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

On the Out – Zine about life after prison

A new publication has recently been produced by Bristol ABC. On the Out is a collection of writings by ex-prisoners and their supporters on life after prison.

Including pieces on social control through license conditions, tagging, the emotional affects of repression, how to support someone leaving prison and more. Click here to download: On The Out Zine

via Angola 3 News

This morning we lost without a doubt the biggest, bravest, and brashest personality in the political prisoner world.  It is with great sadness that we write with the news of Herman Wallace’s passing.

Herman never did anything half way.  He embraced his many quests and adventures in life with a tenacious gusto and fearless determination that will absolutely never be rivaled.  He was exceptionally loyal and loving to those he considered friends, and always went out of his way to stand up for those causes and individuals in need of a strong voice or fierce advocate, no matter the consequences.

Anyone lucky enough to have spent any time with Herman knows that his indomitable spirit will live on through his work and the example he left behind.  May each of us aspire to be as dedicated to something as Herman was to life, and to justice.

Below is a short obituary/press statement for those who didn’t know him well in case you wish to circulate something. Tributes from those who were closest to Herman and more information on how to help preserve his legacy by keeping his struggle alive will soon follow.
Read More

via The Guardian

Herman Wallace, a member of the so-called ‘Angola Three’ who has just days to live, is at the centre of unseemly legal tussle

A gruesome legal battle over the fate of a dying man is being played out at the Hunt correctional center in St Gabriel, Louisiana, as state authorities refuse to release a former member of the Black Panther movement despite a federal court ordering they do so.

Herman Wallace, who was held for more than 40 years in solitary confinement in Louisiana jails, is still being confined inside the prison although Judge Brian Jackson ordered on Tuesday that he be immediately released. Wallace, 71, is suffering from lung cancer and is believed to have just days to live.

An ambulance is standing by outside the prison and lawyers for Wallace are also present. But the district attorney for East Baton Rouge has challenged the federal court order, and in the light of the challenge the Louisiana department of corrections is refusing to set the prisoner free.

The unseemly tussle over the fate of a dying man is wholly in keeping with the history of Wallace’s penal history up to this point. A member of the so-called Angola Three, he was convicted in 1974 for killing prison guard Brent Miller in Angola jail – but has always professed his innocence.

Wallace was then kept for 41 years in isolation, as has been his co-defendant and fellow Angola Three member Albert Woodfox.

Amnesty International USA has added its leverage to the push to have Wallace release, aware that he has probably only hours or days to live.

In a statement, its executive director Steven Hawkins said: “No ruling can erase the cruel, inhuman and degrading prison conditions he endured for more than 41 years – confined to a tiny cell for 23 hours a day. Judge Jackson’s decision to overturn Herman Wallace’s conviction underscores Amnesty’s long-held concerns about the original legal process that resulted in his imprisonment.

“The state must act immediately to release Wallace and remove Albert Woodfox from more than four decades of solitary confinement.”

Wallace’s legal team pleaded with the department of corrections to honour the judge’s order and release him immediately “so that he can spend his final days as a free man.”

Judge Jackson’s order, issued in a federal district court in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was based upon the unconstitutional nature of Wallace’s original 1972 grand jury that handed down the charges against him. The grand jury was convened as an all-male panel – in keeping with the contemporary spirit of Louisiana where no grand jury had ever included a woman up until that time.

Wallace’s virulent cancer was diagnosed in June after it had already reached a stage that was too advanced to treat. He blames his terminal condition on the fact that he was not given proper medical supervision during his prolonged solitary confinement.

In his most recent recorded comments, published for the first time by the Guardian , he told the film-maker Angad Bhalla: “I’m going through hell … While my mind is strong, my body fell victim.”

via Move Marie

October 25th has been set as the International Day of Action to Move Marie. People from across the world will be joining together to take action to get Marie moved out of FMC Carswell.

• Organize a phone tree with your friends and family and call the BOP on October 21st
• Send a letter to the BOP on or before October 25th
• Organize an event such as a film screening, benefit show, teach-in,
  art show, letter writing party, or other creative action

Read More

via Jerry Resists

WHAT: Anti-fascist demonstration against murder of rapper Pavlos Fyssas (Killah P) by fascist Golden Dawn party!WHEN: Saturday 21st September at 13:00
WHERE: The Fountains, Bristol
WHY: To show solidarity with the family of Pavlos Fyssas and Greek anti-fascists!
WHO: Organised by Real Democracy Bristol

via Real Democracy Bristol

The Golden Dawn gang assassinates antifascist activist in Greece

On September 18th, a 34-year-old man was attacked in the early hours of Wednesday by a Neonazi (member of Golden Dawn) and subsequently stabbed in Piraeus. The victim is Pavlos Fyssas (who went by the stage name of Killah P.), a hip-hopper involved in the antifascist scene, organising anti-racist concerts and other social activities in the area where he lived in Athens. He was stabbed in the chest outside a café at 60 Tsaldari Avenue in the Keratsini district of Piraeus, shortly after midnight by a group of Neonazis dressed in black and camouflage uniforms. The name of the 45-year murderer of Fyssas appears to be Giorgos Roupakias.

Express your solidarity to the victims of Golden Dawn and spread the news about the murder of antifascist Pavlos last night in Athens, Greece.

This is a fight we all need to give. First they come for the “other”, then for your neighbour and in the end they come for you!

Stand up for the others, stand up for yourself. Don’t stay inactive. Act now before it’s too late! Get involved. Spread the news and raise awareness.

An internationalist antifascist movement is necessary. A movement that understands fascism for what it is– the long arm of the system and will fight it together with its root cause before it is too late.

We condemn the actions of Golden Dawn. Let’s raise our voices against fascism! We must beat fascism and Nazism in the whole Europe!

 Saturday, 21st September, 13.00, Fountains, Bristol

RIP Killah P! Our brother will never be forgotten!

Real Democracy Bristol