Amadeu Casellas is Free

Infoshop News March 10 2010

Catalan anarchist prisoner Amadeu Casellas Ramon was released from prison
at midday on Tuesday, 9 March!!!

The director of the penitentiary center at Girona (Catalunya, Spanish
State) finally considered all the complaints and petitions submitted by
Casellas' lawyers and concluded that Casellas had been imprisoned for 8
years too long, and ordered his immediate release.

Casellas spent 24 years in prison for bank robberies to support workers'
struggles in the 1970s, during periods of strong struggle against the
state during the stage-managed transition from dictatorship to democracy.
In the 1980s he took part in the strong prisoners' resistance movement.

He conducted two extremely long hunger strikes for his release, in 2008
and 2009, and received a great deal of solidarity from the outside. He has
vocally protested torture and repression inside the Catalan prisons, and
stood in solidarity with all prisoners.

Although the state pretends to find a legal basis for his release, we are
sure that without the solidarity actions he would have been left to rot in
prison indefinitely.

Over the past several years, Casellas has received solidarity from all
over the Spanish state, and from other countries as well. Anarchists have
written letters, raised money, visited, stayed in contact with his family,
protested outside embassies and Spanish government buildings, made
thousands of protestors and graffiti on all the walls calling for his
release, sabotaged train lines, attacked police vehicles, smashed or set
fire to banks and cash machines, held info events, put up stickers,
blocked roads, sent letters of protest to prison officials, and worked
within legal channels. Though there were conflicts between different
support groups, they kept their sights on liberty for Amadeu and avoided
unnecessary infighting, despite strong differences in politics and
strategy.

Meanwhile, the anarchists have not watered down their goals but continue
to vocally advocate freedom for all prisoners and the destruction of all
prisons. Although legal arguments were used for part of the support
campaign, that Amadeu has been imprisoned longer than he should be
according to their own laws, the fundamental message is that no one should
be in prison and that we want him out here with us. There were never any
arguments that Amadeu was innocent, or that prison in any form is
legitimate.

In the past year, anarchists have won freedom for the two main Catalan
prisoners they have supported, Amadeu Casellas and Ramon Garces. They
continue to support all prisoners and not make distinctions for "political
prisoners" but after major failures in the prisoner solidarity movement
earlier in the decade they have focused on supporting prisoners who are
active within the prisons and can lead their own struggles.

Freedom for all prisoners! Down with all walls!
Llibertat per Amadeu! Llibertat per a tots i totes!!