James Sotros writes:

Yannis Serifis, 63 year old anti-authoritarian syndicalist, has been
imprisoned and charged as being a member of the armed struggle group
"November 17" and for the murder of CIA chief in Greece, Richard Welch in
1975 (after the fall of the dictatorship).

DaaaihLoong writes: "Update on Barrilee Bannister, #11309597, in Oregon's Coffee Creek Correctional Facility:

Although Norma Land, the Executive Assistant to the prison's superintendent, has insisted that Barrilee Bannister's change in job status (from full-time to part-time) has nothing to do with the fact that she reported a guard's sexual harassment, Bannister lost her job as visiting room orderly on 1 October.

When I spoke to Norma Land on 27 September, she at first said that one issue had nothing to do with the otehr. She then contradicted herself and said that she was not allowed to talk about cases which were under investigation. When I reminded her that I was calling about Bannister's job status and not the sexual harassment (which I had called about the week before), she became flustered and stated, "We're not talking about any of Ms. Bannister's issues right now."

I then asked if the change in job status was part of the investigation. She told me that she couldn't comment on that. She also would not say how long she thought the investigation would take.

Someone from Oregon also called. Norma Land asked her if Barrilee was asking people to call in and then proceeded to give her the same run-around.

On 27 September, Barrilee was confronted by Captain Bjerke that she was being overly dramatic and blowing things out of proportion. When Bannister asked for examples of such behavior, the captain didn't answer.

Please continue to call Superintendent Joan Palmateer's office at (503) 570-6412. Ask why Bannister's job was terminated despite the fact that she has been doing an excellent job and has been actively (and successfully) soliciting donations for the children's visiting room. She is also asking that callers ask Ms. Palmateer or her assistant Norma Land how many inmates have died in the six months that CCCF has been open (there have been quite a few)."

Nuclear Resister writes:

Arrested for Peace? News of anti-war arrests wanted!

The Nuclear Resister newsletter Nukeresister
reports news of all anti-war and anti-nuclear arrests in North America, and
many around the world. Since 1980, we also encourage international support
for the people jailed as a result of these actions.

We need your help to gather and report this news!

DaaaihLoong writes
"Below is a statement from Barrilee Bannister, currently incarcerated in Coffee Creek Correctional FAcility in Oregon. Bannister was one of 78 women transferred from Oregon to a private, [i] male [/i] prison in Arizona, where they were sexually harassed, abused and raped by male staff members. She and the others contacted the media and initiated a lawsuit against Corrections Corporation of America, resulting in their return to Oregon, an admission of guilt, a public apology and all lawyers' fees paid. A dozen of the offending guards also lost their jobs. Obviously, the Oregon Department of Corrections has not learned from CCA's blunder:

On Friday, Sept. 6, 2002, at approximately 7:05 am, correctional officer (CO) Bradly approached me while I was doing my laundry. I was wearing my red shorts, blue sweatshirt & white socks with shower shoes. CO Bradly stared at my chest for approximately 20 seconds until I asked him, "What are you looking at?" CO Bradly responded, "Go out to the corridor and help push meal carts." I said to him, "Sir, I'm doing my laundry. It's my day off. I cannot leave my laundry unattended nor can I go out to the corridor the way that I am dressed."

CO Bradly then stated, "Then go to your cell and put shoes & a bra on. Then go help."

hydrarchist writes
Horst Fantazzini, anarchist, robber, prison rebel, spent most of the last thirty years in prison. Last year he was eventually released into semi-liberty. On wednesday December 19th he was arrested, in the company of another anarchist, Carlo Tesseri, near a bank in Bologna and and charged with intent to commit robbery . Horst died of a heart attack in jail on December 24th. Carlo Tesseri remains incarcerated. Fantazzini was famous in Italy as a 'gentle robber' who eschewed violence against individuals. His time in prison intersected with the mass political unrest of the 1970s, during which he won reknown both for his refusal of the authoriatrian practices of the Red Brigades and his unrelenting resistance against the prison system. Enjoy.

"Interview with Horst Fanatazzini, a life in prison:
sentence completion date 2022

What is currently your legal situation and when do
you foressee yourself being able to get out of jail,
at least into semiliberty?

At the moment, my release should occur, more or less,
in 2022. In terms of typologocalical classification, I
think I've been filed in the category "dinosaurs and
tortoises". I think that beyond the freedom committees
of the anarchist milieu, the World Wildlife Fund
section on 'endangered species' should also take an
interest in me.....

hydrarchist writes "The following article was originally published on Counterpunch on September 7th.

Levelling and 9/11

On September 11, 1648, the Levellers submitted the Large Petition with 40,000 signatures to Parliament. The deed was decisive because it set in motion the terrible events that culminated four months later in the execution of Charles Stuart, King of England, and because the Levellers, the first popular democratic political party in European, if not world, history, announced their opposition to the enclosures of the commons, or the privatization of the English land.

It seems to be a pure coincidence that
the Large Petition and the attacks on the Pentagon and the Twin
Towers took place on the same day and month, though the former
was three and a half centuries earlier. The coincidence arises
like magic from the dull miasma of created amnesia. We have
forgotten the history of freedom and the commons. This is not
accidental either: the ruling class dumbs us down, and the dumbing
starts at the top.

"Anarchy Greece" anarchy writes:

Here is the English translation of a leaflet which was handed out to
tourists as they came off their planes at Larnaca airport last night. To
send wherever you like!

WELCOME TO CYPRUS!

Before you begin your holiday basking on the beaches of this
beautiful island, we invite you to read the following:

The Cypriot State, while calling itself democratic, tries in every way
to obstruct and prevent each and every kind of social struggle and the
very act of doubting the State itself.

At this moment anarchist comrade George Karakasian has been a hostage
in the hands of this State since 27/08/02. The only 'crime' our comrade
has committed is that he contested not only the existence of the State
but also its logic of passivity, wage slavery, or 'enclosure' within
the artificial needs required for the preservance and survival not only
of the Cypriot State but of every other State and authority in general.



Last April, a period characterised by the massive and continuous
massacre of the Palestinian people by the Zionist murderers, George
Karakasian could not remain passive. Ignoring the lifestyle that wants
people to stay closed within a personal deadloc in any way be 'judged'
by so-called 'bourgeois legality' - but because we want to show the
dirt, hypocrysy and everything else that the word 'justice', the candy
they hold in their mouths every day, stands for. So in order to to
destroy the illusions which the law serves to foster:

Charge (1): 'Causing serious physical injury to a police officer': If
the symbolic grasp (showing up the hateful the role of the police
present) of the hat of a cop who later talked in front of the cameras
can be called 'serious physical injury', then what can we call the
capturing of the comrade by these cops, his being dragged inside the
home of the Israeli ambassador and continually beaten all over his body
by five of them shouting at him 'fuck your anarchy'. They also injured
his ear by pulling his earring. The extent of his injuries was such that
he was taken to hospital. The democratic procedure did not stop there.
When George Karakasian returned to the hospital next day to take his
case card this had accidentally disappeared. We have already clarified
that we did not present the charges in order to justify them. The
dignified attitude our comrade held in the court (something seen for the
first time in Cyprus) and the fact that he did not ask for it to show
him any clemency, shows exactly what are the feelings of anarchists for
so-called 'bourgeois justice' are.



We as comrades of anarchist George Karakasian feel sorrow of course for
the fact that he is imprisoned by the detestable Cyprus State, but at
the same time we have the joy of knowing that our comrade remains strong
and knows the impact his acts will have in the future in the
revolutionary movement of the island and in future struggles generally.
Our solidarity until the day of the sentence (4/09/02 but which will
also continue later) will take those dimensions it has to, in order that
all those who express the misery of power understand that the attack
they have started against anarchists and all those in struggle will not
remain unanswered.

FREEDOM TO ANARCHIST COMRADE GEORGE KARAKASIAN.

SOLIDARITY TO ANARCHIST SOTIRI MARANGO WHO WILL BE JUDGED
FOR THE SAME CASE 19/09/02

ANARCHIST GROUP OF CYPRUS

For communication: exegersi2002

hydrarchist writes Some factual background is useful to grasp the context of the interview with Toni Negri which follows."

Paolo Persichetti was born in Rome in 1962. He became politically involved in the wake of the movement of 1977, and was arrested in May 1987 for involvement in the BR-UCC -- one of the two factions that emerged from a split in the Red Brigades in the early 1980s. He returned to liberty two years later, the period of prevetitive detention having run its course. Convicted in 1991 to twenty two years and six months in prison, he found refuge in Paris where he was arrested in 1993 and then targetted with an extradition order. He returned to freedom in January 1995 thanks to a public campaign in his favour (including hunger strikes by prominent individuals such as the Abbey Pierre).

In what appears to have been a gift between right-wing regimes, the new French government of Jean Pierre Rafarin has brought to a swift end the so-called 'Mitterand policy' which protected political dissidents from extradition. Persichetti, now a professor of political science in University of Paris VIII and living openly in Paris, was arrested last saturday and immediately transported to Turin, Italy. According to sources in the Minsitry of the Interior, now presided over by Nikolas Sarkozy, he is only the first. At least fifteen others are believed to be under threat, including Giorgio Pietrostefani, a former leader of Lotta Continua sentenced some years ago for the murder of the police Commissioner Calabrese (central protagonist in the Piazza Fontana investigation, responsible for the death of Pinelli, the incident that inspired 'Accidental Death of an Anarchist' by Dario Fo).

"Yelensky's Fable: A History of the ABC"

Matthew Hart

For close to a century, anarchists have united under the banner of the
Anarchist Black Cross for the sole purpose of supporting those comrades
imprisoned for their commitment to revolution and to the ideas of anarchism.
Who would have suspected that a few men supplying boots, linen, and clothing
to deportees in Bialostock would have been the meager beginnings of an
organization that has spread throughout the globe?(1)

Recently statements
have been made, referring to the history of the Anarchist Black Cross as
mere folklore. While I admit the history of this organization seems evasive
at the surface level, a deeper search for the organization's history
uncovers a rich amount of information that is far from folklore or fairy
tales. This article is just a small amount of the history that has been
discover in just a couple of years of research. Hundreds of pages filled
with facts regarding the history of the organization is presently being
assembled by members of the Los Angeles Branch Group of the Anarchist Black
Cross Federation in hopes of one day printing this information in books,
pamphlets, etc. We present the information in hopes of bringing unity and
knowledge within the ranks of those who struggle for the support of
political prisoners throughout the world.

Anonymous Comrade writes "Austin Anarchist Black Cross recently published as a pamphlet this paper by Vikki L.:"

Introduction

Within the scant research published about prisoner activism and instances of
resistance, women are nearly invisible. Although women in prison comprise
under six percent of the nations prison population, their numbers are
increasing more rapidly than those of their male counterparts: between 1990
and 2000, the rate of female incarceration increased 108%.1 However, the
interest in women prisoners' struggles against the prison-industrial complex
remains much lower than that of male prisoners'.