Prisons & Prisoners

nolympics writes

Colombia 3 Acquitted

Three Irish men arrested on leaving FARC territory in Colombia during august 2001 were acquitted of the most serious charge of providing training to FARC rebels yesterday in Bogotá. Niall Connolly, Martin McCauley and James Monaghan were convicted on the less serious charge of traveling on false identification. For this charge they were sentenced to between 26 and 44 months each, though it is not yet clear whether the three will be released immediately having served that much time already since their capture.

The arrests came just a month before September 11th and threw the Irish peace process into something of a tail spin as both the British and Irish media went into paroxysms over the alleged duplicity and conspiratorial scheming of the IRA. Indeed it seemed at the time as if the provos had wandered into an exceedingly well laid trap, one sprung by shadowy renegades of British and American intelligence bent on undermining the peace process and dealing a coup de grace to the credibility of Sinn Fein. Similarly such a tidy narco-terrorist conspiracy found many backers in the Colombian establishment who at the time favored a military rather than diplomatic solution to Colombia’s own peace process. Within hours of the arrests in 2001 a senior British diplomat had denounced the three as IRA members when in fact only one of the three had ever been confirmed as such.

sugarlover writes "Hi, I recently got out of prison, isn't that just wonderful...anyway, I find it interesting that I am a college student now and have found myself in psych, soc, and business classes and not for one moment does anyone ever speak of prisons. I would not speak there anyway, but our society has really developed this amazing legal machinery, and so much of our resources go into putting people behind bars... You would have to go to understand what it does to you. The effects of
incarceration. I never hear that term ever mentioned, in all my ten years there, reading books and newspapers. How do people change?
What happens when you put a bad check writer there and the person loses their family, home,
etc. Is what you do to that person equal to them
obtaining a few hundred dollars. When people go
to prison they lose everything. You could sit there and say "that's fair", but what you are really ending up with is a real angry person capable of doing much worst. It is just human nature. Not many people come out of there being better people. Trust me, I am not talking about
Christian Longo and Ward Weaver types, mostly
50 year old women that took money to help their
families, etc. Everyone should look at Vermont
and let those sort of people do yard work for the elderly, and other community service."

From the excellent
Electronic Intifada


"As in Tiennamen Square"

Tanya Reinhart


An extensive discussion has already taken place in Israel regarding the cost-benefit ratio of Yassin's assassination. But the question of justice has hardly been raised.

According to international law, the execution of any person in an occupied territory is not allowed. The Geneva Convention, born out of the horrifying experience of the second World War, sets limitations on the use of force even in times of war. The convention distinguishes between war and a state of occupation. Its fundamentals are, first, that occupied people are "protected", and that the occupier is responsible for their safety. Second, it determines that the occupied people have the right to fight for their liberation. International conventions are one of the means people have developed for self-preservation. Without them, there is a danger that the human race would annihilate itself - first the strong would wipe out the weak, and then each other.

MPLU supporter writes The Missouri Prisoners Labor Union (MPLU)(U.S.) has a new website, email list for action alerts and MPLU related news, and a petition to show support for "Jerome White-Bey [president of MPLU] in his continuing struggle to be free."

Website http://www.mplu-support.tk/

Email list http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/mplu

Petition http://users.belgacom.net/mplu/free_jerome_white_b ey.html

Please forward this information to email lists and supporters of MPLU and update your web links for MPLU.

Join us!

"Crossing Lines"

Kathy Kelly, 29 March 2004 


This weekend, I'm preparing for an April 6, 2004 entry into the Pekin FCI (Federal Correctional Institute) in Peoria. I'm one of several dozen people who, on November 22, 2003, crossed the line at the US Army's military combat training school in Fort Benning, GA. With caring friends, I've shared gentle and sometimes nervous laughter as we try to make the best of a difficult reality.

Instrumentalization of Madrid so as to construct a more authoritarian EU super state was predictable, but here's the juice from Statewatch based on proposals 'provided to them'; biometrics, Schengen Information System reinforcement, the whole caboodle. Is there a Foucault anywhere in the house.....?

“Scoreboard” on Post-Madrid Counter-Terrorism Plans

Statewatch

Summary

1. The tragedy in Madrid on 11 March 2004 requires a response from the
EU to review and reinforce counter-terrorist measures. An analysis of the
57 proposals on the table at the EU Summit on 25-26 March in Brussels
shows that 30 of these are relevant to this need.

2. However, the analysis also shows that 27 of the proposals have little
or nothing to do with tackling terrorism – they deal with crime in general
and surveillance.

3. A number of the proposals would introduce the wholesale surveillance
of everyone in Europe and could potentially be used for social and
political control:

a) through logging all telecommunications (e-mails, phone-calls, mobilecalls,
faxes and internet usage;
b) tracking all air travel in and out and within the EU (effectively an EU
version of the USA’s controversial PNR, CAPPS II and US-VISIT plans);

c) the fingerprinting of nearly everyone in the EU by the introduction of
biometric passports and ID cards for citizens and the same for resident
third country nationals.

4. The dreadful loss of life and injuries in Madrid requires a response
that will unite the people of Europe rather than divide them.
If in defending democracy measures are introduced that fundamentally
undermine civil liberties and peoples’ right to privacy, it has to be asked
what are we defending?

Story from The Independent

"Unexplained Death of Aboul Abbas in US Custody"

Robert Fisk


Mohamed Aboul Abbas, the 'Achille Lauro' planner, said he never intended passengers to be held hostage or anyone to be killed, and apologised for it. The US and Israel allowed him back to Gaza. So why was he in a US prison in Iraq?

When 55-year-old Mohamed Aboul Abbas died mysteriously in a US prison camp in Iraq on Tuesday, nobody bothered to call his family.

His American captors had given no indication to the International Red Cross that he had been unwell and his wife Reem first heard that he was dead when she watched an Arab television news show.

Yet in his last letter to his family, written just seven weeks ago and shown to The Independent in Baghdad yesterday, the Palestinian militant wrote that, "I am in good form and in good health", adding that he hoped to be freed soon. So what happened to Mohamed Aboul Abbas?

just4mu writes:


24 April is the 50th birthday of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is still sitting on Death Row in Pennsylvania.

I would like to do a radio marathon on 24 april on Radio 100, Amsterdam, www.radio100.nl on the theme:
Matters of Life and Death

hydrarchist writes:

Solidarity Call with Camillo Viveiros, RNC 2000 Felony Arrestee

Dear Friends and Supporters of Camilo Viveiros,

We are just under one month away from Camilo's April 5th trial! We need to step up our support for Camilo, the only first-degree felony case remaining from the arrests during the 2000 Republican National Convention. Let's use all the available time wisely to keep mobilizing crucial support and keep Camilo from being put behind bars!


In the last months there have been a lot of articles on the situation in Palestine -- check out Juliana Fredman's contributions. Whilst in Israel there is determined opposition to the wall and government policy. Often this movement does not get the attention it merits. Perhaps it's simpler for people to feel an easy solidarity with the Palestinians than to face the complexities of Israel's divided society. In the next weeks I'll try to remedy this lacuna a bit. Here is the first piece, written by a friend from Jerusalem last summern. [H.]

Ending the Israeli Occupation by Decentralizing Power

Ronen Eidelman

Ronen Eidelman is an activist, graphic designer and journalist living in Jaffa, Israel. Currently he is working on the campaign against the apartheid wall as part of the collective "anarchist against the wall".

One morning, in the first week of October 2000, I was awakened by a phone call; on the other end of the line was a good friend: “Ronen! We are at war.” “Who is {{we}}?” I muttered. It was my gut reaction. My sleepy head really had no idea what my friend was talking about. Was our football team having a big match today? Are the Orthodox in another big dispute with the seculars? Perhaps it’s south Tel-Aviv against north Tel-Aviv? God knows it could even be the crazy techno DJs fighting with the drum & bass posse.

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