Statement from John Bowden

The following message was written by John Bowden, a British anarchist
prisoner who was recently informed he was regarded as a security risk
because the 'Brighton Anarchist Black Cross' group supports him!  The
authorities alleged 'Brighton ABC' is a terrorist group with
paramilitary links!

ELP Support Network, like many others, is outraged that a) a
perfectly legitimate, legal, non-violent, prisoner support group, who
does fantastic work supporting prisoners, should be smeared in such a
way and b) that any prisoner should be judged according to who their
supporters are!

ELP was one of many groups that joined in the international calls
calling on people to support both Brighton ABC and John.  Anyway here
is an update on that situation, written by John himself.....

On the 29th May, less than a week after a demonstration staged outside the
Scottish Parliament in protest at my treatment, the administration at
Castle Huntly Open Prison, from where I had been transferred at the
pretext of having 'links with a terrorist organisation', hurriedly held a
'case management' meeting to decide on a strategy of neutralising further
protests on my behalf and prolonging my time in prison on less obviously
vindictive and politically motivated grounds.

The meeting, held at Glenochil high security prison, where I'm currently
being held, was attended by an array of prison service employed social
workers, psychologists and governors, and chaired by the Deputy Governor
of Castle Huntly Prison, James McKay.  No-one at the meeting dissented
from the view of McKay that although my stay in maximum security should be
prolonged and intended to negatively influence the decision of a Parole
Board hearing to consider my release in August, in terms of trying to
nullify further protests on my behalf and adverse opinion of the prison
system it was no longer expedient to maintain the lie that my removal from
an open jail had been as a result of my contact with a 'terrorist' group
on the outside.  The public protestations of the group concerned,
Anarchist Black Cross, a perfectly legitimate and non-violent prisoner
support group, now rendered the lie untenable.  It was therefore
considered necessary to fabricate other, less potentially
counter-productive justifications for sabotaging my chances of parole and
keeping me buried in a maximum security prison.  Unfortunately for McKay,
who had obviously not anticipated the storm of protest that followed my
ghosting from Castle Huntly, he had written a report to accompany my
transfer in which he explicitly stated that I was being returned to a
maximum security prison pending an investigation into my 'ongoing contact
with an extremist group'.  I had been provided with a copy of the report
which I then passed on to my lawyer Simon Creighton.

I was called briefly before the 'case management' meeting and informed by
McKay that because of suspicions that I had formed an 'inappropriate
relationship' with a social worker whilst at Castle Huntly the previous
year, I would soon be transferred to Perth maximum security prison and
required to do a course in 'personal relationships' before being allowed
to return to an open prison. When I asked why an allegation without
evidence had not been investigated and acted on at the time I was
confronted by a hostile silence.  It was clear that everyone at the
meeting, social workers, psychologists, senior prison staff had colluded
in supporting and providing legitimacy for what was in reality a blatant
stitch-up; a senior psychologist from Perth prison who was also at the
meeting agreed that I should be transferred to Perth for a course that in
fact did not exist.  No prison in the Scottish Prison Service provides any
such courses in 'personal relationships' and everyone at the meeting must
have known that.  The real purpose of the meeting of course was to
rubber-stamp my continued stay in maximum security conditions to coincide
with my parole hearing in August.

A fortnight after the meeting I was informed by a senior member of staff
at Glenochil that because the 'personal relationship' course had been a
fiction I would remain in high security conditions to be 'psychologically
risk-assessed' instead.  In fact, I had already been 'risk-assessed' by a
senior forensic psychologist in 2003 and his opinion was that I presented
absolutely no danger or risk to the public and should be transferred to an
open prison in preparation for complete release.  Nothing whatsoever had
occurred  between that 'risk-assessment' in 2003 and my removal from
Castle Huntly open jail in April this year to justify either my ghosting
back to a maximum security jail or yet another 'risk assessment'.  Nothing
that is apart from the rubbish written about Anarchist Black Cross by the
reactionary American social worker Matt Stillman.

There is now little doubt that a suitably compliant prison system hired
psychologist will be used to provide yet another pretext to extend my time
in prison and shore up with a degree more apparent plausibility the absurd
lies of the now discredited Stillman.

The solidarity shown towards me by supporters on the outside, however, has
produced cracks and divisions in the ranks of prison officialdom, and
Audrey Park, the Governor of Glenochil, has now broken rank and insisted
that the inexorable intensification of protest on my behalf be defused by
returning me to an open prison.  On the rock of solidarity their wave of
repression is being broken and there is now a mood of desperation
characterising their attempts to keep the cell door closed on me.  In the
face of their deceit and inhuman attempts to deny me freedom after 25
years in prison my defiance remains implacable and unyielding, and I will
continue to fight their vicious abuse of power as I've done for the last
quarter of a century.  In the words of the Uruguayan poet and writer
Eduardo Galeano, "We are as small as the fear we feel, and as big as the
enemy we choose".



John Bowden
> June 2007