This week on the show, we’re featuring an interview with 3 activists involved in the Emergency Committee for Rojava about recent developments in Rojava, escalation of violence from the Turkish state and the KDP party-led Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq, experiences of recent visits to the region, updates on the US relationship to aggressive regimes in the region and other topics.
Midweek Release on the December 8th Affair in France
If you didn’t hear, we released a podcast in the middle of last week with anarchists involved in anti-repression in France concerning the conspiracy case known as the December 8th Affair, where the French state surveilled and arrested a YPG veteran who goes by the name Libre Flot, as well as comrades and acquaintances on the accusation of building a terror network following the Movement for Black Lives uprisings of 2020.
Support for Palestinians
If you’re looking for a way to support folks in or from Palestine during the unprecedented and genocidal violence of the Israeli settler state one non-profit we’ve heard is good for distributing funds to people in need is Hebron International Network, which can be found at https://www.nonviolenceinternational.net/donate_hirn . Surely there are more out there, but be careful to vet where you send money due to precedent set by the US government of pursuing charges against nonprofits funding people in Palestine by claiming they’re supporting terrorists, even when they aren’t, as in the case of the Holy Land Five.
Michael Kimble
Anarchist prisoner Michael Kimble is fundraising right now to help cover legal costs as he attempts to gain freedom from prison after decades behind bars. You can find more info at his support site, anarchylive.noblogs.org and make donations via the link at fundly.com/help-michael-kimble-hire-a-new-attorney
Anarchists At War: Critical analysis of solidarity in context of war in Ukraine (RIA 2023)
The following is a presentation by anarchists from Ukraine and Belarus, alongside a question and answer portion with the audience, conducted in part via live translation services. This panel is facilitated in part by Nina of Anarchist Black Cross Dresden, and features presentations by Masha (Belarus) an anarchist in Warsaw, Nastya is a member of Solidarity Zone (not speaking on behalf of that group), Mira from Anarchist Black Cross Kyiv and Solidarity Collectives and Boris of Belarus Anarchist Black Cross.
The discussion, much like previous discussions by anarchists supporting anti-authoritarians joining the armed defense against the Russian invasion, was interrupted a number of times by pacifists or others who didn’t want a discussion of the complexities of joining the territorial defense forces to have space. Those interruptions were mostly not recorded as they happened off-mic, but you’ll hear the reactions to them. I felt like this audio was important to share here with the audience, particularly in spite of their silencing.
I recorded this at the 2023 St-Imier anarchist gathering on the 151st anniversary of the first anarchist and anti-authoritarian Workers International, following the purges by Marxists and Blanquists. Like the first one in 1872 hosted by the Jura Federation, this gathering was hosted in small village of St-Imier with a population of 4,000 being nearly doubled in size over the course of 5 days of workshops, concerts, discussions, food, film showings and tablings.
You can find reflections from some folks at crimethinc.com, alongside a link to recordings from the live, multi-lingual radio broadcast throughout the event and the website for the gathering where you’ll see lists of happenings from the week. Hopefully in the near future you’ll be able to find the recordings of the presentations that got recorded such as this one, some in video and some in audio.
I’ll be reflecting on some of this in an upcoming episode of the ItsGoingDown podcast while speaking with my friend and former co-host Scott Branson about how the bookfair here in Asheville went. Here’s an article (in French) about an Islamophobic scandal that occurred with members of the French Anarchist Federation (Kropotkin).
This week, we’re sharing an interview with Leo, an anarchist and eco-feminist from Russia who has temporary relocated to Europe after facing political repressions. Leo is a co-organizer with the Feminist Anti-War Resistance movement (Facebook in English, Telegram in Russian, LinkTr.Ee), a network of activists in and outside of Russia involved in struggling against the war in Ukraine and the Putin regime.
For the hour we speak about Russians facing repression for speaking out against the war inside the country, supporting anti-war initiatives such as sabotage and counter-recruitment, Imperialism and anti-Imperialism, forefronting the voices and experiences of Ukrainians experiencing the invasion, Ukrainians who’ve been forcibly re-settled into Russia and supporting Ukrainians resisting the Russian military within their own country, growing hetero-patriarchy within Russia and more.
We have quite a few interviews with Russian anarchists, antifascists, queer folks and ecological activists over the years of increasing repression by Putin’s regime at our website as well.
Initiatives that you can support with donations or with reposts (from Leo):
Вывожук (Vivozhuk) – grassroot initiative helping with emergency evacuation to Russian activists in danger and political prisoners https://t.me/vyvozhuk/48
Золотой Ключик (Golden Key) – grassroot intiative providing help to Russian anti-war activists who is in current danger https://zolotoykluchik.org/
Идите Лесом (Go by the forest) – initiative that helps russian citizens escape mobilization and conscription https://iditelesom.org/en/
International:
• Квiр Свiт (Queer Svit) – a black queer-run independent team of volunteers from all over the world helping LGBTQ+ and BAME (Black, Asian & Minority Ethnicity) people affected by the war in Ukraine and/or political repressions get to safety by providing consultations, purchasing tickets, finding free accommodation and providing humanitarian aid. https://queersvit.taplink.ws/
From Us:
Avtonom.Org is an online portal in a few languages (including English) with participation of various antifascist and anarchist groups from Russia (many now in diaspora) and it’s a great way to find information on prisoners in Russia (via Moscow ABC). [The content in Russian is pretty easily translated these days by copying the URL address, visiting google and pasting it into the google search bar. Then you just click the “translate this page” link.]
There is a Russian language podcast from Belarusian anarchists in exile in Warsaw that you may want to share with Russian-speaking folks called “Dogma. Uncomfortable talks about war”
“This podcast presents conversations with anarchists from across Europe about the war in Ukraine. We will discuss uncomfortable issues of unreflected coloniality, imperialist sentiments, lack of solidarity in the international anarchist movement, as well as the weakness of anarchist theory and practice in the face of the war.”
South Florida Anti-Repression Committee Launches Solidarity Campaign
In an unprecedented use of the FACE Act (a law intended to protect abortion access and abortion clinics), two pro-choice community activists in Florida have been charged under the FACE Act. In addition to the two charged, community members across Florida have been the target of FBI harassment that has included showing up at people’s places of employment, approaching family members, and even executing a “No Knock Warrant,” with armed agents raiding the home of a family with children in the home.
The FACE Act has been used to prosecute individuals who murdered abortion providers, physically threatened or attacked those seeking reproductive healthcare, barricaded abortion clinic entrances, and other anti-choice actions that have served to limit lawful access to abortion and other reproductive health care. Prosecuting two community activists for alleged graffiti is a shameful and disgusting use of the law.
In response, community members have formed the South Florida Anti-Repression Committee (SFLARC) and are launching a solidarity campaign and defense fundraiser. The funds raised will go to support those facing state repression, both those charged and those who experience harassment by law enforcement.
Call for International Solidarity with Jorge from Mexico City Anarchist Black Cross
Jorge “Yorch” Esquivel is a beloved compañero of the punk community, and a long-time participant of the Okupa Che Guevara. 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. He was framed up on drug charges in 2016 and Jorge was re-arrested on in a related case in 2022. CNA-DF is fundraising to cover his needs inside the cartel run prison he’s housed in as well as his legal fees. Go Fund Me
Atlanta Forest / Stop Cop City Fundraising
The struggle to support folks facing ridiculous domestic terrorism charges in Atlanta in a clear situation of state over-reach continues to escalate and they need support. One easy way to kick in is with a donation to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. You can learn more at ATLSolidarity.Org
Four Comrades in Greece
Finally, there is a fundraiser online to support four anarchists accused by the Greek state of participation in a terrorist group the state is calling “comrades”, a case which has stretched out for nearly 3 years now, and they’re still in pre-trial. Learn more about how to support them at Firefund.net/4pretrial
. … . ..
Featured Tracks:
Human Being by Erik Truffaz and Murcoff on Being Human Being
Под прицелом by JESUS SISTER from Место для всякого гадкого
This week, I spoke with Dr. Alexander Dunlap about a range of topics, such as Degrowth, green anarchism, the violence of extractivism, questions of the conception of renewable energy and resistance to ecocide. We covered a lot in this discussion and he’s written a lot on a range of related topics. Check out his ResearchGate where many pdfs are available or searching his name on AnarchistLibrary.Net. If there’s something at ResearchGate that isn’t available for download, you can email Alexander and request access.
First up, you’ll hear updates on the situation of Kevin “Rashid” Johnson of the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party by Shupavu wa Kirima, General Secretary of that formation and partner of Rashid. Rashid has been showing signs of prostate cancer for over a year and his medical visits and care have been clearly delayed and avoided by Virginia Department of Corrections staff and administration. There is a call for phone zaps on the VDOC, Warden McCoy & the rest of Sussex 1 prison to demand that Rashid get the treatment that he needs to stay alive. Updates can be found on the RIBPP instagram & twitter accounts, on Shupavu’s personal social media and RashidMod alongside his writings. You can contact the RIBPP about this effort via defendrashid@protonmail.com . Check the show notes for more links. [ 00:02:26 – 00:21:56 ]
Then, we’ll be featuring a few segments from recent months episodes of Bad News from the A-Radio Network:
You’ll hear an interview from the November 2022 episode by Frequenz-A with Lölja Nordic a leftist anarchist from the Feminist Anti-War Resistance from St. Petersburg, Russia, to speak about the international, feminist, anti-war movement against the Russian war in Ukraine. You can find that telegram channel at t.me/femagainstwar in Russian. [ 00:22:42 – 00:35:44 ]
We share an interview by A-Radio Berlin from October with ABC Belarus on the infotour they were conducting at the time. [ 00:36:08 – 00:49:06 ]
Finally, back to Frequenz-A with someone about the squat opened this fall in Slovenia known as PLAC, the acronym meaning square and standing for Ljubljana Participatory Autonomous Zone [ 00:49:24 – 01:02:40 ]
Ongoing Sabotage and Resistance to War in Russia and Ukraine
This week, we’re airing 2 interviews to do with the Russian war in Ukraine. Plus, Kevin Rashid Johnson talks about being denied medical care for his prostate cancer in the Virginia prison system.
First up, an interview with Assembly.Org.UA, a news site based out of Kharkiv about their journalism, disaster capitalism in the midst of pandemic and war, resistance to forced military conscription by the Ukrainian military and information about sabotage activity against the war taking place in Russia.
Then, you’ll hear words from BOAK, or the Anarchist Communist Combat Organization, a Russia-based group advocating sabotage and guerrilla struggle and the development of a social revolution against authoritarian regimes in eastern Europe. You’ll find a Russian version in audio and text of the BOAK conversation for dissemination very soon in the post for this show at our website. You can find a bunch of links in our show notes as well.
But first, you’ll hear Minister of Defense of the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party, Kevin Rashid Johnson, talk about his diagnosis of prostate cancer and his request for a call in to get the VADOC & his captors at Nottoway Correctional Institution in Virginia to give him the care he needs to survive. You can read his article at RashidMod.Com.
Phone Zap!
RIBPP & PSO are calling on all comrades and supporters to participate in a Phone/E-mail zap for Comrade Rashid. The following script can be used/personalized:
“My name is___. My friend Kevin Johnson, #1007485, housed at Nottoway, just learned from the prison doctor that he has prostate cancer. Tests he took last October and November indicated that diagnosis almost certainly, but no biopsy was performed until April and the results reported to him on July 1. Eleven of 13 biopsies are positive for prostate cancer.
“Cancer kills, and it can kill fast. A friend with prostate cancer says his treatment started immediately upon diagnosis in an effort to stop the cancer from spreading to his lymph nodes and on to his bones, where it would be fatal. The Virginia Department of Corrections has already failed in its responsibility to provide even minimal care. Mr. Johnson’s thousands of supporters are shocked to hear of these inexcusably long delays in diagnosis. The best possible treatment must begin now. No obstacle must be allowed to cause further delay.”
Who to call: Director of the Virginia Department of Corrections Harold W. Clarke VADOC P.O. Box 26963 Richmond, VA 23261 (804) 674-3000 docmail@vadoc.virginia.gov
Director of Health Services, VADOC Steve Herrick healthservicesinquiries@vadoc.virginia.gov (804) 887–8118
Warden Clint Davis Nottoway Correctional Center 2892 Schutt Rd. Burkeville, VA 23922 (434) 767-5543
Email the following officals:
harold.clarke@vadoc.virginia.gov
david.robinson@vadoc.virginia.gov
steve.herrick@vadoc.virginia.gov
clint.davis@vadoc.virginia.gov.
Sean’s Segment
[00:51:41 – end]
Sean Swain talks about the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in his usual manner.
Emre, Rimac, Xero and Anya, members of the Emergency Committee for Rojava join us on the show this week to talk about the escalation of violence and threats of invasion by Turkey into northeast Syria, updates from the region and their thoughts on how people in the West can help folks living under the Autonomous Administration of North East Syria. You can learn more about their work at DefendRojava.Org and find related interviews covering some of the subject matter discussed and past events on our website by searching for Rojava.
You can keep find Xero’s upcoming podcast, a member of the Channel Zero Network, at ManyWorldsPod.Github.io and you can find the latest of Anya’s co-authored pieces at The Nation (though it’s paywalled).
Greg Curry Hunger Strike
[00:01:07 – 00:10:35]
First up, we’ll be sharing a message recorded a week ago by PAPS Texas of incarcerated activist and survivor of the Lucasville Uprising in 1993, Greg Curry, about his hunger strike for the ODRC’s retaliation to his organizing behind bars at Toledo Correctional. Greg’s support is asking folks to contact ODRC officials as he’s entered over a month on hunger strike, had his communication meddled with and has been hospitalized.
Greg has asked folks to contact Chief Legal Counsel Stephen Gray by email (stephen.gray@odrc.state.oh.us) or by phone (614-752-1765) or Annette Chambers-Smith via email at annette.chambers-smith@odrc.state.oh.us
Suggested script:
“Hello, I am contacting you as a concerned friend of Greg Curry A213159. During Greg’s RIB hearing, Officer Sgt O’Brien, who witnessed and investigated Greg was also on the RIB committee which is against your policy RIB/5120-9-08. We are asking you to act on Greg’s appeal which has been formally submitted to the Chief Legal Counsel and return Greg to population so he can come off this hunger strike.”
You can find a recent interview with a member of Prison Abolition Prisoner Support on Greg’s case at 1 hour 2 minutes into the episode (mislabeled as September 3rd 2020) at NewDream.US. You can hear our 2016 interview with Greg Curry.
First up, you’ll hear Eric King, anarchist prisoner whose recent legal victory against the Federal Bureau of Prisons in the US was featured on our episodes from the week of March 27th, 2022. Last week, Eric was suddenly transferred out of Colorado toward United States Penitentiary Lee in the southwest portion of Virginia near Johnson City, TN. This is in spite of the fact that Eric should be held at a medium security facility according to BOP standards, unlike the high security and max prisoners at USP Lee. We caught up with him mid-transfer while at Grady County Jail in Oklahoma where many Federal prisoners stop during cross-country transfers. Eric and his supporters are afraid that he’ll be facing time in the SHU, or Secure Housing Unit at USP Lee for no reason other than punishment for his legal case and his supporters are putting together a call-in campaign to raise Eric’s visibility to keep him safe. There is information about this in our show notes at TheFinalStrawRadio.NoBlogs.Org and hopefully soon at https://SupportEricKing.Org .
This is followed by Sean Swain’s segment [00:23:53 – 00:32:42]
Maria of Anarchist Black Cross Kyiv
[00:33:06 – 01:07:52]
Then, you’ll hear Maria, a member of Anarchist Black Cross Kyiv, just returned from Ukraine and currently in Warsaw, Poland. We talk about ABC Kyiv, mutual aid and refugee support, border crossing, some information about anarchists participating in the territorial defense, NATO, non-violent as well as armed resistance to the Russian invasion, Russian forcibly moving Ukrainians from Mariupol into territories they control and other recent news stories. You can find more on how to support Operation Solidarity at linktr.ee/OperationSolidarity and the Resistance Committee of anarchists participating in armed resistance to the invasion at linktr.ee/TheBlackHeadquarter. You can also find a benefit for ABC resistance to the invasion at ABCMusicalSolidarity.Bandcamp.Com, written up at North Shore Counter-Info.
Mira, leftist punk from Kharkiv
[01:09:06 – 01:41:14]
Finally, you’ll hear a conversation recorded on Sunday, April 3rd with Mira, a member of the street punk band Bezlad and a show booker in the hardcore scene of Kharkiv near the Russian Border. Mira talks about his leaving of Kharkiv to L’viv to aid leftist and punk territorial defense fighters getting protective gear, his experience of the devastation of war on the city he loves and the breakdown of solidarity with antifascist and punk communities across the border between Russia & Ukraine since the war in the Donbass and intensifying today. We’ll play a song by Bezlad after this interview and will link them in the shownotes.
This week, we’re joined again by Aryanam, a member of the Federation of Anarchism Era (ASRAnarshism.Com), mostly made up of anarchists from Iran and Afghanistan. We mostly get updates about the situation of anarchists, atheists and feminists in Afghanistan under the Taliban or in an effort to escape as refugees, but we also get a few updates from Iran as well, including the regime’s founding of a national anarchist group called Iranarshism. At the time of this release, we’ve already got the transcript and a zine available for download, translation, reading and sharing.
liberal Afghanistan news source that’s decent: Amajnews.com
Tamana (Zaryabi Paryani) whose phone was taken by the Taliban leading to the arrest of 49 people, 25 women trying to leave Afghanistan who had forced confessions:
This week, we spoke with Petr, a Russian anarchist member of the group Autonomous Action, who is living in Europe right now. For the hour we speak about the invasion of Ukraine, a bit about the resistance inside of Russia to the war drums and the Putin regime, the dangers of a nuclear conflict, the impacts of increased sanctions and anarchists organizing across the borders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus against the war and against tyranny. You can learn more about what’s going on by visiting Avtonom.org and finding the English tab, or using tools like google translate to read articles from the Russian there.
To hear our past interviews, including histories of Antifascist organizing in Russia, queer organizing, state repression, ecological resistance and other topics, we’re linking them here as well: https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/category/russia/
First up, we’ll be sharing a message recorded a week ago by PAPS Texas of incarcerated activist and survivor of the Lucasville Uprising in 1993, Greg Curry, about his hunger strike for the ODRC’s retaliation to his organizing behind bars at Toledo Correctional. Greg’s support is asking folks to contact ODRC officials as he’s entered over a month on hunger strike, had his communication meddled with and has been hospitalized.
