ELP has just received some good news from Laura Lungarelli's support group (Laura and her boyfriend Kevin, are the two American AR activists who have been jailed for non-AR reasons).
booksforlauralungarelli@yahoo.com wrote: "Laura was [let out] on work release TODAY. Kevin is unfortunately still at Twin Towers and is set to transfer to a prison within a few days." ELP-Extra will bring you all the news on Laura & Kevin as we receive it.
Join The Popular Education Project to Free the Cuban 5’s Women’s History Month Initiative. Starting from Sat. Match 1st-Monday March 31st we are calling on people to fax or mail out this letter to Louise Arbour The High Commissioner of Human Rights of the Office for Human Rights-United Nations Office at Geneva. We are asking her to intercede on behalf of the Cuban 5’s mothers/wives to pressure the U.S. government to grant them VISAs to visit their husbands/sons!!
Due to the U.S. government’s denial to approve visas, Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo and Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert have not seen their wives since their incarceration!! Others in the Cuban 5 have not seen their parents, wives and children with regularity, because the U.S. government has taken prolonged periods of time to issue them visas. The U.S. government’s denial of visitation rights is a cruel and horrible form of psychological torture. Their rationale for denial is ridiculous and baseless; none of these family members are a threat to national security.
The PDF format of the letter can be found at the Jericho Website: http://www.thejerichomovement.com/events5.html
PLease download sign and fax or mail out IMMEDIATELY!!
I know this isn't prisoner news, but I hope people will appreciate the reasons why I am forwarding it to this list.
For international solidarity
ELP Support Network
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:27:03 +0000
From: greekelp@yahoo.gr
Subject: A report on the firebombing of Prapopoulou squat and more...
To: elp4321@hotmail.comDuring the night of 24-25/3/2008, Prapopoulou Squat at Halandri, Athens was firebombed. Neighbours claim they saw three men running out of the building right before the explosion that wrecked large part of the building, the roof and the library. (photos: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=846797).Prapopoulou squat is managed by an open assembly, active in neighbourhood and environmental issues (for example, the protection of a local stream against privatization and constructions, activities against the sprawl arsons in Parnitha mountain, Athens etc). Their blog: http://protovouliaxalandriou.blogspot.com/This arson came after a series of similar attacks against self-managed infoshops. Few examples:24/12/2007: Second arson with an identical device containing mothball and bullets at Thersitis self-managed infoshop.25/12/2007: Unknown persons broke in the offices of 4 base-syndicates, didn't steal anything, but messed stuff up.1/1/2008: Unknown persons hurl a molotov coctail against Ypogeios at Kallidromiou social center (their blog: http://ypogeiws94.blogspot.com/).4/1/2008: Arson at the Southern Suburbs Residents Initiative self-managed infoshop (their blog:http://www.prwkat.blogspot.com/).Meanwhile, in the previous months, another 2 squats, Salamandra at Patissia and Millerou and Germanikou at Kerameikos were evicted by the police.All these action, while evidence came to light proving the police's "special attention" (investigations and surveillance) on self-managed infoshops (Photos of the police reports: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=846651) as well as the cooperation between nazi groups (that tend to undertake actions against infoshops and activists) and the official police (when they 're not the exact same persons, as in the case of this officer right here: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=846633). One can see for example the photos of cops and nazis fooling around and working together (during the February 2 antifascist riots in Athens) at: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=822697. Also, a document on nazi group leaders funding by the greek government, here: http://athens.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/metafiles/ertzfzlyr.jpg
By Gerardo Reyes
5:26 PM CDT, March 23, 2008
PANAMA CITY, Panama — The man who helped the United States strike the hardest blow ever against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia expected to live a nice, quiet life on a cozy little island off the coast of Panama. Instead, he got a jail cell.
Convicted Colombian drug-trafficker Nelson Urrego was the key informant for a U.S. covert operation that ended in 2003 when the leadership of the FARC — Colombia's oldest and best financed leftist guerrilla organization — was finally indicted on drug-trafficking and murder charges.
Urrego's job was to hand the rebels several satellite phones that had been tapped by
Urrego thought he had bought himself a new life. He settled in
He was treated as an important investor by the government and the business community. His companies were awarded both government and private-sector contracts. He became a Panamanian citizen, handled several sizable bank accounts and frequently traveled to Miami,
Then Urrego rented out
That's how the island became famous and coveted, and brought its owner down, Urrego told El Nuevo Herald in an interview from his prison cell.
On Sept. 15, Panamanian authorities landed on Chapero, confiscated it and arrested Urrego and his 19-year old girlfriend on money-laundering charges.
"I wanted to live a lawful life in this country, I wasn't doing anything illegal," Urrego says.
He claims that the charges leveled against him are a sham intended to strip him of his island after he refused to sell it. Several lawyers are working on obtaining his freedom and recovering his island, purchased in 2002, after he was released from a prison in
"I had the bad luck politicians and impresarios of this country liked my island," Urrego said. "A prosecutor has all the right and duty to investigate a person, but the investigation must be based on an objective and scientific analysis, not on a bunch of rumors to try to take away an island."
Considered a mid-level drug trafficker, Urrego served a sentence in
He claims that the money he used to purchase the island comes from the legal sale of some farms in
Urrego says the natural beauty of
One of the interested investors was prominent Panamanian developer, Mayo Alfredo Aleman, who confirmed this during an interview with El Nuevo Herald.
Aleman says Urrego was not considered a suspicious person when they first met in 2005. He even came to their first meeting with DEA agent
Panamanian justice has a different view.
Panamanian Prosecutor Jose Abel Almengor said in an interview with El Nuevo Herald that Urrego introduced $12 million in drug-money to
Urrego's accounts had been open since 2002, when he had already been sentenced in
What's more, the government also seemed to trust Urrego. One of his companies got a contract from the Panama Canal Authority to install the sound system in a museum dedicated to the
Urrego says that before he was arrested,
Urrego's lawyer, Victor Almengor (no relation to the prosecutor), says Lewis will have to explain his interest in doing business with an individual that his government is investigating for money-laundering. Lewis did not answer El Nuevo Herald's calls to his personal phone number, or his public relations office.
State corrections officials re-arrested Sara Jane Olson on Saturday - five days after she was released - and announced that they intend to keep her in prison for another year.
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said that officials miscalculated Olson's sentence and gave her a year's more time off her term than she deserved.
"We're launching an investigation to prevent this from happening again,"
Hidalgo said that Olson, the former Symbionese Liberation Army member who was convicted of killing Myrna Opsahl inside the lobby of a Carmichael bank in 1975 and of trying to bomb police cars in Los Angeles, was detained Friday night at Los Angeles International Airport as she was preparing to fly to Minnesota, where her family lives.
Treva Miller, a spokeswoman for LAX, said Olson was detained between 11 p.m. and midnight without incident.
She was officially arrested late Saturday morning after authorities examined her sentence, reassessed her time credits and determined that she still had more time to do.
Olson had been released Monday from the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla.
Some good news, the Canadian animal rights prisoners, Garbiel Villeneuve, has been released from prison. See below for more details.
from SHAC Canada (shaccanada@riseup.net):
*please crosspost freely*
Gabriel Villeneuve was liberated yesterday after 30 days in jail. He was
liberated under cotion (1000$ deposit and 5000$ without deposit) and under
a couple conditions:
- Not allowed to communicate or attempt to communicate, by any means
whatsoever with any SHAC members.
- Not allowed to be in Quebec City district unless for court appearance or
to meet with his lawyer.
- Not allowed to participate in any sort of protest.
- Not allowed to distribute flyers in regards of any of SHAC causes.
- Not allowed to organize or plan any activities related to any SHAC causes.
The focus of the court appearance was to get Gabriel out of jail and
unfortunately, that implied that he has to follow unjust conditions.
Gabriel will go to the supreme court of Canada to try to get those
unconstitutional conditions off.
Gabriel has to go back to court April 7 to know the date of his trial as
well as the one of the three other activists implicated in the case.
Because of all the legal court conditions Gabriel cannot write anything or
give any statement at the moment, we are working with the lawyers on legal
terms to see what can be done.
Thanks to everyone who gave him support, we’ll send you news next week.
from infoshop News
Solidarity is something very important to many of us anarchists especially when our friends and loved ones are put behind bars, or when we happen to find ourselves held captive there, being kept from those we care about. Yesterday, the 19th of March, more than one-hundred people were arrested in the streets and side walks of San Francisco at the DATW. Among those were three anarchists Bryan Riggins, Kenneth Pack and Mitch Inclin who where wrongfully arrested and are now being held at the Sheriff's Dept. at 850 Bryant St. These are people who have done amazing work within their communities and have no place behind bars. We wan't them back home as soon as possible. We have been told that their arraignment will probably be on Monday, and if not on Tuesday. We would like not only support from those who are anarchists but support for all of those who have been jailed and have had friends locked away standing up and saying no to those who think it is ok for them to put profit over people and bussiness over our communities.
As of right now the charges are as follows:
Mitch I.- one felony weapons charge, one felony conspiracy charge, and one felony asult of an officer charge. bail set at $40,000
Bryan R.- one felony weapons charge, one felony conspiracy charge, and one felony asult of an officer charge. bail set at $40,000
Kenneth P-one felony of concieled weapon charge. bail not known by those posting this.
We have heard that there is an other who also has not been released as of yet. This would be Kurt Therkslen who is facing a Felony charge and has had no arraignment date has been set. He is being held at the Sheriff's dept. at 850 Bryant as well. We do not know much info on Kurts specific charges or wheather or not Kurt will be arrained at the same time as the other three; however, we would strongly encurage support at Kurts arraignment as well. Kurt was arrested during the protests and should be showed solidarity and supported in court.
The SF Booking Centers # is (415) 575-4419
They would love to hear from every one and explain when our friends and comrades will have their arraignment and be released.
As of right now, the times of these arraignments are unknown, and when more specific details about their arraignments are released we will keep everyone updated to the best of our ability. In the mean time, please keep in mind the importance of solidarity in these situations. It would be greatly appreciated, especially to those who are being detained.
Update on three anarchists arrested in San Francisco
One of our three friends have been released. Kenneth P. is now free on bail while Mitch I. and Bryan R. remain in jail. Their arraignment will be on Tuesday, some time after 9 am, along with the other person arrested, Kurt. We have been told to go to room 101 at 850 Bryant St. to find out about when the arraignment is. That is thanks to the pressure put on the jail by those of you calling asking them all the questions they love hearing. Hope to see people there.
Again the number to those amazing people at the jail is (415) 575-4419. They would love to hear from every one with concerns and questions.
In solidarity,
-anarchist comrades
Update on three anarchists arrested in San Francisco | |||
| |||
March 21, 2008
The Hidden Casualities of America's "War on Crime"
www. counterpunch. org
By MARLENE MARTIN
The number of people behind bars in the "land of the free" is grown as large as the combined populations of Atlanta, Miami, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Kansas City and Pittsburgh.
That's the shocking fact in a Pew Center on the States report showing that one in 100 adults in the U.S. are in prison or jail--more than 2.3 million people.
When it comes to locking up its people, the country that claims to be the "world's greatest democracy" is far ahead of every other nation--ahead of China, ahead of Russia, ahead of all the tyrannies that the U.S. government supports around the world--both in absolute numbers of prisoners and the rate of incarceration.
As has always been the case in a country founded on slavery, the inmates of America's prisons are disproportionately people of color. Among African American men over 18, one in 15 are in prison--between the ages of 20 and 34, fully one in nine Black men are behind bars. When those on parole, probation or otherwise involved in the criminal justice system are included, that statistic rises to one in three.
As staggering as these facts are, the stories of the individual human beings behind these statistics--men and women whose lives have been destroyed by the criminal justice system--are even more horrifying.
Mark Clements is one of them. Mark was 16 years old when Chicago police officers and detectives picked him up on suspicion of setting a fire that killed four people. The white cops worked for Jon Burge--Mark became one of the hundreds of African American suspects tortured until the "confessed" by Chicago police under Burge's command.
Mark was kept in lockup for a year until he was old enough to stand trial as an adult. During his sentencing, Mark pleaded before the judge for more than two hours that he didn't commit the crime--that the police had beaten him into confessing. The judge sat with folded arms, staring straight ahead--and after Mark was done, he imposed the "mandatory" sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
Mark is 45 today. He has spent two-thirds of his life in prison. And if the state of Illinois gets his way, he will die there.
* * *
For the past two decades, crime rates have been in long-term decline, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But the prison population has exploded during this same time.
To put this into proportion, between 2005 and 2006, the U.S. prison population rose by more than 65,000, an increase of almost 3 percent, which is on the low side for annual figures over the past 25 years. By contrast, in 1972, the total U.S. prison population was 196,092.
Who accounts for the vast number of people warehoused in America's jails and prisons? According to Justice Department statistics, more than half the people in the federal prison system and one in five inmates in state prisons were drug offenders--almost half a million in total.
Many of these prisoners were convicted of nonviolent offenses. More than a quarter of drug offenders in state prison are serving time for nothing more than possession. According to the Sentencing Project, arrests for marijuana possession accounted for 79 percent of the growth in drug arrests in the 1990s--despite the fact that not a single death has been attributed specifically to marijuana use, unlike such legal drugs as alcohol and tobacco.
David Ciglar pled guilty to growing marijuana seedlings in his garage in Oakland, Calif.--and received the state's mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years.
"My family is devastated," says David in the book Shattered Lives: Portraits from America's Drug War. "My wife is living every day wondering if she can make it financially and mentally. My kids don't know why their dad was taken away for such a long time. I have not even bonded with my youngest daughter. She was 2 when I left her.
"
Richard Nixon officially declared the U.S. government's "war on drugs" in 1971, but the drug war didn't really get under way until Ronald Reagan's presidency in the 1980s. The casualties have been mounting ever since.
One of the drug war's chief weapons has been the 100-to-1 rule that governs sentencing in convictions for possession and distribution of crack cocaine versus powder cocaine. Under the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act and another law passed in 1988, possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine (about the weight of two pennies) results in a mandatory sentence of five years, while it takes 500 grams of the powder form of cocaine to yield the same sentence.
Behind the disparity is an openly racist double standard: African Americans account for most of those convicted and sent to prison for offenses related to crack cocaine--including 82 percent of those prosecuted and jailed at the federal level--even though they are a minority of users.
Those ensnared in the drug war aren't typically high-level dealers, either, according to Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project. "By and large, these defendants are not the kingpins of the drug trade," Mauer wrote. "Data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission document 73 percent of the crack defendants had only low-level involvement in drug activity, such as street-level deals, couriers or lookouts.
"
The drug warriors' justification for the 100-to-1 rule was that crack was so highly addictive, and that its users became super-violent. Many of these stereotypes have been proven untrue, yet the bias in sentencing remains.
According to Carol Brook, deputy director of the federal defender program for the Northern District of Illinois, "These disparities exist, even though we know that the physiological and psychoactive effects of crack and powder cocaine are virtually identical. They exist even though the effects of prenatal exposure to crack and powder cocaine are identical. They exist even though the epidemic of violence and rapid spread to youth that crack was suppose to create never happened.
"
Despite the countless reports and studies, and the pleas from drug-war victims, their families and activists, Congress to this day has failed to change the 100-to-1 rule--though the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted last year to modify penalties for crack cocaine offenses.
* * *
The terrible impact of the "tough-on-crime" crusade can be seen in another disturbing statistic disclosed by the Pew report: More than half of all released offenders end up back behind bars within three years. Some commit another crime, but others are guilty of minor violations of the terms of their release--according to federal statistics, more than a third of people who entered prison in 2005 were arrested for parole violations.
This reality isn't altogether surprising given the 20-year trend of dramatic cuts to education programs for prisoners, which have been shown to be the single-most important factor in reducing recidivism.
Such programs grew widely as a result of the Attica prison uprising in 1971--as of 1995, there were still 350 programs that allowed prisoners to earn college degrees. But thanks to "law-and-order" measures passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by Democrat Bill Clinton, they began to disappear. Only 12 of these programs exist today.
There are finally some cracks appearing in the "lock 'em up and throw away the key" mentality of lawmakers. Sadly, however, many of the proposals under consideration now aren't driven by a change of heart, but by the financial crisis caused by states facing the burden of paying for incarcerating ever-growing numbers of people.
According to the Pew study, five states spend more of their budget on prisons than they do on higher education. Overall, between 1987 and 2007, "state spending on higher education has increased 21 percent, while corrections spending had more than doubled, increasing 127 percent," the Economic Policy Institute reported.
This economic burden is forcing some welcome policy changes. In Texas, for example, some drug offenders are being put into treatment programs instead of prison. Other states are also considering early release programs, and the guidelines on crack cocaine offenses accepted by the U.S. Sentencing Commission are being applied retroactively.
This is a move in the right direction, but it is taking place too slowly--and the lives of 2.3 million people are wasting away in the meantime.
Earlier in March, the writers of the HBO drama The Wire spoke for them in an essay in Time magazine. If asked to serve on a jury in a drug case, they would vote to acquit, the writers said. "No longer," they concluded, "can we collaborate with a government that uses non-violent drug offenses to fill prisons with it's poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.
"
MARLENE MARTIN is national director of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) and a frequent contributor to the Socialist Worker.
Free Forrest Student!
On Tuesday, March 18, local activist Forrest Student and member of SDS at The Evergreen State College in Olympia was targeted by Officer Perez of the Evergreen Police. Perez has a history of harassing and abusing students and other people on campus. When Perez approached him and started questioning him, the person said he had the right to have an attorney present and because of that, Perez arrested him for obstruction. Forrest continued in his refusal, demanding an attorney while in jail and at his arraignment. In response his charges were increased to misdemeanor criminal mischief. The judge refused to set bail and Forrest is still sitting in jail. He will not be released until he appears before a judge, which at the earliest will be on Friday.
Forrest has been very involved in local politics of late, participating in the Port of Olympia protests in November and being very vocal in his criticism of the conduct by the Administration on campus in the wake of the events on Feb. 14th. In the current environment of political repression on campus and elsewhere, this development proves significantly troublesome. Forrest has been held in jail and is facing charges for exercising a right protected by the Fifth Amendment, the right not to speak to law enforcement without representation.
If you would like to lend assistance to Forrest for legal matters, send check or money to:
Forrest Student
910 4th Ave. E
Olympia, WA 98506
Also, please call the Thurston County Jail and demand that Forrest Student be released as soon as possible. The number is 360 786-5510. You will be given a list of options to respond. It should take no more than a minute.
The more people call, the more the jail will get bothered and the quicker Forrest will get released. A little bit of pressure goes a long, long way.
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