Solidarity Meeting – 15th September 6PM @ Decentre, Freedom Bookshop, Whitechapel
Noise Demo – 17th September 8PM, outside HMP Pentonville
On SUNDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER, 6PM, DECENTRE, FREEDOM BOOKSHOP, WHITECHAPEL
There will be a gathering with the aim of discussing ways of expressing solidarity with Prisoner J.
On TUESDAY 17 SEPTEMBER, 8PM, HMP PENTONVILLE
Second noise demo for Prisoner J, we will go into the streets together with love for our comrade and with hatred for any and every collaborator with her capture, including our own passivity, including the whole murderous artifice of this prison society.
Our friend ‘Prisoner J’ has been held on remand for over two weeks. As a trans woman suffering through extreme dissociative states, and, last we heard, on hunger strike, we are concerned for her immediate safety. We haven’t heard any word from her since she saw her lawyer on Tuesday (27th Aug). Nobody knows if her hunger strike is continuing and what conditions she is facing inside.
On Friday (30th Aug) there was a loud and energetic demonstration outside Pentonville attended by about 40 people. Fireworks, percussion, shouts, chants, smoke, banners and two soundsystems were used at every point where the demonstrators might be heard or seen inside the prison. The statement written by friends of Prisoner J was read out. Thanks to all who came, and those who shared news, wrote to Prisoner J, and signed and shared the petition she requested to be circulated.
Since then we have learned that she was remanded for the alleged ‘crime’ of trespassing on railway property. Her next hearing is not until 27th September. At her last court appearance (Friday 6th Sept) we didn’t see her, but the lawyer said she was in extreme distress, non-communicative, and showed clear signs of self-harm. The lawyer was shocked to find that she was not being held in the medical wing of the prison.
More bad news – we have found out she was charged under a previous name. Not the name on her passport, which she uses day to day. This is bizarre and illegal by the system’s own standards.
But why do we expect the screws, lawyers, judges and doctors to give a fuck about this situation? Maybe it is the famous cop in our heads, or delusions of fair treatment and the ‘humane, reasonable’ image of authority that is always being sold to us. Of course it’s not true: that’s not the face shown to the uncertified trannies, the ‘undeserving’ homeless, the insufficiently-intersex, the uncontainables, the suicides, the criminals of this world.
They’ve tried ‘curing’ her, they’ve tried all kinds of abuse, neglect, and phobic bullshit, they’ve tried to categorise her as antisocial.. now they are trying to kill her. Those of us who have witnessed her brilliance and individuality won’t stand by and let it happen.
Most people reading this are no doubt saturated with the rage and pain of a hundred other cases of kidnapping, isolation, and torture, both past and ongoing. Meanwhile all around us, normal life carries on, the officials carry out their duties unconscious of the consequences of their program, or wishing themselves unconscious.
We would be just the same as them, were it not that we have bad dreams…
We will continue to try to make contact with Prisoner J, not knowing if she is willing or able to speak to anyone.
If you want to do the same, or share any action you have taken in the light of Prisoner J’s capture, feel free to email survivaldefence@riseup.net or london_abc@riseup.net
