otherwise that the state is obliged to recognise or acknowledge. My continued imprisonment with increasingly less hope of release and freedom will do nothing to diminish my determination to continue speaking out with political integrity and courage.

John Bowden, Shotts Prison, November 2013

( Note – shortly after this was written- as predicted John was refused Parole)

Inside and Outside Prisons, Jails, & Detention Centers around the World, Monday, December 30, 2013

via Anarchist News

This event is inspired by the North American call out for a day of action against prisons in the New Year of 2010/2011, which happened again in 2011/2012 and again last year, & remains relevantly unchanged.

Noise demos outside of prisons in some countries are a continuing tradition. A way of expressing solidarity for people imprisoned during the New Year, remembering those held captive by the state. A noise demo breaks the isolation and alienation of the cells our enemies create, but it does not have to stop at that.

Prison has a long history within capital, being one of the most archaic forms of prolonged torture and punishment. It has been used to kill some slowly and torture those unwanted – delinquents to the reigning order – who have no need of fitting within the predetermined mold of society.

Prison is used not only as an institution, but a whole apparatus, constructed externally from outside of the prison walls. Which our enemies by way of defining our everyday life as a prison, manifest themselves in many places, with banks that finance prison development (like Wells Fargo, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Bank of the West, and Barclays), companies that are contracted for the development of prisons (like Bergelectric Corporation, SASCO Electric, Engineered Control Systems, MacDonald Miller Facility SLTNS and Kane MFG Corp.), investors in prison development (like Barclays Intl. and Merrlin Lynch) to the police and guards who hide behind their badges and the power of the state.

Solidarity is not only an expression by way of our own revolutionary poetry which is defined by a developing anarchist analysis, but as an expression of actions put into practice within the social war daily. That is why we propose to others who have a certain reciprocal understanding of the prison world and the conditions it creates to remember this day, to mark it on their calendars. To locate points of attack. To not limit ourselves to just a noise demo, but proliferating actions autonomously from one another. That break the mundane positions we lock ourselves into by our own internalization.

To all our comrades known and we have yet to know. Just because we have not met, does not mean we do not act in affinity with one another. Our struggle continues not only on the outside, but on the inside as well. Prison is not an end, but a continuation. Through individual and collective moments of revolt, by the methods one finds possible. Like fire our rage must spread.

Against prison, and the world that maintains them.

For the social war.

In solidarity with those currently imprisoned.

Bristol Anarchist Black Cross Presents

A Winter Warmer

The Festive period is a time of celebration, of getting together with friends and loved ones. As the days get shorter and the nights grow colder we begin to appreciate the comfort of those around us more. People in the prison system face the harsh reality of spending winter alone, away from those closest to them.

We invite you to join us for an evening of food & entertainment to celebrate what we have, and to write letters to prisoners, to show them that they have not been forgotten. We will be serving festive vegan food with mulled wine & cider along with some acoustic music and good company!

Suggested Donation £3.50 (Dinner & Dessert) from 6:30PM

Sunday 8th December
Kebele Social Centre

A protest has been called in support of Kevan Thakrar at 2pm on Sunday 3rd November outside Strangeways Prison – HMP Manchester [1 Southall Street, Manchester, M60 9AH].

Kevan was moved to HMP Manchester in the last few months, a move he hoped would be a way out of the CSC regime. Unfortunately the nightmare has continued in the Speciailist Intervention Unit at HMP Manchester, another equally nasty segregation unit. His mental and physical state are not good at the moment. Please read here for his account from inside there. And CSC1 and CSC2 for further information about the CSC regime in which he has been held.

From Warrior Publications: On October 17th, 2013 the KKKanadian Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) moved in on the anti-shale gas protest near Elsipogtog First Nation after some individuals at the site issued death threats, brandished weapons and forcibly confined security guards in a compound holding vehicles belonging to a Houston-based energy company, according to the force’s superintendent of national Aboriginal policing.

The RCMP has faced criticism from First Nations leaders across the country over last Thursday’s raid last which led to 40 arrests, the seizure of three rifles and improvised explosive devices and intense clashes between Elsipogtog residents and RCMP officers. Read the full article here.

Video from a Mi’kmaq warrior here.

From Reclaimturtleisland.com

Update: If you want to write to the jailed Warriors, their addresses are at the bottom of this post.

Call the Ombudsman & Demand Humane Treatment!!

Write: P. O. Box 6000
548 York Street
Fredericton, NB
E3B 5H1, Kanada

Donate to the Warrior’s Defense Fund

Mi’kmaq Warriors who were jailed after the brutal raid by RCMP at the #MikmaqBlockade near #Elsipogtog on Thurs Oct 17^th, 2013 faced continued abuse within the prison system. 4 warriors remain in jail, 2 have been granted bail. Upon detention, Mi’kmaq Warriors endured physical assault on behalf of Correctional staff. Call the Ombudsman, file a complaint and demand:

• Access to the phone, including to legal representation
• Access to blankets, bedding
• Access to basic hygienic needs, such as toilet paper , toothpaste, toothbrushes, showers
• Adequate food provisions
• Access to Medical Care
• End use of solitary confinement

The remaining Warriors behind bars are: Aaron Francis, James Pictou, Coady Stevens and Germain Breault. File a complaint with the Provincial Ombudsman and demand justice for the those Warriors behind bars as all of the above demands had been denied to and experienced by the Warriors who were just released.

Tell the Ombudsman that Land Defenders must be treated with respect and basic human dignity.

The Prison Injustice System is part of the larger project of colonization, whereas Indigenous peoples are disproportionately incarcerated, and Federally over-represented in the prison system. This is part of a systemic issue of mistreatment of Indigenous peoples, and a direct assault on Indigenous Land Defenders asserting their Inherent and Treaty Rights & Title on unceded traditional territories. Mi’kmaq Warriors were some of 40 people arrested at the Oct 17^th RCMP raid of an anti-shale gas blockade wherein local Indigenous and non-Native allies seized SWN – a Houston-based company’s – equipment. The blockade lasted 19 days – costing SWN over $1 million – effectively protecting the lands, waters and future generations from the dangers of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. There has been no consultation with or Free Prior Informed Consent from the local Indigenous communities who hold title to the land by inherent and treaty rights.

Write: Coady Stevens   /   Aaron Francis   /   Germain (Junior) Beault   /   James Pictou

S.R.C.C
435 Lino Rd
Shediac, NB
E4P 0H6
Kanada

More info here.

From Jock Palfreeman:

Jock Palfreeman, a young Australian anti-fascist currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for defending 2 young Roma lads being brutally attacked by fascist thugs, was attacked along with a group of his fellow prisoners on October 17. Here is a statement released by him:

On the Bulgarian Prisoners’ Rehabilitation Association’s blog I have up until now not written much if anything about myself in an attempt to keep the Association’s blog neutral and equal for all issues and prisoners in Bulgaria and specifically Sofia Central Prison. However, I have done this at the expense of not reporting the prison’s
attacks against myself for my unionism and solidarity with other prisoners, in an attempt to reform the corrupt prison administration, however on Thursday 17th of October an incident occurred involving myself that must be published.

At 8.30am a guard was counting prisoners for roll call, he quickly entered a cell and demanded that all 11 occupants exit the cell into the cold corridor, but before 10 of them could react he quickly left the cell and locked the door (the speed in which he left and locked the door made it evident that the guard was looking provocation). I Jock Palfreeman was not asleep but the guard did not see me as I had just exited the toilet and I was standing behind him in the guard’s blind spot, the guard swore at the 10 prisoners and said “now you’re going to see what will happen to you”. However when the guard locked the cell door, I immediately banged on the door as it was getting close to when I had to go to my university studies at 9am. One of the guards shouted “you’re too late for roll call”, I replied “I’m not too late I have been up since 7am, you just didn’t see me as I just left the toilet, I was standing behind you”, the guard from the previous shift told me that he would open the door for me, but the guards started arguing with each other, one wanted to open the door, the other wouldn’t let him. The guards left the block at about 8.45am. I sat down and waited to be let out to go to the study room, but at about 8.50am 50 guards rushed into the cell, took all of us out of the cell, 11 people, all of whom had not been in bed since the argument with the guard at 8.45am. The guards took all of us into the corridor and started viciously beating all of us. They used their boots, batons and also punches with their fists, they also took us by the hair and rammed our heads against the wall, myself included. They lined us up against the wall and about 50 guards started beating everyone from behind. We were 3 Iranians, 6 Iraqis, 1 Sudanese and myself – Jock Palfreeman – citizen of Sofia Central Prison. The guards were comprised of two shifts, from the days of the 16th and the 17th There were 2 commanding officers and 2 sub-commanding officers and the rest were normal prisoner guards.

During the attack I was shouting “this is a crime” and other prisoners were shouting “Why?”, because they did not speak Bulgarian, all they could say was “Why?”. After the attack had finished, I started to explain to the commanding officer that I didn’t have anything to do with any problem, the guard making the roll call had simply not seen me and that after I explained the situation to him he had refused to re-open the cell door again and that I had the right to go to the study room at 9am. As I was explaining this, the same guard from the roll call, burst through the other guards, grabbed my shoulder from behind and started hitting me in the stomach and upper body. After this individual guard had finished beating me the commanding officer started threatening us, he said “I
don’t care about the human rights organisations, I don’t care about your embassies, this is Bulgaria and we will beat you when we want”, I started to argue with him and he shouted “Shut up or I’ll cut off your beard and shave your head”, this threat perplexed me as it seemed out of context for the violent environment the guards had just put us through. I was shocked into silence as the threat was just so random and although very illegal, somewhat comical.

We were put back in the cell and the guards left. At 9.05am a group of us went to the bars that divide the block’s corridor from the stairs that leave to the block’s
exit. Several prisoners wanted to go to the gym as it was their allocated time at 9am, others wanted to go to the Bulgarian language lessons also set at 9am, and I wanted to go to the study room for my own studies. But the same guard from the morning roll call refused to open the corridor gate and instead ran away. I believe that he thought that everyone was coming to him in a big group so as to seek revenge for his previous attack against 17th cell. The guard was an old guard but new in Sofia Central Prison and so as is typical in Bulgarian institutions, none of his superiors properly instructed him to the fact that at 9am many prisoners have to leave the block to go to their respective activities (which aren’t many so should not have been hard to have known). So the guard
upon seeing people gathering around the gate ran and called the commanding officer thinking that a group was assembling for revenge for the guards’ earlier attack. We could hear him on the phone downstairs telling the commanding officer that a large group of prisoners are at the gates and that he needed help.

About 5 minutes later (which is amazing reaction time considering it can take over 30 minutes for medical help) 30 guards came running up the stairs and they assembled outside the gate of 10th group. They told all the prisoners to go into their cells, which all the prisoners did, including myself. The guards then tried to open the gate but they soon found out they couldn’t. I looked out of my cell and saw that there was a pad lock on the inside of the gate that the guards couldn’t reach. They tried by force to open the gate by barging it, but the padlock wouldn’t break. I then realized that this was my only opportunity to call for external help. I took my prison phone card and went to the phone in the corridor about 2 metres from the gate where the guards were and I called a lawyer, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee and the Australian consulate. The guards started banging on the metal gate with metal rods, shouting and they also turned
on the block’s siren to try and drown out my conversation with the consul and the lawyer. I told them one by one “please come ASAP, the guards beat us at 8.45 and they’re coming again to beat us”. After I made my phone calls I returned to my cell at 9.11, we know the exact time due to the recorded phone calls.

What is also interesting is at this time the prison told all the lawyers to leave from  the lawyer consultation room at the other end of the prison then the prison
administration shut down the lawyer consultation room. The prison administration tried all they could to try and stop their crime from leaving the premises of the prison and the confines of the prison administration. It is also completely illegal to expel lawyers from the prison premises, even more so during working hours. The right for a prisoner to meet with his/her lawyer is non-negotiable and this was another extreme violation of prisoners’ rights.

A prisoner from prisoner maintenance Budimir Kujovic came and cut the lock off the gate at about 9.15am and the guards ran into the empty corridor as if they were charging down for a rugby ball despite the total lack of aggression from the behalf of prisoners. They locked all the cell doors and entered 17th cell, my cell. They again started beating everyone with batons, punches, kicks and ramming heads against walls. After they stopped beating us I asked the sub-commander “why have you come back to this cell? Why are you angry with us specifically?” the sub-commander replied “you (collective ‘you’) have made us come back twice today”, I said “we didn’t make you come one time, people wanted to go to their work and the gym and that guard called you here”.

Despite the beatings I was completely calm as were the other 10 prisoners. They
handcuffed us all and they said “ok now we will start the search for telephones”. 5 minutes into the search I was taken out of the block and put into a temporary holding cell on the other side of the prison. I asked the arresting officer “why have you restrained me in handcuffs?” he replied “we (the guards) have been sick of your group for over two months now”, meaning that the problem wasn’t with me individually but rather the guards were trying to make a collective punishment on the entire group.

A normal search of a cell would take about 45 minutes, however they searched the cell for about 3 hours and confiscated only an undocumented hotplate for cooking and furniture. No mobile phone was found and the guards went crazy that not a single mobile could be found, this is as they are all acutely aware of the problem of corruption within the prison administration and therefore presume that every prisoner has a mobile. The same guard who had provoked the two incidents then came to me in the temporary holding cell and tried to intimidate me to sign as a witness for the search in 17th cell that had been carried out without me, I flatly refused and explained that I would not be
a witness for something that I didn’t in fact witness.

With nothing illegal found in the cell, the guards then tried threatening other
prisoners to testify against me, but out of about 100 prisoners not a single one would lie, all of them stuck to the truth as they saw and heard it. I was kept in the
temporary holding cell (which can be said to be less then comfortable) all day, but allowed visits from the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, a lawyer and the Honorary Consul of Australia. At 4.30pm I was returned without explanation to 10th group, but needless to say all my personal belongings had been thrown around, destroyed or confiscated. The prison administration wanted to put me in isolation, but could not find legal grounds to do this especially as my lawyer was present. So they took the administrative decision to move me from my old cell to a different cell, in a petty attempt to increase my discomfort, however for those of you who know me personally, you know I love camping!

An ‘investigation’ was carried out and concluded by the prison administration but has yet to be revealed, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee have conducted their own investigation as well as the Ombudsman’s office of Bulgaria. The matter has been referred to the regional prosecutors office, but experience tells us not to expect anything when it comes to the Bulgarian state investigating itself. The instigating guard was not moved from the block and on Monday the 21st of October he started threatening prisoners to not testify against him; however on the 25th of October he was moved to another place within the prison to separate him from his victims.

This is another case of unacceptable violence against the human rights of prisoners in Bulgaria, the commanding officers should be sanctioned, failing this the Association asks for the resignation of the Director Peter Krestev, so that law might prevail within Bulgarian prisons!

Jock Palfreeman
Chairman Bulgarian Prisoners’ Rehabilitation Association

The Prison system’s treatment of Kevan Thakrar, who has been kept in almost total solitary confinement for more than 5 years, has now become a straight forward and systematic attempt to destroy him completely, and in a social and political climate increasingly intolerant of and hostile to prisoners’ human rights the implications of his treatment for the imprisoned generally are deeply disturbing. The fragrant and open contempt expressed by the Tory Home Secretary Teresa May and Justice Minister Chris Grayling for the Human Rights Act and the ability of Prisoners to gain access to the courts to defend their human rights finds brutal expression in the treatment of Prisoners like Kevan Thakrar who are pushed to the very edge of existence because of their determination to question and legitimately challenge the worst excesses of the prison system. In the totalitarian world of prison those who fight back are subjected to the most de-humanising and murderous treatment imaginable.

Imprisoned in 2007 for a crime he has consistently protested his innocence of, Kevan Thakrar, an intelligent, articulate, and determinedly litigious prisoner, was always inevitably going to be targeted by the prison system as a ‘trouble maker’ and a ‘difficult’ prisoner; his mixed race heritage would soon provide that targeting with an edge of racism.

In 2008 while on remand in Woodhill Prison in Milton Keynes, Kevan provoked the wrath of prison staff by repeatedly questioning their abuse of power on both his own behalf and that of other prisoners. On the 31^st May 2008 a gang of prison officers decided to teach him a very direct and painful lesson in unquestionable compliance to their power, and beat him up in his cell. The incident, apart from the physical injuries, would leave him with the much more permanent mental scar of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Following the assault he immediately complained to the Thames Valley Police, who quite simply refused to investigate his complaint. The official attitude of disinterest and dismissal would characterise the response of both the senior staff at Woodhill prison and the Prisons and Probation Service Ombudsman to Kevan’s complaint about being assaulted, until he pursued it as far as the Parliamentary Ombudsman, who, focussing on the behaviour of the Prisons and Probation Service Ombudsman in relation to Kevan’s complaint concluded it amounted to ‘maladministration’ and an ‘injustice’ to Kevan. The behaviour of the prison officers at Woodhill, however, went uninvestigated and unpunished.  Kevan on the other hand was ‘ghosted’ around the prison system for a while before being moved to HMP Frankland prison in 2010.  Frankland, a maximum security prison near Durham, had long had a reputation for staff racism and violence, and predictably Kevan would represent an absolute focus and target for their hatred and violence. It is probable that Kevan was deliberately sent there for exactly that reason.

Soon after his arrival at Frankland, Kevan was indeed subjected to racist abuse, which he confronted and complained about repeatedly.  As at Woodhill, a gang of prison officers decided that more direct and painful methods were required to condition him into silent conformity, and so they entered his cell with such an intention, as they had done countless times before with ‘difficult’ prisoners. This time, however, Kevan fought back. Re-enforcements were summoned and he was ‘restrained’, i.e. brutally beaten. He was ‘ghosted’ out by the Governor to HMP Wakefield where he was starved and denied medical attention having to make do with a doctors peering through the bars of his cell as an examination. He was held in squalor in the ‘ice box’. An isolation cell with a stone floor and a broken window for two weeks before being brought up before a review panel. Kevan relayed his story of torture to this panel regardless of the threats from the officers in the corridors on the way to the hearing. He was ‘ghosted’ out the next day to Woodhill Prison CSC.

He was then prosecuted for seriously assaulting the three prison officers who had initially entered his cell. At his subsequent trial at Newcastle Crown Court during October/November 2011 Kevan pleaded not guilty on the grounds that his response to the prison officers entering his cell at Frankland with obviously violent intention and purpose was conditioned by what had taken place at Woodhill, the cause of his PTSD. During the trial a Psychiatrist originally hired by the prosecution dramatically changed sides and supported Kevan’s PTSD defence. He was then acquitted by the jury, to the fury of the Prison Officers Association who initially threatened a private prosecution against Kevan before realising it might again reveal the violent and racist behaviour of its members at Frankland, and so no doubt decided to leave it to their members at the sharp edge of prison repression to extract a more personal revenge.

Despite the not guilty verdict and medical evidence that his Psychological condition required the proper treatment as opposed to more brutality and violent repression, after his trial Kevan was returned to the brutal control unit, or ‘Close Supervision Centre’ (CSC), at Woodhill prison, the place of his initial beating up and where staff attitudes towards him were sure to be malevolent in the extreme.

Created in 1998, the so-called ‘Close Supervision Centres’ explicitly defined their purpose: to ‘manage’ the most ‘disruptive’ and ‘difficult’ prisoners in an extremely ‘controlled environment’. In reality their intention was to be an overt weapon of punishment based behaviour modification based on a crude Pavlovian system of ‘rewards and punishments’ enforced by endemic staff violence and brutality. The necessary legitimacy for the CSC’s is provided by prison system employed and corrupt behavioural psychologists, who in fact rarely ever visit the CSC’s, even to assess the condition of the disproportionate number of seriously mentally ill prisoners sent there; they are employed simply to provide a cover of official legitimacy for the systematic abuse of human rights carried out against prisoners confined to the CSC’s. Kevan described his psychological condition at the time he arrived in Woodhill Prison CSC: ‘From all the abuse I have suffered from prison staff I now have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, resulting in severe anxiety, panic attacks, flash backs, nightmares and constant fear. I have gone through such bad spells that I have been unable to leave my bed for days. At the Woodhill CSC the psychological torture is mentally unbearable and worse than the physical kind. Orders are barked and failure to jump high enough leads to further abuse and often physical assaults. The behaviour modification skills the ex-army staff employs were learned in Afghanistan and Iraq. I am told that I require further clinical treatment for my PTSD but none exists here. I therefore live an unbearable life, just waiting for the day I’m forced to end it, or the staff in prison to do it for me and cover it up by making it appear to be a suicide. Either way I am struggling and need some proper help and support. The worst thing is that I am innocent of the crime I was imprisoned for in the first place, for which I was sentenced to life with a judicial recommendation that I serve at least 35 years’.

Within the Woodhill CSC the various levels of supervision or their intensity (the basic level of ‘supervision’ involves the prisoner being held in clinical isolation, or solitary confinement, and denied all human contact, apart from that with a gang of prison officers clad in full riot gear whenever the prisoner’s cell is unlocked for his one hour of statutory exercise, weather permitting, inside an outdoor cage) are determined by how the prisoner responds to the austere and cruel regime operating in the CSC’s. Compliance is rewarded with a gradual and staged ‘progression’ to less punishing levels of ‘supervision’ and control, until one graduates eventually back to mainstream prison life. Defiance, on the other hand, is punished by a prolonged or permanent stay within the most repressive conditions. Kevan, predictably, has remained on a ‘basic regime’ since his arrival in the Woodhill CSC and it was never intended that he would ever be ‘progressed’ from it. Most of the prisoners who share this ‘level of supervision’ with Kevan within the CSC suffer with severe mental illness, confirmed by the Operational Manager of the Woodhill CSC, Claire Hodson, and the noise level (screaming, door banging wrecking of cells) fills and penetrates the self-enclosed unit 24 hours a day. Kevan endured this hellish place for over two years by mentally focussing on legal actions challenging and trying to hold the prison system legally accountable for his treatment and that of all prisoners held within the CSC’s.

Finally in June 2013 those managing the CSC tired of Kevan’s litigious war and informed him that he would be transferred out of the CSC system via an ordinary segregation unit at Manchester Prison. Instead he was moved to a hastily constructed ‘Specialist Intervention Unit’ at Manchester and subjected to an even worse regime of crude intimidation and open hatred. Manchester Prison, or Strangeways as it was known prior to the riot there in 1990, was always infamous for its staff brutality and the wide scale membership of its staff to far-right racist groups like the National Front and British National Party. In such a place and environment Kevan’s treatment became inhumane and his access to the courts to challenge it more restricted; right wing Justice Secretary Chris Grayling was preparing legislation to make it increasingly difficult for prisoners to be allowed legal aid to challenge human rights abuses through the courts, litigation that he described as ‘unnecessary’ and ‘frivolous’. In such a total vacuum of legal rights the behaviour of the prison system and those operating the ‘Specialist Intervention Unit’ at Manchester Prison is unaccountable and beyond the law, and prisoners like Kevan are left at its mercy.  In the face of such unrestrained cruelty and abuse Kevan’s psychological condition worsened and deteriorated, as would the strongest and most resilient human beings subjected to such unremitting repression and focussed brutality. His visitors, also subjected to the barely concealed contempt by those closely ‘supervising’ Kevan’s visits, say that he is barely hanging on psychologically and that his physical appearance has changed radically, suggesting neglect and a denial of basic facilities. His family and friends have written to MP’s, the Governor of Manchester Prison, The Justice Minister and the Inspectorate of Prisons, complaining about Kevan’s treatment and the obvious abuse of his human rights, and all have responded , if at all, with indifference and bureaucratic fobbing-off.

There are populations and groups in our society that are so marginalised and demonised, like prisoners, that they exist in a condition of civil death. The reality is that if the state is allowed to deny any group in society, even prisoners, basic human rights then the implications of the whole of that society are real and dangerous. Those who profess a commitment to justice and equality, even for the most marginalised and oppressed of groups, therefore should recognise the absolute importance of supporting the struggle of the prisoners like Kevan Thakrar and protesting on his behalf. Unless a line is drawn even within places of extreme repression that repression will eventually radiate outwards and reach everyone.

JOHN BOWDEN, HMP SHOTTS

OCTOBER 2013

For more information on Kev’s situation and ways to get in touch download: CSC Publication #2