Social Control
Stop Repression against political squat in Mexico City!
Chanti Olin is one of the longest running squats in Mexico City. One of the core founders of this squat, Ian, aka Hardcore, has been wrongfully arrested by the facist police around the beginning of May. Ian has been a longtime activist. He has done a variety of work from helping at the Anarchist Library to organizing radical art shows and DIY punk shows to making art in a political silkscreen collective. He has also been a wonderful host to the myriad of travelers and foreigners coming to Mexico City, and a great introducer to the DIY scene Mexico City has to offer....(More)
Comrade Y_ arrested for attacking police in Kamagasaki riot
In the morning of 9 July 2008, comrade "Y", a militant of anarchist group, 'Free Workers Federation',was suddenly arrested by Osaka police at an office of Kamagasaki-Liberation building (Homeless Liberation organisation), accused of throwing slabs of concrete at police and stealing a police riot shield during an 8 day riot which was sparked when Japanese polizei brutally beat and tortured a day-worker...(More)
Call for Solidarity with Counter-G8 Protesters in Japan
Modesto Police Plot Gang War as Riders Unify Against Repression
Tonight, motorcycle bike clubs, riders, and supporters in the Modesto and greater Central Valley area made a historic show of solidarity against police harassment towards local bike club, Most Envied, of West Side Modesto. Things have been brewing for some time between police and the motorcycle club, but according to members of Most Envied problems stem from continued harassment, intimidation, terror, violence, raids, threats, and what many bikers believe, an attempt by the police to create an all out 'gang war' between Most Envied and other local bike crews. But, the united show of support today from local clubs shows that the bikers of the Central Valley aren't going to take this repression lying down...(More)
Update from ABC Osaka about anarchist Tabi Rounin
from the ABC:
We Denounce the Arrest of Squatter Activist and Comrade Tabi Rounin!
On the morning of June 5th, the squatter liberation activist Tabi Rounin was arrested via warrant claiming that he was a member of the "Black Helmets, a violent ultra-left group" and charged with "falsifying address registration" (the 'crime' of registering his driver's license at his parent's house), which led to his residence being searched three times and 21 items being taken by the police including his PC, cell phone, work resume, texts related to social movements and flyers. Tabi was taken to Nara prefecture's Koriyama police station and slapped with a 10 day extension of custody the next day. Special detectives in Nara prefecture assigned to the 'ultra-left' and Osaka city public order police came to investigate.
We only feel contempt for the idiocy and greed for budget money which motivates the public order police in their incessant tailing and eavesdropping over the past six months....(More)
In the Shadow of G8: Repression and Revolt in Japan
Over the past week and a half, an unprecedented political crackdown has been enacted in advance of a series of economic summits around the country. Despite this, the brave workers of Kamagasaki stood up against the stiff security environment in riots against the brutal beating of a day laborer over the past five days. The twin situations of repression and revolt deserve to be examined in more detail.
Repression
In the run-up to the series of summits, over 40 people were arrested in pre-emptive sweeps of broad left and anarchist groups.
On May 29th, 38 people were arrested at Hosei University in Tokyo at a political assembly against the G8. These large-scale arrests were carried out by over 100 public security agents after the students staged after a march across campus protesting the summits.1 All of the arrestees are still jailed, and among them are apparently some leadership of the Chuukaku-ha Leninist organization, one of the largest organizations of its kind in Japan...(More)
Anarchist in Kansai area (West Japan) arrested in G8 preparations- Solidarity needed!
Update: Tabi has been released today Friday 13th!
Tabi Rounin, better known as 'Rebel_Jill' has been detained by police on minor charges in the run-up to the G8 in Japan, as the police attempt to investigate his international connections and disrupt his revolutionary activities. This is a known tactic of the Japanese political police, see here for a similar case (Comrade 'M') and also see this interview with Tabi.
Heavy sentences for demonstrators against EU summit 2003
Wave of Repression against Activists in Austria
Press Release from the Legal Defense.
Around 7:00 am on Wednesday May 21 members of the Viennese elite police force (WEGA) stormed several apartments in Vienna. Some of the residents were woken up in their beds with guns drawn on them. A total of twenty-three (23) apartments, houses and offices were searches in Vienna, Lower Austria, Styria and Tirol.
In many of the apartments the WEGA kicked in the doors. The officers stormed the apartments like in bad Hollywood movies. Only after the residents had been intimidated, "secured" on the wall and/or put in handcuffs did the police start the searches.
The grounds for the searches was the accusation Formation of a Criminal Organization according to law 278a of the criminal code. There were arrest warrants for 10 of the people targeted by the searches......(More)
Citex squat in Amsterdam has been illegally evicted
On Friday night, there was a birthday party. The police claim that there was a noise complaint from a neighbour, and asked for the identity papers of a person in the squat. They have no legal right to ask for this since the space was not public space but a residence . Afterwards, they tried to arrest this person. The person was de-arrested and took inside by the squatters. From this point on, the police escalated the situation, leading to the eviction of the entire block of 4 houses and the citex social spaces. 51 people were arrested and roughly treated. Currently , there are a few people still inside prison, but most people have been released......(More)
How a story that hasn't ended began for us (RIP Naomi)
"Wednesday morning, 23 April. We heard that a woman was run over by a prison van taking prisoners back from court to Brixton jail yesterday around 5.30pm. Rushed up to the area and got a newspaper.
'30 years old, she was drunk', 'she was always dancing', the paper read. Immediately I knew it - it was her, the girl who'd beckoned me to dance at 'food not bombs' in front of the Ritzy cinema a few weeks back, the day that K and L were arrested for giving away free food. The beautiful crazy black girl with the wide open smile! Some people enter your heart like a streak of lightening. Naomi was one of them.....(More)
17 Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty Activists charged with Conspiracy
17 activists, many or all of whom had their houses ransacked by the police, have now been charged with conspiracy to blackmail Huntingdon Life Sciences. They are all now facing the courts in what will be several of the most important and biggest trials the animal rights movement has ever seen....(More)
Solidarity with Dylan Barr (USA)
Background
On October 29, 2007, Dylan Barr entered a guilty plea to one felony count of Second Degree Extortion in Seattle, WA for disrupting the operations of Washington Mutual Bank with a Denial of Service attack because of its investment in Huntington Life Sciences. After a two-year period of legal limbo and non-snitching plea deal negotiations, he was sentenced to 232 hours -29 days- of community service and ordered to pay Washington Mutual Bank $25,000 in restitution...(More)
Anarchist solidarity with indigenous warrior John Graham
Anarchists in Vancouver, Canada, have been standing in solidarity with indigenous warrior John Graham since his extradition hearings began here in 2004.
The FBI charges that Graham killed his comrade Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, his friend and fellow warrior in the American Indian Movement (AIM). Aquash's body was found on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, in February of 1976...(More)
News from Barcelona: Bus strike, evictions & repression
Radical movements in Barcelona are facing increasing repression, and calling for international solidarity. On 7 January, 2008, nine anarchist squatters are beginning trial, framed with attempted murder of a police officer. Three of them, Alex, Rodrigo, and Juan, have been locked up since 4 February, 2006, after police provoked a riot in an area of strong neighborhood resistance to gentrification. Barcelona police cleaned up the scene of the riot before forensics teams could arrive, and disappeared and tortured the three squatters for several days before putting them in jail...(More)
Paramilitary Policing and Global Control
Since the rise of civilization the world has been divided into areas which fall under the exclusive control of one gang or another. These areas defined within borders where the control of one gang ends and another begins have become known as states.
Traditionally there have been two types of armed enforcers for each state - the police and the army...(More)
Asilo squat in Torino, Italy, under threat of eviction
The Asilo Squat is under threat of eviction because the Romanian association "Fratia" ('brotherhood' in Romanian) based in Torino, Italy has decided to expand its offices located at 29 bis Corso Giulio Cesare and spotted our house as a site for its new premises. The Association requested, through the Municipal Councillor Ilda Curti (Chairperson resonsible for the politics of immigration), that the Asilo Squat building be handed over to them. The problem is that this place is not empty but has been built up and animated for almost thirteen years by many people, including a family, a fact which is well known to the authorities. At this point in the game, Councillor Antonello Angeleri solicited Councillor Ilda Curti to positively consider the request of the association. There could not be a better occasion to enact the "eviction policy" which has been realized in Torino during these last years of repression....(More)
5 arrests against alledged FAI cell in Italy
Disclaimer:
These are at the moment the only infos to be found around, there is not yet any communique from any comrades about the happenings. Therefore a short summary of the facts taken from capitalist media and some authorities declarations follows (therefore treat them for what they are...), more infos to come as soon as we have them...(More)
Anarchist Black Cross Berlin on recent repression in Germany
A short overlook about the last operations aimed to bring down the militant resistance
Once again within a few months we are forced to witness the dirty movements of the BAW (General Federal Attorney): on the 31st of July, three comrades got arrested near Berlin, allegedely after having placed some incendiary devices under a few military trucks. A forth person has been arrested in his apartment, accused of being one of the people who wrote the communques of the group. Three other comrades are (at the moment) with free feet, but under investigation. For what exactly? Paragraph 129a, terrorist association: all of them are accused of belonging to the Militante Gruppe, a clandestine group active since 2001...(More)
Freedom to Andrei Kalyonov and Denis Zelenyuk!
Statement of anarchist initiatives of St. Petersburg, Russia
On the 16th of August 2007 in Novgorod Region, in the area of Maloy Vishery, two members of St. Petersburg Anarchist League (PLA), Andrey Kalyonov and Denis Zelenyuk were arrested. The police suspect they participated in a bombing of a bridge under train #166, the "Nevskiy express", which took place 13th of August between Okulovka and Malaya Vishera, and which is being investigated as a terrorist attack. On the 18th of August the court of Malovisherskiy area of Novgorod region agreed on arrest of both for 30 days, after which they have to be accused or released.....(More)
Continuing attacks on the squatters movement in Osaka, Japan
The following is an English translation of a letter of protest that made the rounds today in Osaka after it became clear that our comrade N had been arrested yesterday. N has been directly involved in the occupation movement in Japan for years, and was arrested directly before a large protest against the World Championship in Athletics which was the ostensible reason for evicting the Nagai tent village this February and is also playing venue for the Japanese Emperor who headed the opening ceremony today, further cementing his image domestically and abroad as a 'gentle royal'. This arrest clearly proves that the Japanese state is not only bent on destroying the movement of day laborers here but also that criticizing the emperor is grounds for arrest....(More)
Repression in Madrid, Spain against university activists
On December 1st 2001 a big demonstration against a new university law took place in Madrid, in which Manuel, Israel and Marcos were arrested at Santo Domingo square, after an argument with a photographer, who turned out to be an undercover police. The argument took place half an hour before the facts for which later they will be prosecuted (so it means they were already arrested when things happened). At the same time Daniel and Justo were arrested in Callao square after a cop was injured by a brick thrown by a demonstrator. Dani was accused of throwing the brick to the same cop that was trying to arrest him, which is just not possible. Various evidences that exonerated him were refused by the judge, such as photos made by a 'El Mundo'( capitalist mass-media newspaper) photographer and the testimony from a person who had nothing to do with the demonstration. For us all this has a unique name: police frame-up....(More)
Defend K0pi - Self-organised house in Berlin
On May 8th 2007 the self-governed living and cultural centre K0pi was sold in an auction. By that, one of Berlin's most important house projects is threatened. The end of K0pi would also mean the end of more than 17 years of uncommercial self-organised culture and politics. A fact that will please those in power, for it means the destruction of leftist infrastructure. The large scale nationwide police raid of circa 40 targets and activists connected to the protest against the G8 on May 9th served the same purpose - to paralyse and to spy on anti-capitalist structures. Obviously, the state does not really agree with the struggle against the powers that be. And inevitably, their answer can only be repression. And repression can only intend the following things - to weaken, to divide and to distract from the struggle itself...(More)
British police get surveillance drone
Cyber-copters pack whisper mode and nightsight CCTV. The era of Robocop - and perhaps of the surveillance society - came a step nearer today with the announcement that Merseyside pigs have started trials of a flying police robot.
The robotic sky-patrolman, unlike military kill-bots such as the US Reaper, isn't intended for any active role. It is purely an observation platform, mounting CCTV with a range of imaging options.
The law-enforcers' eye in the sky is the "hicam microdrone", a German battery-powered quad-rotor helicopter which weighs less than 1kg and is less than 1 metre in diameter, according to reports. The diminutive cyber-copter can apparently stay up for 20 minutes per battery charge and its UK distributors say that it is capable of "immediate deployment from car/dog van/other." ....
The microdrone apparently has a highly capable autopilot, making it much easier to fly than a normal remote-control helicopter.
A spokesman for the machine's UK distributor said "it is pretty much forward, back, left, right and record". Apparently, the microdrone is exempt from air-traffic restrictions in much the same way toy aircraft are. The autopilot can navigate GPS waypoints or hover autonomously, and is also capable of landing itself if the control signal is lost.
The flying robo-cop is also "almost silent" in use, and "allows entirely covert operation".
The UK distributor spokesman said the aircraft are "military derived....(More)
Interview with 'M', anarchist from Osaka, Japan
In September 2006, 'M', an anarchist comrade from Osaka, Japan, was arrested for fraud. It is a minor crime but there was a predictable aspect to the detainment. It was a way to attack him for his anarchist activity in the squatter (Nojukusha) movement. He was held for 3 weeks and interrogated about his political activities in 'Kamagasaki Patrol' and about the 'black helmet group(s)', an anarchist grouping that the Osaka city police are obsessed with. The police thought that they had struck at one of the main organizers of squatters struggle in the city and were glad to be able to victimize him. He was arrested with 4 other people after an incident in a squatted park when they objected to an official city visit to regulate the squatters....(More)
FBI closely involved in UK animal rights arrests
Intensive collaboration between law enforcement agencies on both sides of the Atlantic led to last week's large-scale police action against alleged animal rights extremists in the UK. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation was closely involved, as well as European police forces.
Phil Celestini, FBI supervisory special agent, told the Bio conference in Boston that increasingly close transatlantic co-ordination "resulted in the arrests we saw last week. And you can bank on there being more [arrests] to come"...(More)
Arrests in Barcelona against the squatter movement
On 23 April, 2007, Javier Mazas and Peter Gelderloos were arrested during the police response to a small demonstration organized by the Assamblea de la Okupacion (Squatters Assembly) on La Rambla, in Barcelona. At the demonstration, someone set off a petarda, a loud device designed to shoot flyers into the air. The police response was exaggerated, and they arrested one demonstrator. Peter, a US citizen, was arrested blocks away from the demonstration when police became suspicious based on his appearance. At the time, Peter was observing the first arrest and making sure police were not mistreating the detainee (in the US, Peter is active with Copwatch, as well as Anarchist Black Cross, Food Not Bombs, and other groups).
The two are currently charged with illegal demonstration and public disorder, and a terrorism-related article has been applied to impact the severity of sentencing. Javier and Peter currently face between three and six years imprisonment.....(More)
Prison Society, Reformism and Insurrection
According to Privacy International, a civil liberties monitor, the United Kingdom is an 'Endemic Surveillance State'. In terms of how much time, money and energy, government and business spend on spying on their population; we are the most observed nation in the world. Britain is a tightly controlled society, but it is evident to us that without substantial resistance, technologies of social control will extend across the whole of the planet, spearheaded by various corporate and State interests....(More)
Member of the strike committee of Mercadona was brutally beaten in Barcelona, Spain
"This is for Mercadona" they told J.C. member of CNT and of the strike committee of Mercadona (Spanish supermarket which is embroiled in an industrial relations dispute) when five individuals came up to him in the street at night, while they beat and kicked him, until he was lying in a puddle of blood, until he lost conscience. He was carried by an ambulance to the Red Cross where he recieved treatment for concusion, and cranial trauma. He had stiches in his face and was treated for various wounds in different parts of his body...(More)
Social Repression in Osaka, Japan
There has been a series of arrests in Osaka against squatters, and several people, including anarchist comrades, have been detained on serious charges. These arrests follow a number of attacks by Osaka city against the squatters movement and its supporters. Osaka is a candidate location for hosting the G8 summit of 2008, and will host the World Athletic Championships next year. As with all of these kinds of international projects of finance, we can expect excluded people to be displaced, criminalized and attacked in the course of these events. The recent arrests of our comrades is evidence that self-organized activity is a thorn in the palm of authority, and our first impulse is to ...(More)
Witch hunt in Chile: Six anarchists arrested after police raid squat
From Santiago de Chile
In the morning of September 26th, special forces of the police broke into a squatted house located downtown, and six people, including a comrade from Spain, have been detained. Police say that molotov bombs and all the stuff required to prepare them were found in the place. Empty bottles (who doesn't have empty bottles at home?), kerosene (some of the people were jugglers and of course did fire juggling), sawdust (used for beds that the black cats in the house had), and of course "subversive material": zines, posters, banners, books, and videos and printed instructions to make molotov bombs....(More)
Postscript on the Societies of Control - Gilles Deleuze
In this short essay Deleuze looks to move beyond Michel Foucault’s historical understanding of ‘disciplinary societies’, where power is exercised within discrete institutions, towards the concept of 'societies of control'. In many ways it parallels the ideas of the Italian radical left around the concept of the ‘social factory’, providing an intersection between post-structuralist philosophy and autonomist Marxism..(More - from Libcom.org)
Because it all starts in school, start by setting fire to your own school today. (Hurry, there won't be enough for everyone)
This world is for shit. It's not the first nor the last time that this will be said. Down with the state, work, citizenship, the spectacle, the stupefication of mass, the surveillance of spaces and thoughts, the standardization of everything, behaviors, relations, the lock-ups, the generalization of the means of control, of surveillance, of repression (etc, etc...) If you're there, that's what exists, among so many other state horrors, SCHOOL, national education, the institution of being a student. The school, along with the family, is the cement of our best of worlds...(More)
Hot Summer in Italy
In 2005 there was a huge paramilitary 'anti-terror' operation against anarchists in Italy. Many social centres have been closed down; comrades have been attacked, arrested, held under house arrest, and detained in prison. Scores of people are under investigation, subjected to police impunity and frame-ups. We produce here a few reports, prisoner's letters and a brief chronology in collaboration with our Italian comrades; for the destruction of all prisons and bosses everywhere. Set fire to the institutions of power!
Solidarity with the Italian anarchists!
Destroy the EU PoliceState! ...(More)
Breaking out of the Ghetto: Lessons from the CPE struggle
France was aflame with insurrectionary fervour again earlier this year as over 20 million people made perfectly clear their displeasure at the increasingly repressive social and economic policies of the French State.
The pretext this time was the introduction of new labour laws, and two in particular- the CPE and CNE, which threaten to ‘liberalise’ the economy, moving power away from the employee and shifting it into the hands of the employer. This will end the employment rights and the ‘right to work’ that many of those demonstrating saw their parents and grandparents fight to win on the picket lines of industrial relations during the 60’s to 80’s.
This widening of the notion of precarity- the shifting of power from the individual to the company, of emphasising in law a company’s right to profit over the individual’s right to a salary, demonstrates yet again Capitalism's raison d’etre, its wish and ability- its need- to conquer every dimension of social space in the pursuit of progress and profit...(More)
The Finger and the Moon - Operation 'Cervantes'
This text is a contribution to explaining what has been happening in Italy, and what the so called 'Operation ‘Cervantes’' is, following which a number of anarchists are under investigation for conspiracy and four comrades have been arrested since July 2004.
What keeps these comrades being imprisoned is the will of dominion that is trying to take victims among its enemies.
Laws, thought up and imposed in defence of the interests of the ruling class, are nothing more than instruments serving those who practise oppression. The attacks of repression, therefore, that is to say the law itself, not only hit those who are today behind prison bars, but like a collective scourge, they also strike all of us. This is why fighting back without taking time is an absolute necessity, which everybody must accomplish according to their own aspirations and means, passion and anger......(More)
Cashless Societies and Consumer Surveillance
Smartcards are considered to be the future for credit transactions in a cashless society. They form the basis of modern secure ID cards, because of their ability to store complex amounts of data, such as biometric readings. The ability to fit the smartcard to other devices means that they are really flexible in use. Wireless technology means that they can function from a distance, speeding up time for the fast pace of modern life.
Capitalism has created an environment that is ideal for mass surveillance. Profiling of consumer habits, location, credit transactions, voice and image recording, within expanding databases, means the individual consumer can be viewed as a point in a network where the relationships between people can be viewed, evaluated, traveled along. Profilers are able to survey the consumption patterns and habits of broad ranges of people, for the purpose of developing markets and understanding consumer opinion and anticipating losses. The State uses it to identify, investigate and consolidate control......(More)
Under the Microscope?
Several recent developments in the oxymoronic field of State intelligence should give those of us involved in our own insurrectionary projects pause for thought. Even as we write, rampant repression encompasses our comrades in Spain and Italy, but this constitutes only the latest visible manifestation of state repression, it is the more immediate and violent for this, but we should not let this distract our thoughts from the larger geo-political reality that this represents. Although these repressive round-ups are generally represented by the media as the separate policies of separate sovereign states, when viewed within the context of the growing monstrosity that is the supranational EU, this violent, immediate form of state repression comes uncomfortably close to home......(More)
Alternative Prison
In the present day and age we can witness ever expanding control mechanisms constantly sweeping through society, catching, processing (tagging, surveillance, labelling) and recycling populations. Rather than seek individual ‘rehabilitation’ these techniques perform a paradigm shift, which allows them to be oriented toward the slightly different task of monitoring and managing intractable groups and individuals....(More)
Inside the surveillance capital of Europe
Britain is full of companies involved in the worst kinds of financial activity, the population is terrorised by government-media campaigns, held captive by aggressive borders, and attacked by violent police who kill with impunity. Behind the ‘democratic’ facade is Empire, enforced by ever more complex means. Every day people are scrutinised under intense surveillance and subjected to the highest levels of consumer propaganda. The authorities are enthusiastic advocates of control technology in all of its guises and have long set the benchmarks for others across the globe. There are an estimated 4.5 million CCTV cameras installed across the country: one per 14 people. This tidal wave of CCTV certainly shows no signs of abating, if anything it is gaining momentum, Britain is on the verge of a Closed-Circuit Television transformation - Companies and researchers are pushing the latest development - Digital, or ‘Smart’ CCTV......(More)
Torture methods used by Spanish Police Forces
GUARDIA CIVIL
This police force stood out during 2002 for the large number of citizens it has
arrested, kept incommunicado and tortured; and for the brutality of the
treatment the detainees suffered, both physically and psychologically. For this
study, we have included 14 testimonies of women and 45 testimonies of men. All
the people arrested by this police force recount that the have been subjected to
shouting during their whole time under arrest, shouting that was constant and in
nearly all cases by more than one agent at the same time......(More)