There is a lot going on at the moment in the world of prisoner support.
Here’s some dates for your diary for the next month or so:
—There are currently nightly vigils outside the Israeli embassy at 10pm in support of Mahmoud Sarsak, a Palestinian hunger striker, and
footballer.
http://palestineplace.wordpress.com/
—Sunday 1st July, 12-4pm. Letter Writing at Freedom bookshop. Pop in and write your letters to prisoners with others.
—Monday 2nd July, 12pm – ?. Demonstration in solidarity with Belarussian Anarchist Prisoners.
Embassy of Belarus, 6 Kensington Court, London, W8.
June 30th to July 2nd are days of action in solidarity with Belarusian
anarchist and political prisoners, so please join London ABC for a
demonstration outside the Belarusian Embassy from 12pm. We plan to have a banner and some noise, but we hope others will come down with their own ideas too!
There are now officially 13 explicitly political prisoners in Belarus, some of them inside for attacks against the state and other symbols of capital and oppression. Three of them, Alinevich, Dziadok and Frantskievich, received sentences between 3 and 8 years of ‘hard regime’ in May, despite the fact that evidence of their guilt was lacking at the trial. All of them have been subjected to psychological intimidation and abuse whilst in state custody.
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko is under pressure from the
European Union to free all political prisoners before Belarus can be
accepted into the EU ‘community’. However, rather than back down and release the prisoners, Lukashenko is demanding that each one petition him individually, admit their guilt and ask for ‘mercy’. Those currently inside deny their guilt and have not co-operated with the state by giving testimony against others.
ABC Belarus and other supporters of those imprisoned are calling for as many solidarity actions as possible to put pressure on the Belarusian regime; both during the days of action and beyond! We stand in solidarity with imprisoned comrades in Belarus whilst also recognising the many political prisoners in EU countries and the hypocrisy of the EU demand.
—Friday 6th July. Deadline for zine contributions. Contributions can be sent to london_abc@riseup.net
London ABC is planning a zine, we hope it will be the first in a series!
We’d like to include words and pictures by people currently in prison, those who have been imprisoned in the past, and others with something to say on related subjects.
Subjects we are particularly interested in covering include prison life, prison abolition, resistance to the prison industrial complex, experiences of friends and family of those inside, support for and solidarity with prisons, history of prisons, use of prisons around the world, social prisoners, political prisoners, tagging, control orders, immigration detention centres, palestinian prisoners, the G20 prisoners in Canada, alternatives to prisons, book/zine reviews, race in the prison system, sex/gender in the prison system, prison slave labour, youth detention centres and young offenders institutes and anything else you can think of which seems relevant to a zine based on solidarity with prisoners and prison abolition. jokes about screws are always welcome too.
please send your articles, essays, news items, poems, drawings,
photographs, jokes, riddles, etc to us at the address below. also feel free to contact us with any questions or suggestions you may have.
deadline for submissions for this issue: July 6th (anything received after that date will be considered for the next issue). sorry we can’t guarantee we’ll be able to return original artwork etc but we will do our best, if you ask nicely. we will be printing in black and white only.
shorter texts are preferred, not longer than 800 words is ideal. feel free to use the space to plug your group/project/demo/action if it seems relevant.
—Friday 10th August is International Prisoner Justice Day. Make
some plans!
