This week, we’re featuring two conversations relating to the so-called Green Border in Podlaskie region of eastern Poland, on the Belarus border concerning topics of migration, repression, militarization, nationalism and solidarity among residents and people on the move into Fortress Europe.
First up, you’ll hear Alex, a member of the feminist anti-repression group, Szpila Collective, about the H5Poland case of 5 activists facing charges for aiding people in need in what could be a landmark case in Poland and Europe. More at Szpila.BlackBlogs.Org or on Mastodon: @Szpila@kolektiva.social [ 00:01:34 – 00:15:08]
Then, you’ll find a chat with an anarchist who grew up in this border region and returned in adulthood and whose affinity group does solidarity with people on the move through the Białowieża forest. [00:19:58 – 01:32:18]
This week, we’re sharing words from anarchist, author, organizer and former participant in the Black Panther and Black Liberation Army, Ashanti Omowali Alston, in the key note address at the 2024 Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair in so-called Asheville. The presentation was entitled “Solidarity, Spirituality and Liberatory Promise on a Turtle’s Back”. You can support Ashanti’s GoFundMe here.
Trusting in solidarity, the mysterium of spirituality, and a promise from god knows where—a “where” that at this historical moment, might just be Palestine. What does it mean TO BE in the midst of all this right now? RIGHT NOW!
M. Ashanti Alston is a revolutionary Black nationalist, anarchist, abolitionist, speaker, writer, elder motivator. A long-time member of The Jericho Movement, he is presently an advisory board member of the National Jericho Movement and co-founding board member of the Center for Grassroots Organizing (Vermont land project). He continues giving talks and writing inspirational analyses concerning the dismantling of the myriad oppressive regimes in which we find ourselves enmeshed.
Ashanti is one of the few former members of the Black Panther Party who identifies as an anarchist in the tradition of ancestor Kwesi Balagoon (BPP & BLA). He developed abolitionist politics in the early years of Critical Resistance. He has helped save the life of a baby pig with animal liberationists, learned depth-queer politics from being challenged, and wants to see non-ego eldership partaking through sincerely loving the younger generations who truly want to ‘CARRY IT ON.”
Prisoners have been filing grievances at Granville CI, a prison in Butner, North Carolina, to no avail complaining about a lack of the legally mandated showers and access to the exercise yard, and are asking for phone calls and emails to demand a resumption of serving these basic needs despite any claims of understaffing. If you check our show notes, you can find a call or email script and the numbers and addresses to direct your words at.
By Joseph ”Shine White” Stewart
How many prisoners must die and how long must we languish in solitary confinement subjected to these harsh and unconstitutional living conditions before there is a public outcry?
The deficiencies in the day-to-day operations of this prison have been longstanding/persistent and well documented. In the past I’ve reported on the culture of abuse, negligence and unprofessionalism here at Granville Correctional.
Over the past couple of months the conditions have only worsened. Those of us who are assigned to Restrictive Housing for Control Purposes (RHCP) are being deprived of showers, recreation, subjected to inadequate health care and other unconstitutional treatment.
Pursuant to Chapter C subsection .1205(A) of the NCDAC policy and procedure manual, prisoners assigned to RHCP will have the opportunity to shower a least three times a week.
Lately prison staff have been using the excuse that there is not enough staff to give us showers or even saying that they are too tired to do showers. As always I must maintain my integrity and be honest when reporting on these conditions. The laziness and neglect I am mentioning here doesn’t apply to all the staff. Sergeant Jones, the second shift sergeant here in C-1 building, makes sure that we are afforded the opportunity to shower. However when it’s not her shift or if she’s not scheduled to work we’re likely not to receive showers if there is a shortage of staff.
Despite being demoted to a less restrictive solitary confinement setting I’ve yet to be offered to exercise outside.
Pursuant to Chapter C section .1206 of NCDAC policy and process manual, prisoners assigned to RHCP shall he allowed one hour per day, five days per week to exercise outside of the cell, moreover the outdoor exercise cages should be used as the primary exercise area. During the exercise periods we are to be allowed to exercise unrestrained.
As when it is time for us to take showers the same excuse is used to deprive us of any recreational time. They don’t have enough staff. As mentioned I haven’t been afforded outside exercise for almost three years now despite being demoted to a lower security level.
Recreation here in C-1 building consists of us being placed in full restraints and allowed to pace up and down the tier for one hour. Lastly, custody staff are having any medical appointments cancelled claiming there isn’t enough staff to escort is to the nurse’s station. This includes mental health appointments as well.
Of course the foregoing isn’t all that needs to be addressed, however these are the issues that my peers and I find to be the most important, thus we entreat that the reader call and demand redress for the aforementioned issues.
Warden James Williams and unit manager Eldridge Walker are responsible for promulgating the aforementioned policies and procedures and for the allowance of the aforementioned practices/customs, therefore they are the individuals who should be held accountable. Please contact these officials repeatedly:
Granville Correctional Institution warden, James Williams – 919-575-3070 (call main line and ask for warden’s office)
Granville CI C-1 Unit Manager Eldridge Walker- 919-575-3070 (call main line and ask to be connected to Unit Manager Eldridge Walker)
NCDAC Dep. Director of Rehabilitation/Correctional Services Maggie Brewer – maggie.brewer@dac.nc.gov – 919-733-2126 (call main line and ask to be connected to Brewer’s office)
“I am (calling/emailing) to demand that prisoners being held in solitary confinement in the C-1 building be afforded the opportunity to shower and exercise outside according to NCDAC’s policies and procedures and pursuant to their U.S. Constitutional rights.
I am demanding that an internal investigation be conducted at the Granville Correctional concerning the grievances being made by prisoners there and I demand warden James Williams and C-1 unit manager he held accountable for the deliberate indifference they have demonstrated.”
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Featured Track:
Free Your Mind… And Your Ass Will Follow (instrumental) by Funkadellic from Free Your Mind… And Your Ass Will Follow
Our chat with Louis, an anarchist emergency room nurse who has just returned from a second tour doing healthcare work in Gaza and is about to leave again. During this difficult conversation, we talk about medical conditions that he encountered in Gaza, what aid is getting in and how it’s being distributed, health infrastructure and how this relates to his prior mutual aid and anti-border work in the so-called USA. You can find a prior interview with Louis from Living and Fighting blog.
The Mediterranean Sea is Europe’s deadliest border. For years, non-state actors like Sea-Watch and other NGO’s have played a part in humanitarian search-and-rescue operations. In spite of legal repression and the technical challenges of maintaining a “civil fleet”, anarchists, anti-fascists, and other activists try to stop needless death at sea.
Hear a report back from a wayward American yacht-punk who spent the summer doing rotations on two different SAR (Search And Rescue) ships. We’ll discuss the general political situation, the reality of everyday operations and how you could get involved.
One case Quoyle mentioned was the Luventa Crew in Italy, they were acquitted of all charges in April of 2024!
For more audios from ACABookfair 2023, check out the site. To hear a 2023 interview we conducted with an activist with Maldusa on a similar topic, you can find it at our website.
We also have this 2016 interview by A-Radio Berlin that we aired in 2016 about conditions a No Border Camp in Greece. And here’s one we conducted with an immigrant from Africa and a supporter in Germany in 2016. Also, check out this podcast called The Civil Fleet with voices of others involved in solidarity in the Mediterranean route.
This week we’re sharing audio from Dr. Mohammed Bamyeh’s presentation entitled “The No-State Solution” as recorded at the 2024 Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair in so-called Asheville, NC. Dr. Bamyeh is a Palestinian sociologist and professor at Pitt and the author of multiple books. There is a youtube video of this chat available on the Firestorm Books channel. Shuli Branson’s current podcast is The Breakup Theory and she also authored a zine by the same title as this presentation.
A prior presentation of this title appeared at The Victoria Anarchist Bookfair, a discussion between Dr. Bamyeh and Dr. Uri Gordon. You can find a video or a zine of the dialogue.
Announcements
SCI Fayette hunger strike
According to incarcerated activists in SCI-Fayette in Luzerne Township, Pennsylvania, there are plans to initiate a peaceful hunger strike starting with breakfast on August 5th, 2024, to protest lack of out-of-cell time, locked down for laundry, commissary and evening recreation time during which they can contact family and friends. More on the details in our show notes to support their hunger strike demands.
The brothers at SCI-FAYETTE are planning a peaceful resistance 2 strike all the meals beginning the morning of 8/5/2024 because administration is continuing 2 limit our time out of the cell on the unit, as if we’re in a pandemic. This is the only facility n PADOC that are doing pandemic procedures. Continues to take from us. Creating problems & hostile environment. The men are tired of being locked down for commissary, laundry & now they’re restricting are evening recreation. For most inmates that’s the only time we can contact are family & friends. We want full day room recreation (no cohorts) on every housing unit 7:45-10-30am, 1:15-3:35pm & 5:00pm-8:30pm & more seats on the housing unit 2 accommodate the seating arrangements. We need their help on the outside to call #724-364-2200 & speak up 4 us.
Administration likes to keep matters like this in-house & hope we don’t have any outside support.
Please support us?
To hear about more ongoing and recent prisoner struggles and anti-repression news, check out the monthly column on ItsGoingDown.org entitled In Contempt.
Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners
August 23-30th is the Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners. To learn who is being supported, find propaganda and art and how to send your own updates, visit the website solidarity.international
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Featured Track:
Viva Tirado (part 1) by El Chicano from Viva Tirado
This week, we’re sharing our interview on the Balkan anarchist journal, Antipolitika which released it’s Nationalism issue last July. It’s now available via PM Press (USA) and Kersplebedeb (Canada) on Turtle Island, alongside the back issues. Our guest is Rey Katula (an editor of the journal and a co-host of the awesome antifascist podcast The Empire Never Ended) talks about the journal, about fascism, nations from an anarchist perspective and, surprising to some, nationalism as a project of socialist Yugoslavia..
To hear a past interview we aired (recorded by comrades at FrequenzA) an interview about issue #1 of Antipolitika with Rey from 2017, audio comes in at around [00:46:30]
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Support
If you want to support the show, for $3 or more a month at patreon.com/tfsr you can get early access to episodes like this one, or the recently released chat with outside supporters of Jailhouse Lawyers Speak’s 2024 Shut Em Down protests. Soon we’ll be releasing our chat with the editors of the recent Three Way Fight book on antifascism from PM Press & Kersplebedeb and another with members of Antifa International about the July 25th Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners.
We’d love to see an infusion of cash to be able to do some much-needed promotion of the show, like replenishing our stickers for distribution by radical publishers with their book orders, or even to be able to pay an artist for a new shirt design. If you don’t want to do the patreon but have some money to share we also have links for merch and donation points at tfsr.wtf/support
This week on The Final Straw, we’re sharing an interview we conducted in recognition of the upcoming celebration of June 11th International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason and other long term anarchist prisoners. This week you’ll hear Julie Herrada, a long time anarchist activist, comrade of Marius Mason and worker at the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan. Julie is joined by Matthew Hart, another longtime anarchist involved in labor organizing, historical research with the Dockstadter Mutual Aid Society and the Los Angeles Anarchist Black Cross chapter of the Federation. We speak about history, memory, prisoner support and continuing the struggle.
If you’d like to hear more about the history of June 11th and voices of anarchist prisoners and those who support them outside, we’ve taken the opportunity each year to have at least one show focusing on specific cases or concepts related to ongoing struggle and anti-repression work.
But first up, you’ll hear a comrade reading the 2024 call entitled No Separate Worlds and you’re hearing a conversation between anarchist historians and prisoner supporters about memory and the upcoming June 11th international day of soldiairty with marius mason and longterm anarchist prisoners. More info at June11.noblogs.org
First up, we spoke with Tala Nasser of the Palestinian prisoner human rights group, Al-Addameer which has offices in Jerusalem or Al-Quds, as well as in Ramallah. We speak about the report they released on Palestinian Prisoners day, April 17th, on the conditions of Palestinian prisoners, particularly since October 7th, 2023 including in Gaza since the invasion. More info on the group and their findings can be found at addameer.org
Then, we’ll hear a segment by our comrades at A-Radio Berlin speaking with Johan Eriksson, an anarchist game designer has recently published such an RPG called “Oceania 2084“, based on George Orwell’s novel “1984”. You can find more of about the game including a free austere pdf of the gameplay at jocher-symbolic-systems.itch.io , and you can hear more audios from A-Radio Berlin at aradio-berlin.org .
Sean Swain’s 2024 Presidential Run
For the sake of anyone in the office of Attorney General of Ohio if they’re listening: this segment is political satire. We feel it’s necessary to make this disclaimer as they referenced a spoof press conference for Sean as governor in exile of Ohio on the January 18th, 2015 radio segment in court filings to prove how dangerous Sean is, while actually just showing how stupid hierarchs are.
Midweek Release: Yaffa As
In case you missed mid-week release of our interview with Yaffa As, a queer and trans Palestinian poet, author, publisher and activist living in the diaspora about two recent collections they published as well as mutual aid and fundraising to get queer Palestinians out of range of Israeli genocide.
This week, you’ll hear our chat with Simón Sedillo, author of Weapons, Drugs & Money: Crime, Corruption, and Community Based Liberation in the U.S./Mexico Neoliberal Military Political Economy. Simón talks a little about his early days in media near the start of the Indymedia world, his documentary that became the news website El Enemigo Común (which translates to “the common enemy”) which covered grassroots, indigenous led movements in southern so-called Mexico, and about his book with a focus on intervention and integration from capitalist and military powers in the US, multinational banking and big pharma and the violence against and resilience of indigenous communities under that nation-state.
Check out the website https://www.weaponsdrugsandmoney.org/ for more info on how to order a copy, and the chapters are being posted and translated into castellano at https://elenemigocomun.net/ , where you can find two decades + of really interesting content. Simón suggests people follow Avispa Mídia https://avispa.org/ as a project following in the legacy of El Enemigo Común.
A big thanks to Mitchell Verter for the suggestion.
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Featured Track:
Get It Together (Buck Wild Instrumental) by Beastie Boys from Get It Together
SCI Rockview is a prison in central Pennsylvania where incarcerated comrades have been facing repression for demanding justice in the face of impunity by racist COs and following a year of prisoner deaths due to institutional toxicity and guard violence. We speak to an outside supporter about the situation at Rockview, the reactions of administration, inside / outside relationships and solidarity that have flared up. We hope that this conversation contributes to increased and thickened ties between folks on both sides of the walls.
This conversation was conducted via encrypted messages and recorded by a comrade Golem and Ash from the the MolotovNow! Podcast, so a big thanks is due to them.
Announcement
Jorge “Yorch” Esquivel
Jorge has now been held in prison for over a year without a trial, and urgently needs funds to cover legal fees and prison costs (food, water, phone calls, visits, administration fees, service costs, etc).
Jorge “Yorch” Esquivel is a beloved compañero of the punk community, and a long-time participant of the Okupa Che. He was arrested on December 8, 2022 by plainclothes police as he was leaving the campus of the Ciudad Universitaria (of the UNAM university) in Mexico City as part of a campaign of criminalization against the Okupa or squat.
BACKGROUND
On February 24, 2016, an operative was carried out in which plainclothes policemen detained him, “planting” drugs on him in order to fabricate crimes, and accusing him of drug trafficking, as part of a campaign of repression on the squatted auditorium Okupa Che in UNAM (still existing). The whole case was plagued with irregularities. He was transferred to Oaxaca and then to a maximum-security prison in Hermosillo as a strategy to hinder his legal defense by taking him far away from his support networks. Thanks to the solidarity and legal work, he was reclassified from the crime of drug dealing to simple possession of narcotics, and was released on bail in March 2016.
Even though he was no longer in prison, he was not out of danger. Constant threats and journalistic reports did not cease; the press even reported his death and accused him of participating in organized crime. Meanwhile, steps were being taken to frame him once again and re-arrest him for the same fabricated crime.
On December 8, 2022 he was arrested in exactly the same place – a few steps outside Ciudad Universitaria, where the Okupa is located, once again by plainclothes police – with the grounds for this illegal
detention being that the Attorney General’s Office appealed the decision to reclassify the crime.
The compañero’s health is fragile due to an extended hospitalization a couple years back and the toll the prison conditions have taken on him.
CURRENT SITUATION
Jorge is currently incarcerated in the Reclusorio Oriente prison in Mexico City. The legal process is still in the evidence stage. Several hearings have been postponed and Jorge’s process is being delayed and prolonged to keep him in what is called “preventative imprisonment” with no sentence, which is common for cases of political prisoners in Mexico.
Despite the fact that there is no evidence to keep him in prison, the strategy of the State is clearly to drag it out as long as possible, which is a tortuous level of uncertainty for all of us close to Jorge.
Thanks to the solidarity of individuals, collectives and networks, it has been possible to cover Jorge’s expenses inside the prison, which have been very high due to the corruption that reigns in Mexican prisons. We are raising funds to support his legal costs and basic needs to be able to survive in this unjust incarceration, and to re-join the community on the outside as soon as possible. We call upon the solidarity of our friends and compañerxs around the world to help us in supporting our compañero Yorch.
