In Contempt #4: Support the Prairieland Defendants on Trial, Inside-Outside ICE Detention Center Protests, Palestine Action UK Actionists Acquitted, Free Alabama Prison Strike, & More!
In Contempt #4: Support the Prairieland Defendants on Trial, Inside-Outside ICE Detention Center Protests, Palestine Action UK Actionists Acquitted, Free Alabama Prison Strike, & More!
IN CONTEMPT returns with the next monthly prison rebel roundup. Packed in as always are updates, action and analysis we hope helps build inside-outside networks of resistance. Over 100 copies are sent to comrades behind bars each month!
Following the closing of It’s Going Down, a new collective will continue publishing monthly “In Contempt” updates on this noblogs. Please submit any updates and calls to action to the new email in_contempt at autistici dot org.
All of our fates will soon be tied to what happens in a hundred-person courtroom in Fort Worth, Texas. But while we are living through a time of broken norms and terrifying indications for the future—as the Prairieland case makes starkly clear—we are in this together. The only path through the fear and uncertainty will be to continue and widen the solidarity and support we have already seen from so many of you. For that we are grateful, and with that we are hopeful.
February 17 UPDATE: MISTRIAL DECLARED FIRST DAY OF PRAIRIELAND TRIAL IN TEXAS
During jury selection, Judge Pittman—a Trump appointee—abruptly ended court. He appeared frustrated that multiple potential jurors displayed indifference to the principle of carrying firearms at protests. He remarked that one of the defense attorneys wore a Jesse Jackson shirt beneath her suit coat, alleging that this could somehow illegally influence the jury selection process.
For current updates, visit prairielanddefendants.com
As the federal trial against the Prairieland defendants is set to begin tomorrow, February 17, a recent article in Crimethinc, “The Road to Prairieland: The Crackdown on Anti-ICE Activists in Texas Reflects a Pattern of Intensifying Repression“––crucial reading for anyone not familiar with the case, laying out the stakes of this severe escalation in federal repression and its political stakes for all of us––articulates the urgency of our solidarity in this moment.
[T]he tactics deployed against Prairieland Defendants reflect a worldwide trend of state repression targeting social movements, often by means that stretch or violate existing laws… Everyone who has a stake in social change should follow the Prairieland case closely. The prosecutors intend to use this case to criminalize protesting outside of jails, dressing in black clothing during protests, employing fireworks during protests, removing people who have been arrested from group chats, transporting anarchist pamphlets, and refusing to snitch on codefendants. If they are successful, the case could set precedents that will impact protesters for years to come. […]
By defeating ICE in the streets and rallying behind all who take action to resist the rise of authoritarianism, we can redirect outrage against the who are actually terrorizing communities across the country and around the world: politicians, the wealthy, and the armed mercenaries they depend on.
The DFW Support Committee is asking for comrades to come to Dallas Fort Worth to show support for the brave, non-cooperating Prairieland defendants on trial:
The defendants charged in connection to the noise demo at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, TX are going to federal trial on February 17th. It is expected to run through mid March. Friends and loved ones of the defendants are asking for supporters to help generate a strong in person presence in court and outside of the court house. Showing up in person is the best way to demonstrate solidarity with the defendants and to remind the people behind the charges that there is a strong, engaged community that is watching the trial and backing the defendants.
The Prairieland case is a preview of the crackdown that is being prepared to address the mass movement against ICE. It has already set new, terrifying precedents for anyone engaged in any kind of resistance work. We are calling on anyone who can make it to all or part of the trial to attend.
We expect court to run about 3-6 weeks, Monday through Friday, in person in Fort Worth, Texas. Comrades will be providing food to those attending, and there will be a series of press conferences put on by the defendant support crews for supporters and media.
We are currently asking:
Local or regional people who can host out of town court attendees
People or groups who can commit to coming for any specific duration of the trial.
People who can provide financial or food support during the trial
For more information or coordination, please email: prairielandcourtsolidarity@proton.me
In addition to the schedule above, the DFW Support Committee will hold a press conference on the 1st day of the trial, Tuesday, February 17, 2026, 8:15 AM, at Burk Burnett Park in Fort Worth, TX.
The nine non-cooperating defendants going to trial have been moved to Tarrant County Jail in anticipation of trial. Please don’t write to any of them at FMC or Wichita––all addresses for the Prarieland defendants are on the DFW Support Committee website or lower in this column.
After being transferred to Tarrant County Jail, the defendants were all placed in solitary confinement under special “aggressive and dangerous” classification; supporters organized a phone zap at Judge Pittman’s office and the Tarrant County Jail challenging harsh conditions.
Supporters are also alarmed at how restricted public access to the trial will be with a ban on electronic devices from the courthouse, a ban on recording the proceedings, and repressive restrictions on public attendance to the trial, all intended to limit information, solidarity, and support to the defendants.
In addition, the DFW Support Committee has outlined extremely worrying patterns of behavior from presiding judge, Mark Pittman, including truncating the timeline of the trial so as to not give the defense enough time to prepare their case, successfully pressuring lawyers from taking up defense of the defendants by threatening them with monetary fines, sanctioning other defense lawyers with fines for filing routine motions, while publicly comparing the defendants with the IRA.
According to the prosecution’s witness list filings on the public docket, five of the defendants have agreed to testify for the government at trial and are believed to have made statements that led to others being identified and apprehended: Seth Sikes, Nathan Baumann, Lynette Sharp, Susan Kent, and John Thomas. Additionally, Meagan Morris, another defendant facing trial this week, had early on also gave statements to law enforcement which caused harm, but has since made a commitment to fighting the case here at trial, and does not appear to be assisting the government in prosecution of others. While not everyone who pled guilty is necessarily cooperating, we must at all costs support those defendants who didn’t concede to the state’s threats and are taking their fight to trial, a fight that will immediately affect all of our abilities to keep fighting, for them, and for us all.
While state repression works through coercion and violence to divide movements for liberation, taking advantage of desires for self-preservation by encouraging people facing potentially decades in prison to co-operate, inform, and testify against their co-defendants in the hopes of reducing their individual sentences, past cases of intense repression such as “Operation Backfire” in the Green Scare targeting earth and animal liberation movements in the Pacific Northwest are evidence that cooperating with the government is never in a defendant’s best interest.
To quote from “Green Scared? Lessons from the FBI Crackdown on Eco-Activists,” originally published in Rolling Thunder in 2008,
Repression will exist as long as there are states and people who oppose them. Complete invulnerability is impossible, for governments as well as their opponents. All the infiltrators and informants of the Tsarist secret police were powerless to prevent the Russian revolution of 1917, just as the East German Stasi were unable to prevent the fall of the Berlin Wall even though they had files on six million people. Revolutionary struggles can succeed even in the face of massive repression; for our part, we can minimize the effects of that repression by preparing in advance.
Cooperation is never acceptable in any liberatory struggle, whether it is a question of a high profile defendant snitching on their comrades or an acquaintance of law-abiding activists answering seemingly harmless questions––it not only seriously endangers individuals fighting for freedom but our struggles as a whole.
Solidarity Events
Solidarity events, banner drops, letter writing and info nights, and other expressions of material support and solidarity have been and are being organized internationally for the Prairieland defendants
Fort Worth TX
Austin, TX
Vienna, Austria
Hamburg, GermanySouth Korea
Send a Letter!
Resources and addresses for writing to the non-cooperating Prairieland defendants are available on the support website. The people who have been moved to Tarrant County Jail can also correspond electronically texts using website smartinmate.com and entering their numbers.
As of the date of publishing, the addresses are:
Name
Facility
SO/CID Number
Autumn Hill* (address envelope to Cameron Arnold)
Tarrant County Jail
1069939
Benjamin “Champagne” Song
Tarrant County Jail
1069938
Ines Soto
Tarrant County Jail
1069936
Meagan Morris* (address envelope to Bradford Morris)
Tarrant County Jail
706099
Zachary Evetts
Tarrant County Jail
1069937
Janette Goering
Johnson County Detention Center
202503019
Elizabeth Soto
Tarrant County Jail
1069927
Joy “Rowan” Gibson
Wichita County Detention Center
100009
Maricela Rueda
Tarrant County Jail
1069930
Savanna Batten
Tarrant County Jail
1069929
Daniel “Des” Rolando Sanchez Estrada
Tarrant County Jail
962277
Lucy Fowlkes* (address envelope to Samuel Fowlkes)
Johnson County Detention Center
202600038
Rebecca Morgan
Wichita County Detention Center
100008
Smart Communications / Tarrant Co Jail Prisoner Full Name and CID Number PO Box 9195 Seminole, FL 33775-9137
Johnson County Jail, TX Prisoner Name, SO Number P.O. Box 247 Phoenix, MD 21131
Wichita County Detention Center, TX Prisoner name, SO Number P.O. Box 247 Phoenix, MD 21131
Two letter writingzines with updated information are also available to print, share, and distro:
Chants of “Let Us Go!” erupted during a mass protest by prisoners inside Dilley Family Detention Center.
The immigrant detention center, opened during the Obama administration and run by private contractor CoreCivic for ICE since 2025, is also the prison where 5 year old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father were detained, both abducted from Minneapolis where major uprisings against ICE and brutal federal repression are occurring. Detainees launched a protest on January 28, 2026 reportedly after hearing about the latest federal assassinations of Alex Pretti and Renee Good as well as the courage of the mass resistance movement in Minneapolis.
In a moving expression of inside-outside solidarity, protesters gathered outside of the prison in Dilley, Texas to support those protesting inside, while both state and federal agents responded with violence.
Hundreds of children are currently being imprisoned at Dilley. Letters from child prisoners published online and on social media depict grief, anguish, misery, but also hope and determination to struggle.
Dilley was also the site of a measles outbreak in early February––a brutal reminder that all forms of imprisonment are life-threatening in their essence.
Free Leqaa Kordia!
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who has been detained in ICE custody for over 300 days locked up and facing retaliation for her determination to struggle for Palestinian liberation (Leqaa is the last Columbia protester behind bars), was hospitalized in early February after a seizure, potentially caused by head trauma in the Prairieland detention center bathroom. Prairieland is notorious for its life-threatening conditions and is also the location of the 2025 noise demo after which 19 people are now facing federal charges relating to “domestic terrorism.” Prior to her hospitalization, Leqaa reported several symptoms, including a fever, dizziness, and brain fog, likely due to malnutrition.
Leqaa has since released a statement:
The entire time I was chained. For three days in the emergency room, my hands and legs were weighed down by heavy chains as they drew my blood and gave me medications. It was terrifying. I felt like an animal. My hands are still full of marks from the heavy metal. They even refused to remove the chains when went to the bathroom or took a shower. On the third day, I asked the lieutenant, ‘Why am I chained like this?’ His response was ‘because I said so.’
ICE detention facilities are built to break people and destroy their health and hope. I want everyone to know what happened to me because the same things are happening to other women who are locked up here. There are women who have terminal cancer, disabled women, pregnant women. They are all suffering, and none of us deserves to be here. No one deserves this.
The only reason ICE targeted me in the first place is because I protested against the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza. Even now, US-made bombs continue to destroy Palestinian homes and kill Palestinian families. Whether it is my family in Palestine, or the other women unjustly confined by ICE alongside me, I will continue to use my voice to speak up for the freedom and dignity of others.
Prisoners for Palestine, a UK-based group supporting the struggles of Palestine Action UK prisoners, announced the end of the collective hunger strike that saw 70+ days of concerted, steadfast action by Umer Khalid, Kamran Ahmed, Heba Muraisi, Lewie Chiaramello, T Hoxha, Amu Gib, Qesser Zuhrah, and Jon Cink with the following statement, after Umer was hospitalized after engaging in a thirst strike:
Today, 27th January 2026, we announce the end of Umer Khalid’s hunger and thirst strike, who was the last remaining hunger striker, and with it, the end of the collective open-ended hunger strike campaign that started on Balfour day, November 2nd 2025.
8 hunger strikers across 6 different British prisons chose to use their own incarcerated bodies to resist from deep within the prison walls for Palestine. In every demand they made, and every statement they wrote, they centered Palestinian liberation, and inspired by the unconquerable spirit of Palestinian resistance, they resisted until their bodies gave up on them, and after that too.
This hunger strike has forever changed the landscape of British activism for Palestine, just as it has permanently altered the bodies of the hunger striking prisoners, challenging the boundaries of what we deem is possible in standing up to the Zionist military-industrial complex on British soil, and proving to us, above all, that our bodies are all we need to fight for Palestinian liberation, no matter where we are or what conditions we find ourselves bound to.
Umer ended his strike after 17 days of hunger striking and 3 days of a thirst strike, during which he met with the prison governor of HMP Wormwood Scrubs, Amy Frost, in order to discuss prison censorship, one of the main demands of the hunger strike campaign. As a result of the meeting, Umer has now received all of his previously withheld mail and clothes, and his restrictions on visits, which have been heavily limited ever since being held on remand in July 2025, have also been lifted. Umer won this victory – of being deserving of the fundamental human rights for all prisoners – after he had starved his body to draw attention to the barbaric cruelty of the prison system, operating on orders from the British state – treatment our prisoners have all been subjected to just because they dared to stand up to Elbit Systems, the military arm of the Zionist entity Britain is courting for genocide. Umer and the other hunger strikers are proof that the British state is willing to let its own citizens die at the behest of a foreign genocidal entity. Despite their best efforts, the hunger strikers were not silenced, but live, resisting and defiant.Throughout the hunger strike campaign, directly because of the courageous resistance and sacrifices of the hunger strikers, Elbit has been exposed and its days are numbered. The loss of the £2billion defence contract it had been set up to win is a victory for the hunger strikers; because Elbit’s entire business model, its very existence, is built on the destruction of Palestinian life, the lucrative profits it would have received would allow it to test more weapons in its business to annihilate the Palestinian people. The loss means it has lost its foothold here, and as the hunger strike has demonstrated to us, direct action will soon drive it out for good.
The greatest achievement of the hunger strikers is that they have reinvigorated a movement on the streets: they have awakened an uprising. The state thought they could crush dissent and for a few months it seemed they may have been right. But what we have seen with this hunger strike is an upsurge of people’s refusal to accept watching from a distance, a refusal of the government’s participation in genocide – and a return to direct action against the direct architecture of the genocide itself.
Umer, Kamran, Heba, Lewie, T, Amu, Qesser, and Jon have taught us that we create our own justice. Their resistance, which has changed their bodies forever, is not confined to a hunger strike, or to prison walls; it is a commitment that will not fade or die, but will continue, forcefully and powerfully, until liberation. We pledge to fight alongside them on the outside, using our bodies to get in the way of the machinery of Zionist violence and colonisation, never slowing down, on the path they have paved for us using their incarcerated bodies.
Until every factory is shut down, until every cage is empty, until every inch of Palestine is liberated, our resistance continues.
Italian anarchist prisoner Luca “Stecco” Dolce also published reflections on ending his hunger strike in solidarity with the Palestine Action UK hunger strikers, as well as reflections on continuing the struggle against genocide, war, and imperialism.
We all know by experience how much international support amongst prisoners is ground from which to draw moral and political strength, of potential exchange within individual differences and in opening new inroads breaking down borders and walls. Today, this approaching and getting acquainted amongst internationalist comrades is fundamental and necessary because, sharing the words of Jon Cink, in order to thin down the line of privilege (I write as a white man with legal documents) each person has to take a stance and ask oneself what he/she is ready to do with their life choices, shaking off some ideological ballast to observe the world outside of our fences which keep us in a comfort zone, and this does not mean to abandon our principles and methods. The power of the words that reached me here made these bars and walls even more useless, the weight of detention has become ineffective, because the determination and the impulse towards a just cause with a liberation perspective, steers away every repressive hand from one’s ideal “convictions”. The body in this case is a box, the fighting spirit is stoked up and strengthened in the conjunction of the will of free women and men, even if physically imprisoned and far away from each other.
The whole letter is available as a zine to print, share, and distro:
Five of our six loved ones walked free at the end of the long and gruelling trial at Woolwich Crown Court on Wednesday 4 February, acquitted of the most serious charge of aggravated burglary, with acquittals or hung juries on all other charges. Only Sam Corner was refused bail and remains in HMP Belmarsh, even though he too was acquitted of aggravated burglary and was not convicted of grievous bodily harm.
Extraordinarily, the jury did not return guilty verdicts on a single charge.
In a statement released on the day, family members and activists spoke about the result.
Lisa Minerva Luxx of the Filton 24 Defence committee said:
Today’s significant victory delivered by the jury has vindicated the six defendants, who are the first six on trial from the Filton 24.
There are still 18 more defendants imprisoned across the UK in connection with this case. They are being held under joint enterprise which means they each have the same 3 charges whether they are accused of being present at the action or not. Now that the first 6 have been liberated of the most serious charge, Aggravated Burglary, and none were convicted of a single offence, it follows that the rest must immediately have this charge dropped against them, and be granted bail.
This was a trial by media. Yvette Cooper and Keir Starmer took evidence in this case out of context and broadcast it on televisions and tabloids across the country in order to justify proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, despite forewarning that this will prejudice the trial.
By acquitting the defendants of aggravated burglary, the Jury aligned with the defence case that the items taken in to the warehouse were not weapons, but were tools used to dismantle and neutralise Israeli weapons.
Now that a court of law have vindicated the first six of the Filton 24 of the exaggerated charges against them [and found that the actions against Elbit Systems that night were reasonable], we should all expect Shabana Mahmood to do the reasonable thing herself and lift the ban on Palestine Action.
It’s time for the British state to accept that the movement for a liberated Palestine has been, and will continue to be, justified.
Body worn footage shows the moment Elbit security guard Angelo Volante strikes Jordan Devlin with a sledgehammer and knocks him to the ground.
Family members, including three mothers, spoke at a press conference outside court – watch it via Declassified UK.
The powerful closing argument given by the lead defense for the Filton 6 is available to be read in full, highlighting the history of direct action and the necessity for courageous escalation in the face of Western complicity in the zionist genocide in Gaza.
UK high courts also recently deemed the proscription of Palestine Action, the bannerhead for more than 500 direct actions and sabotage in the UK aiming to stop the flow of weapons to Israel’s genocide in Palestine, as a terrorist organization to be unlawful.
Free Them All!
Casey Brezik Is Free!
After 15 years in prison, anarchist political prisoner Casey Brezik has come home!
He is adjusting well, and psyched about life, but needs help to get started.
Living expenses and basic needs can be difficult to meet without a job, connections and experience moving through this technology-driven, end-stage-capitalist reality.
Anything you give will help ease the labor and anxiety that anyone would be dealing with after nearly two decades in a highly-controlled, hyperviolent carceral system.
Donate:
cashapp: $caseybrezik venmo: @casey-brezik
Margaret Channon Is Free!
George Floyd Uprising rebel Margaret Channon was released to a halfway house finishing up a 5 year federal prison sentence for torching 5 Seattle Police cars during the George Floyd uprising. Stay tuned on uprisingsupport.org for ways to support her after her time inside.
Phone Zaps
Call in For Mumia Abu-Jamal!
Political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is being denied essential medical care
As of February 2026, Mumia has not received treatment for his diabetic retinopathy or agressive glaucoma. His vision has been restored to a point after having a procedure done, but his vision is still at risk without further treating the underlying condition. He needs an opthamologist or he risks going blind!
Please call, email, and write letters to SCI Mahony and the secretary of the Pennsylvania department of corrections this week. They are open Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM EST.
Call:
SCI Mahanoy superintendant Bernadette Mason: (570) 773-2158 PA Department of Corrections secretary Laurel Harry: (717) 728-4109 or (717) 728-2573
Berndatte Mason SCI Mahanoy 301 Grey Line Drive, Frackville PA 17931
Basic Script:
“Hello, my name is _____ and I am calling to request that Mumia Abu-Jamal #8335 needs to be seen and treated by specialists, who treat diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma. He also needs to be examined for new glasses, a heart healthy diet, filtered water, and regular exercise, indoors and out.”
🔔🖤✊🏾 The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement’s National Political Prisoner Committee is hosting our fourth annual Black Love in Action for Political Prisoners week, a week‑long series of political education, cultural events, and community outreach centered on solidarity with political prisoners and the ongoing call to #FreeEmAll.
Taking place from February 12–19, 2026, Black Love in Action originated in the campaign to bring home Dr. #MutuluShakur and continues the organization’s commitment to freeing political prisoners, prisoners of war, political exiles, and politicized prisoners. The week emphasizes love not as sentiment, but as disciplined practice—expressed through collective care, community engagement, culture, faith, and organized action.
Black Love in Action 2026 affirms that love—when rooted in community, commitment, and collective struggle—is a powerful force for liberation. Through culture, community, and material support, the week calls on people everywhere to stand with political prisoners and recommit to the fight to Free ’Em All.
On February 8th, people incarcerated throughout Alabama DOC began a statewide shutdown with work strikes and outside demonstrations against the dehumanization regime recently exposed with firsthand accounts and contraband cellphone videos in the new documentary “The Alabama Solution”. Free Alabama Movement has shared ways people can take action:
#STATEWIDESHUTDOWNADOC #FEB8
1. REPEAL HABITUAL OFFENDER LAW 2. PRESUMPTIVE SENTENCING GUIDELINE RETROACTIVE 3. MAKE HJR 575 RETROACTIVE 4. FIRST-TIME OFFENDER/CAPITAL MURDER REFFORM BILL 5. PAROLE BOARD REFORM AND CRITERIA 6. MEDICAL FURLOUGH / COMPASSIONATE RELEASE EXPANSION 7. STATEWIDE CONVICTION REVIEW UNIT 8. ABOLISH FORCED PRISON LABOR 9. STRENGTHENING FAMILIES ACT (INCLUDING CONJUGAL VISITS)
10 Ways YOU Can Take Action After Watching The Alabama Solution
Alabama is Ground Zero in the fight for human rights in America. The prison system and parole board are operating as modern-day slavery—profiting off of human suffering. The film has exposed the truth. Now it’s time to act.
10 ACTION STEPS
1. Sign & Share the Petition Demand Gov. Kay Ivey call for real prison reform and parole board accountability, via legislation.
2. Call & Email State Leaders Flood their offices with demands for change.
3. Support Families of the Incarcerated Donate to commissary, ride-shares for visits, or community bail funds.
4. Join Boycotts & Work Strikes Withhold money and labor from the prison system for 90 days. Starve the system.
5. Amplify the Message Share clips, quotes, and facts from the film on social media. Use your platform.
6. Host a Screening or Discussion Bring the film to your church, school, or living room to spread awareness.
7. Support Inside Organizers Write letters, send books, or donate to legal defense and prison organizing campaigns.
8. Build Local Coalitions Connect with groups like Free Alabama Movement, The Kinetik Justice Project, and faith allies.
9. Push Federal Oversight Contact the DOJ Civil Rights Division and demand they enforce their lawsuit against Alabama.
10. Stay Committed Show up monthly. Write letters. Join rallies. This is a movement, not a moment.
OUR DEMAND
Gov. Kay Ivey must address this humanitarian crisis—or we cut the money faucet off.
Get Connected: Together, inside and outside, we are unstoppable
Alabama DOC is retaliating against three people for their participation in the film and their alleged role in the statewide prison strike: Robert Earl Council, Melvin Ray, and Raoul Poole were transferred to Kilby prison where it’s believed they are being held in solitary confinement. Supporters are organizing a phone zap in their defense by calling Kilby prison at 334-215-6600.
Imprisoned Black gay anarchist Michael Kimble issued a statement with specific updates and action items to support those fighting at Ventress Correctional Facility:
On February 8th, 2026 Prisoners in the State of Alabama are doing it again!
The Free Alabama Movement [FAM] made the call for prisoners to shut this shit down and prisoners throughout the state is answering this call to action on February 8th by refusing to participate in their own exploitation and oppression. There will be no work [slave labor].
The demands from prisoners at the prison I’m being held captive in [Ventress Correctional Facility] are:
Total abolition of prisons, elimination of LWOP sentences [life without possibility of parole] and the death penalty.
We refuse to continue playing a part in our own slavery, exploitation and oppression by withholding our labor power.
Join us by being creative and fighting to abolish prisons. Some suggestions for those out in minimum kustody [so-called free-world]:
Banner drops
Agitation and education
Hold a screening of the documentary “The Alabama Solution”
Graffiti
Write a prisoner
Direct action
The state of Alabama Department of Corrections has already begun to attempt to derail the work strike by weaponizing food and limiting the amount of food prisoners can purchase from the commissary, and bird feeding us.
This morning we were served a small portion of soupy oatmeal, one slice of bread and a spoonful of jelly, and a spoonful of gravy. For lunch we were served one fish patty, one slice of bread, a spoonful of English peas.
We also suggest that you call and demand that we be given full, nutritious meals.
Ventress Correctional Facility Warden Karen Williams: 334-775-3331 Ext. 101 ADOC Commissioner’s Office 334-353-3870 ADOC Main Number 334-353-3883
Sample Script: “Hello, I am calling out of concern that over the past week, Ventress Correctional Facility has been weaponizing food by reducing what is included with each meal, as well as limiting food that can be bought at commissary. We demand that they be given full, nutritious meals at all times, and full access to commissary.”
NYC Jericho Black History Month: Honoring Warriors and Political Prisoners of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army: NYC Jericho will host a panel discussion with current and former BPP/BLA Political Prisoners and their allies, including Jalil Muntaqim, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Kwame “Beans” Shakur and others, on Saturday, February 28. https://www.abcf.net/blog/nyc-jericho-black-history-month-event-2-28-26/
PDX Antirepression will be hosting an online discussion and fundraiser for Black anarchists with former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army political prisoner Ashanti Alston on Black anarchism and abolitionism on February 22, 3-5 PST. Email pdxantirepression@anche.no for questions and meeting link.
Xinachtli is a political prisoner and as such, he is an example, a part of the people’s story, a part of the Chicano people’s story. He is just one individual, but as an individual he makes up a piece of the puzzle that people need to utilize to get our current and future generations of people to understand that life has put in front of us and history has put in front of us a mandate, and we have to either propel it or betray it, and so I don’t want to go on and on, but I do want to humanize my brother and my elder Xinachtli and say that he is indeed a human being. He is indeed an individual worthy of dignity, and I think that people should be encouraged to fight for his freedom. To remember not only him but all political prisoners and prisoners of war that the imperialist project known as the USA has murdered behind these walls based on their political and military actions for freedom and dignity.
We have to say their names. We have to say the name of Mumia Abu-Jamal who is still behind the walls. We have to say the name of Imam Jamil who was recently murdered by the United States of America. We have to say the names of Black Liberation Army fighters, who lost their lives at a time when people were scared to admit that they were political prisoners behind the walls. Y’know, Abdul Majid, Albert “Nuh” Washington. Y’know what I mean. We have to say the names of our elders and ancestors, now ancestors that have died in exile like Assata Shakur and others. And when we familiarize ourselves not only with these individuals but with their sacrifices, with the ideals behind those sacrifices, we understand better what our mandate is and we decolonize ourselves or we begin to decolonize ourselves from within. So with that, I’m gonna close off again: Free our political prisoners and political prisoners of the war. Free Xinachtli, and I wish you all love and resistance.
A longform article was recently published in New Republic, “Is the State of Texas Trying to Kill This Chicano Activist?” detailing the cruel punishment Xinachtli has faced which has resulted in a rapid decline of his health, a story that reminds us that we must fight for and struggle with revolutionaries inside while they’re alive.
Write to Xinachtli:
Texas Department of Criminal Justice Xinachtli* #255735 Post Office Box 660400 Dallas, Texas 75266-0400 *Address envelope to Alvaro Hernández.
Marius Mason
Recently released political prisoner Marius Mason shared a poem dedicated to Renee Good:
for Renee Nicole Good
What has been …. Trampled in the snow The ice, sliding into the accident, So many long guns Three shots, the shock Murder is an ugly word But apt. No one will forget you, Little mother, Or the peace You Tried to Bring.
M.J.M.
Casey Goonan
The Casey Support Committee shared an update about Casey Goonan’s transfer to FCI Allenwood in Pennsylvania:
Update 2/15/26 from the Casey Support Committee
Finally! As you may have seen elsewhere, Casey is finally out of the holdover unit at FCI Mendota and is in the transfer pipeline to their designated facility.
At 4 am on Tuesday, 2/11, Casey was woken, told to pack it up, then put on the bus before the sun rose. They were transported from Mendota to the SF Federal Bldg then to the county jail in downtown SF. Casey reported that coming over the hills that morning into the Bay as the sun rose, they felt blessed. Casey, sitting in a van still cuffed up, was able to see the horizon, able to see the sun’s light grow and spread over the city and the Bay.
While at the SF jail, Casey was able to walk around the unit freely, talk to others, and enjoy phone access with their friends and loved ones in a way not possible for months in that shithole holdover unit. Casey and a member of our committee were able to have a loving, hour long conversation that didn’t feel like a rushed whisper through a keyhole. ❤️
Casey didn’t spend long in SF before they were put on a plane. On Friday, Casey showed up on the BOP inmate locator at FCI Allenwood – Medium, one facility of three in a prison complex located in northern Pennsylvania.
A few notes about Casey’s current placement:
* This may be an intermediate placement. We have not confirmed with Casey that this is their permanent designated facility and this may well be a temporary location. All prison systems are opaque and move people around at will according to their own fickle bureaucratic criteria. When we confirm this is to be Casey’s designated facility we will let you know.
* It’s always good to write! Address for the facility will be below. But know that in addition to this possibly being a short-lived placement, sometimes Casey’s mail has been held by the mailroom for weeks or months. We have found that multiple pieces of mail were simply blocked or lost as well. So independent of Casey being at Allenwood permanently or temporarily, know that comms through the mail are goofy as well as slow and fully surveilled.
* According to Casey, this current spot is capable of taking care of their diabetes needs better. They are let out of their cell from 8 am to 5 pm, have phone access, and at the time of the last call with fam, Casey was bout to be on their way to check out the library (!! of course, if you know Casey…🙂)
* At some point, Casey’s counselor told them that they had been given a “Low” security classification. This has not been formally confirmed. So again, we will let you know when we know more. And yes, a Low can be sent to a Medium level facility – Welcome to the byzantine nature of prison regulations and practices.
* All property is surrendered on transfer out of a holdover unit so Casey has to start over in terms of personal property and nutritional supplements from commissary to deal with their diabetes. To send funds to keep Casey’s commissary account topped,up, you can Venmo Casey’s fam – @JuliePeterson.
More on the toll of “holdover life”
Casey spent over 4 months in holdover at Mendota. Holdover – the limbo status and unit for people being received, moved, etc. – is worse than solitary in many respects. You have no property, no programs, limited access to anything but your tiny cell, and no definite date for getting out. Casey had only minimal access to medical care for their diabetes with insulin only dispensed once per day, insufficient blood sugar checks, mediocre diet, and maximum stress and uncertainty. The poor care available had started to permanently damage Casey’s eyesight. If they were to continue much longer in holdover, they were anticipating needing a new prescription in order to read or see adequately.
Also, every other person that passed through holdover at Mendota only spent a few weeks there. A month in and Casey became in effect the “OG” of the unit, the one there the longest, orienting others to the layout and program of the place. Yet again, to those who been locked up or who have years doing prisoner support, the question at some point becomes “Is this bullshit targeted or is it just random, just industrialized abandonment and they don’t give a shit about anybody?”
Well, Casey is a political prisoner. And while everybody gets a number inside, everybody gets put in the uniform, there’s a wild card or two in the deck for politicals. Consequences can be heavier. And that’s another thing for people on the outside to remember and take to heart regarding risks, expectations, and communications with our loved ones inside.
Legal update
Casey has been pursuing a habeas petition with another legal team to appeal their conviction and sentencing. The deadline for filing is 12 months from sentencing (Sept. 23, 2026) so we will report more on this in the coming months as it develops.
Free Palestine, Fire to the Prisons
In solidarity, CSC
Casey’s new address for books and mail:
Casey Goonan #24611-511 FCI Allenwood Medium P.O. Box 2000 White Deer, PA 17887
An updated letter writing zine for Casey is also available to print, share, and distro:
Chistopher Naeem Trotter released a letter in solidarity to the courageous people of Minneapolis rising up against ICE.
Dear Minnesotans,
My name is Christopher Naeem Trotter, and I’m a political prisoner who has been held captive by the state of Indiana for over 41 years for my act of resistance against state violence and repression. My heart is very saddened over the brutal murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by ICE and the gestapo-like tactics they use to intimidate, terrorize, and repression the restance of Minnesotans in the streets. What is happening in Minnesota is only the beginning of state repression as more people around the country demand an end to the government infringement upon their rights. Now is the time to resist more than ever, to put a complete stop to ICE! It’s not enough to move them out of Minnesota because they will just end up somewhere else terrorizing some other city. You would think that after the George Floyd murder by racist state cops that things would have changed but it seems they have gotten worse. I encourage Minnesotans and all others in the country to watch the documentary, “The Pendleton 2: They Stood Up.” It tells the story of how 2 people sacrificed their lives to save someone who was being beaten to death by racist prison guards using the same gestapo-like tactics ICE uses in the streets. I hope it will inspire people to be courageous, be proactice, and continue to resist the system that isn’t working for the people. I stand in solidarity with the brave Minnesotans out there resisting! The struggle continues.
In solidarity,
Christopher Naeem Trotter, The Pendleton 2
Shaka Shakur
Shaka has been downgraded to a level 2 and has been moved to a medical unit to further his knee rehabilitation at the following location:
Shaka Shakur #1996207 Lunenburg Correctional Facility 690 Falls Road Victoria, VA 23974
George Floyd Uprising Prisoners
José Felan
José would still love to hear from supporters while at the halfway house he was released to:
Week of Action to Free Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian Prisoners!
15 January 2026 marked the 24th anniversary of the abduction of Palestinian liberation movement leader Ahmad Sa’adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, by the so-called “Palestinian Authority” under its “security coordination” with the Zionist regime. For four years, Sa’adat and his comrades were imprisoned by the PA — and held under U.S., British and Canadian guard — before they were abducted, once again, on 14 March 2006 by the Zionist occupation forces. Since then, Sa’adat and his comrades, leaders of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, have been held inside the notorious Zionist prisons, and subjected to isolation, torture and medical abuse and neglect. Today, they are among the leadership prisoners threatened with assassination daily inside the occupation prisons.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network shared in their call to action,
The Week of Action to Free Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian Prisoners has been marked annually for nearly 15 years. This year, the dates also coincide with a day of media action on 15-16 January 2026 by the Red Ribbons Campaign/Save Palestinian Prisoners Campaign, which focuses on the struggle to free Palestinians in occupation prisons, including medical workers like Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, and all imprisoned Palestinians — as well as campaigning to stop the dangerous “execution law” being promulgated by ultra-Zionist, racist “Israeli” national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. We urge all to participate in this day of media action, as well as activities organized as part of this campaign on 31 January 2026 for the Palestinian prisoners and their liberation.
The call to action is particularly urgent this year. Since 7 October 2023, amid the Al-Aqsa Flood and the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, at least 87 identified Palestinian prisoners have already been assassinated inside the Zionist jails, either directly under torture or due to deliberate medical neglect and abuse. In almost all cases, the occupation continues to imprison the bodies of the martyrs — in addition to the bodies of hundreds of martyrs held hostage by the Zionist regime. Palestinian prisoners are subjected to a starvation policy, denied family and even legal visits, and subjected to repeated raids and attacks inside the prisons — all under the guise of a “state of emergency” — perpetuated for over two years and renewed only yesterday.
Liberated prisoner Georges Abdallah marks the anniversary of the abduction of Ahmad Sa’adat in Beirut, 15 January 2026
The Israeli Prison Service is making preparations to begin implementating the death penalty to Palestinian prisoners, as the Knesset approves the first reading of a new death penalty bill. Israeli media states this includes construction of a new facility, dubbed “Israel’s Green Mile” is where Palestinians would be sent to await execution by hanging. 81 Palestinians have already died in Israeli prisons since October 7th, 2023. Although the death penalty officially has not been applied since the 1962 execution of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann, the death penalty already exists and occurs regularly in the form of “field executions” of Palestinians under the Israeli occupation and the genocidal war in Gaza. This bill simply seeks to further codify what is already Israeli policy, of the destruction of Palestinan life.
Germany
Daniela Klette
The alleged former RAF militant Daniela Klette sent a greeting from pretrial detention to the 31st International Rosa Luxemburg Conference on January 10, 2026, which was withheld by the authorities and has only now reached the newspaper junge Welt.
In the two wars waged by the US against Iraq since 1991, and as a result of the subsequent sanctions, many thousands of children were killed. Years later, when asked about this, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright replied that these wars were nevertheless justified. No one responsible for the many thousands of people killed, the devastated country, the subsequent chain of Western wars in the Middle East culminating in the current genocide in Gaza, or the millions of deaths caused by armed violence and sanctions, spent even a single day of their life in prison.
Against wars that serve only the profit of the few, against the power of capital, and against a prison system designed to discipline, break, and imprison the poor, the rebellious, migrants in immigration detention, dissidents, and political prisoners. Everything they rebelled against exists today more fiercely than ever before. Just look at how rapidly the assessments from a year ago regarding militarization and the necessary transformation of metropolitan societies at all levels have come true. This militarization also means the suppression and marginalization of all social concerns and ecological urgency from public discourse. Instead, fear is to be generated – fear of those seeking help, whether refugees or poor people, who are supposedly overwhelming the social systems and are often portrayed as criminals or at least parasites; fear of losing one’s right to exist if corporate profits fail to increase; fear of Russia, supposedly thirsting for war, and the growing power of China.
This is intended to pave the way for people to accept everything, or, if they don’t, to be suppressed with increasing repression. In Germany, the Palestine solidarity movement, the anti-capitalist anti-war movement, and parts of the anti-fascist movement are currently particularly affected by this. Even those who show solidarity with political prisoners are targeted by state repression. […]
Solidarity gives us the strength to survive this madness, and a counter-public sphere provides protection. All over the world, people are more urgently than ever faced with the question of how to overcome these turbulent, destructive conditions. And this question concerns me as well. I think several things will be crucial: doing everything possible to prevent World War III and all its accompanying consequences. It’s essential to continue resisting the genocide in Gaza, which is being carried out under the guise of a supposed ceasefire, and the gradual annexation of the West Bank by Israel, and to halt the progressive destruction of our ecological foundations. Stopping the aggression and destruction will only be possible through large, collective, and internationalist movements.
Six comrades from the Political Expression Hunting Cluster (also often referred to as the Chaos Star Case) have undergone sentencing today. The outcome of the trial is that comrades AD and MNT were sentenced by the prosecutor to 3 years in prison. Meanwhile, comrades RFK, TAP, MJF, and RS were sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in prison.
A few words from a letter sent by a comrade involved in the Chaos Star case:
“We are particles of an entity called disorder, which is supposed to exist within the spectrum of defiance as our wild instinct, as unique and lazy individuals!”
No one is free until everyone is free.
Going Underground/F.A.A.F
Chaos Star case: Anarchist comrade Eat released under house arrest (Indonesia)
Accused anarchist comrade Eat, in the Chaos Star case, has been released from the West Java paramilitary police compound to house/city arrest. Eat is expected to be watched closely by the Densus88 antiterrorist unit. Comrades and lawyers went to meet him and take him to get nutrition, medicine and rest. Eat remains under investigation and the case is still open. Here’s what Eat’s lawyer had to say about his status:
‘Eat was release by operation of law because the detention period during the investigation stage had expired and could not be extended. However, this release is temporary, as the legal process is still ongoing. The case is currently awaiting transfer from the prosecutor’s office. If it proceeds to the prosecution stage, Eat may be detained again and transferred to Kebon Waru Detention Center for trial.
From a substantive standpoint, Eat actually has a legal advantage in this case. The charges and the investigation report do not meet the required legal elements, particularly those related to incitement. There is no clear evidence of any direct call or instruction to organize or carry out last year’s protest, as alleged. because of this, the prosecutors themselves are hesitant to move the case forward to court.’
This hesitation has also influenced the investigator’s decision not to pursue a second case involving Eat and another named comrade. We thank everyone for their solidarity and support. Without international pressure, we do not believe that Eat would have been released.
Nothing is over. Eat could be re-arrested. There are another 73 accused anarchists and hundreds of prisoners of the uprising still detained. Yet this is a major success, since the Densus88 wanted to scapegoat Eat as the organizational figurehead and leader of the fake Chaos Star network and of the insurrection itself.
Please remain attentive to the health condition and legal process of Eat and that of the other prisoners. Anarchist comrade Dena remains in the West Java compound, and is also ill from lack of HIV medication. Take action and donate to Palang Hitam/ABC Indonesia. We don’t have enough support to adequately provide infrastructure to such a large number of prisoners at a time when the anarchist movement is under attack in Indonesia. To donate, contact Dark Nights, IWOC UK or any long-running established ABC group.
Fire to the prisons!
Palang Hitam/ABC
Two solidarity events will be held in Bristol for the imprisoned anarchist comrades in Indonesia on March 13 and 15 2026:
Mexico
A call for a month of tension after the January 8th arrest of anarchist Arturo Lugo Macías currently held in maximum security prison in Altiplano Mexico:
Revolutionary anarchic solidarity!
February, a month of tension over the release of Arturo Lugo “Sheveck”, kidnapped by the Mexican state
Arturo Lugo, anarchist comrade, kidnapped in Guadalajara by the Mexican state on the morning of January 8, 2026, and transferred to the Altiplano maximum security prison. Arturo is yet another comrade who has survived torture.
On April 5, 2020, during the violent eviction by a group of paramilitary from the FES Acatlán UNAM school, Arturo and other comrades were tortured and sexually assaulted for protesting against the sexual harassment and violence that is allowed at the FES Acatlán school of the UNAM.
We call for a month of anti-authoritarian struggle in all possible forms and territories for the liberation of our comrade.
Sheveck (AKA for Arturo Lugo Macías), is an anarchist and vegan comrade. He was arrested just a couple of weeks ago, on January 8 2026. The Mexican state and the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) are fabricating charges of “property damage with a gang-related aggravating factor” against him. The script is well-known: when they cannot silence you, they will lock you up.
The events that they now intend to use to justify his imprisonment date back more than 5 years ago, at the FES Acatlán of National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), located in Naucalpan. Around that time, students, including him were protesting against generalized sexual abuse cases within the university through the occupation of the building A6 and the classroom 906, known as El Kubo, among other spaces.
The response from power was brutal. On the night of April 5, 2020, a paramilitary group—made up of between 7 and 10 armed men, with tactical gear and gasoline cans—violently stormed the okupación on the building A6. There is no doubt it was a planned attack orchestrated from above. There were beatings, burns, physical, psychological, and sexual assaults, as well as serious injuries, and Arturo suffered third-degree burns.
Almost six years after the events, the aggressors remain free and unpunished. There are no serious investigations into the paramilitary attack or the violations of the students’ integrity. UNAM remains silent and the State decided to punish those who survived and resisted. Those in power seek an exemplary punishment, to criminalize protest, cover up hired thug violence, and send the usual message: organizing has a cost and it is collected sooner or later.
In the hearing on January 13, 2026, precautionary measures of preventive detention were ordered, and Arturo was transferred to the Federal Social Readaptation Center Number 1 El Altiplano, known in Mexico as Almoloya, a maximum-security prison.
Full conditions for dignified treatment are not being guaranteed. As a result of the aggressions inflicted by these armed subjects, Arturo suffered serious injuries to his back. And, so far, he has not had access to blankets, underwear, or warm clothing that would allow him to protect himself from the cold and prevent his previous medical problems from worsening. Likewise, he is unable to eat properly due to the lack of adaptation of the prison food to a vegan diet.
Right now, there is an international solidarity campaign for Sheveck that we hope you could help propagating, with fundraisers and propaganda actions worldwide. We’re publishing most of the information through our Instagram account @libertadsheveck
The objectives were clear: to repress, punish, demobilize, and disorganize. First, they stormed Kubo 906, an anarchist space, where they savagely beat student Adán Fernández Sánchez, fracturing his jaw, and sexually assaulted a female classmate. Then they went to building 6, occupied by the feminist collective Argüenderas y Revoltosas, which was demanding protocols against gender violence. They doused the door with gasoline and set it on fire. Arturo Lugo Macías, in solidarity with the activists, tried to extinguish the flames from inside and was doused with the fuel himself, suffering third-degree burns. The attackers stormed in, beat those present, and sexually assaulted several women. As they brutalized the students, they shouted, “…That’s why we rape and kill them, for being sluts .”
One night in January 2026, we went out to vandalize some places in the city of Xalapa, Veracruz, joining the solidarity mobilization for the imprisoned anarchist Arturo Lugo “Sheveck”, in a new repressive action by the 4T [Fourth Transformation] and the UNAM [University of Mexico] against the anarchist movement*. Let us fight repression with the strength of our solidarity. Arm your group!
Let’s take anarchic and subversive memory to the streets and into combat! For the freedom of Arturo Sheveck!
With the burning memory of Yorch Punk, Chava Olmos, Nadia Vera and everyone who died in the struggle against all forms of Power in any corner of the Earth! Death to the State and Capital!
* Translator’s note: The arrest of Arturo Lugo Macías, alias Sheveck, on January 8th reveals a pattern of institutional violence used to silence protest and political activity at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). The activist, who was the victim of a paramilitary attack in 2020 inside the Faculty of Higher Studies (FES)-Acatlán, is being revictimized almost six years later with the accusation of the same events in which he suffered third-degree burns.
In the early morning of April 5, 2020, a planned act of terror was carried out. As the Covid-19 pandemic began to paralyze the country, at the FES-Acatlán campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), a group of about 10 men, wearing tactical gear, balaclavas, bulletproof vests, and carrying pipes, sticks, gasoline, a pickaxe, and firearms, launched a brutal attack against students who were peacefully occupying two spaces.
ICE Watch: Minneapolis
Trump’s secret police continue murderous rampage; merely a week after the ICE murder of Renée Good during Operation “Metro Surge”, federal occupiers took another life in the streets of Minneapolis. On January 24th, Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who was acting as a rapid responder observed a group of CBP agents pushing down a woman who was filming and quickly helped her back up; a group of CPB agents then pepper-sprayed Alex, threw him down, beat him and in less than a minute shot him dead. The cold-blooded killing in broad daylight spurred massive outrage immediately as Minnesotans arrived to the scene only to be attacked with chemical munitions from DHS and later again by local Minneapolis PD who also used tear gas and pepper balls. For weeks DHS doubled down with militarized feds brutalizing neighborhoods, importing federal prison guards as backup while Noem, Miller, and Bovino insisted Alex was a domestic terrorist who rushed ICE brandishing a gun with intent to cause a massacre, but the whole world had already seen the videos and know it was all a lie.
Forced into symbolic gestures of reforms and reconsiderations, Border Patrol Commander Bovino was reassigned elsewhere and “border czar” Tom Homan was sent to Minnesota to smooth things over. Despite normalized relations between local and federal authorities and 700 of the 3100 agents leaving town, the battle-scarred city is still under occupation; in other targeted cities like Chicago, DC, Portland, Memphis, DHS operations remain even if the large numbers of agents move on to other cities. Meanwhile the feds threaten to invade elsewhere such as California or New York, but have also shown flailing signs of demoralization and defeat.
ICE terrorized the city and arrested thousands; but Minnesotans showed inspiring resilience and fierce willingness to defend their neighbors. Outside the Whipple Federal Building the people protested daily, refusing to be broken by onslaughts of federal chemical warfare; nearby, native activists set up a peace camp at the former Fort Snelling internment camp that had imprisoned thousands of indigenous people. Well-organized rapid-response and mutual aid networks and new forms of mass direct action such as filter blockades and noise demos, some of which are summarized in a new how-to by Crimethinc, show how the people can successfully defend themselves against fascist invaders.
Not all heros wear masks: an unknown person starts a fire at a warehouse which DHS had hoped to acquire to build an immigrant detention center. Even though the incident occurred in broad daylight and the person was not wearing a mask, there have been no arrests at this time of writing; meanwhile the company that owns the warehouse made a statement the same day announcing that they had decided to not go forward with the sale after all.
People locked up at the Otay Mesa Detention Center have successfully sent secret messages seeking help hidden inside lotion bottles and thrown over the fence to comrades who host a vigil outside each week. One of the messages reads:
“Good afternoon. My name is [redacted] and my wife and I have been in OMDC since April 15, 2025. It’s cold here, the food is very poor; for 290+ days we haven’t eaten a single piece of fruit, banana, orange or anything else. We’re in one big room with no doors or windows and can’t see any grass or trees. We’re constantly sick. There’s no internet. My lawyer wasn’t given my phone, and I wasn’t able to properly prepare for the final trial. Our judge changed and he retired. The final court date was postponed three times. After 290+ days we still don’t have a final court decision. They won’t give us a court date or bond hearing or parole. The lawyers aren’t doing their job, and there’s no way to influence them. The library only has English-language books. There’s no sports. We received positive feedback in our torture interview. We were tortured in our country and are now being held in prison indefinitely without the opportunity to properly prepare for trial. We are in dire straits and are pleading for help. Many people have been sitting for 12, 14, 16, 18 months without a final court decision.”
Fierce demonstrations and even a punk show rage almost daily outside the Los Angeles federal detention center. During the January 30th nationwide shutdown, federal riot cops were beaten into retreat as protesters barrage them with trash and set a large dumpster on fire outside the gates. During the February 13th student walkouts, kids got some licks in on a handful of unprepared guards outside; the feds posted pictures of two unmasked people they’re looking for. There’s been many arrests, including students and a veteran who smashed a window with his cane after being hit by an ICE vehicle.
We went forward with this noise demo despite the unstable and volatile political climate in the spirit of cautious bravery, in the spirit of experimentation. We refused to let the system set the terms. If we cower from taking strategic actions out of fear for what might happen, we have already lost the fight before it has even begun. That is not to say be reckless, of course. Experimentation means just that—trying things with open eyes with a willingness to be wrong. To throw things at the wall to see what sticks, and pivot accordingly: a dialectical and deliberate process. “Lento, pero avanzo.” Those of us inside the border empire of the so-called United States, those of us on the outside of the prison walls, are often the ones best positioned to take action against carceral imperialism, deal heavy blows, and inflict significant damage to its position of domination. We are sharing this report back and reflection in part to encourage others to attempt similar or completely distinct actions. In these changing and uncertain times, there are as many opportunities for success as there are for failure. And we will not know which is which unless we try.
Repression
Emiliano Garduño Gálvez was sentenced to 4 years in federal prison for throwing a molotov cocktail towards police during the June 7th anti-ICE rebellion in Los Angeles; he is currently at the Santa Ana jail awaiting transfer and designation in the Bureau of Prisons.
The feds are targeting five renowned Black journalists and activists for being at a protest inside Cities Church in St Paul where the pastor David Easterwood also works as the acting field office director for ICE. Amongst those indicted include Don Lemon, Georgia Fort, Nekima Levy Armstrong, Trahern Crews, Jamael Lydell Lundy, and Chauntyll Louisa Allen are facing federal charges under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE act which “prohibits the use of force, threats or obstruction to intentionally interfere with a person seeking or providing an abortion or other reproductive health services, as well as those exercising their right to religious freedom at places of worship”. Watch a press conference after a recent court appearance.
The feds charged Claire Feng and Emily Baierl with assault and interfering with ICE for allegedly biting off the fingertips of two Border Patrol agents in separate incidents.
Kyle Wagner was arrested in Minneapolis facing federal cyberstalking and threatening communication charges out of Michigan for allegedly doxxing a “pro-ICE” person and a series of social media posts alleged as threats against ICE officers. The DOJ claims that Kyle “proudly claimed affiliation with the terrorist organization Antifa”.
In an foiled attempt to spring Luigi Mangione from federal detention, Mark Anderson was arrested for presenting false court papers claiming to be an FBI agent; he is now being held at the same jail MDC Brooklyn.
DHS has escalated the use of administrative subpoenas as a warrantless method to retrieve entire email accounts and other data from large corporations like Google and Meta to target critics of the Trump Administration.
Last month a judge unsealed reports that demonstrated how the Trump Administration targeted pro-Palestinian students for arrest and deportation using unverified social media posts and the zionist propaganda outlet Canary Mission.
Although Mahmoud Khalil’s appeals have not been exhausted, the DHS plans to rearrest and deport him to Algeria. Mahmoud recently spoke with The Guardian: “The actions that they did against me were by design, by this administration, all the lies that were spread: now they’re spreading them about other people … Now, it’s about raising the alarm”.
Not Guilty
A mistrial was declared in the case against Nick Tilsen, NDN Collective founder accused of aggravated assault and obstruction charges. Last month he did an extensive interview getting into the details and significance of the case. “I’m grateful for everyone who stood with me through the latest iteration of this lengthy legal battle – the support of my family, lawyers, spiritual leaders, medicine people, and community means everything to me … The fight is not over.”
A Chicago jury acquitted Juan Espinoza Martinez who had been falsely accused of placing a “bounty” on Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino – but instead of being released, he was transferred on immigration charges to the Clay County Justice Center in Indiana. His family has posted a fundraiser.
State prosecutors drops charges against 19 people arrested during a November 14th protest at the Broadview ICE Processing Center; two people still face charges. Of the known 32 non-immigration federal prosecutions stemming from Operation Midway Blitz, authorities have yet to win a single conviction.
When Biden commuted all the death row cases to life in prison , the Trump administration came in and said that ALL of them had to be sent to ADX. This violates all BOP policy and due process. Going to ADX takes a lot of work and qualifiers. A group of lawyers at the ACLU represented those death row captives. I was contacted and did a long interview to assist in this. Talking about daily life, the referral process, etc. In a STUNNING victory, a judge ruled in their favor, saying the Bureau must designate them according to their custody level, not Trump and Bondi’s punkass memos. Of course the fascist will appeal and all that jazz, but for now, these men are not being sent to the tombs. I am over the moon Someone’s crime being shitty doesn’t mean we forfeit them to the government. ACAB. Please write someone inside who maybe gets no love, maybe is disregarded. Towards Liberation!
Media
UPROAR Network (Uniting Prisoners’ Relatives Organizing Against Repression) has published it’s first issue of “The Fire Inside” with frontline updates from struggles throughout Virginia DOC and numerous editorials and poetry from Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, chair of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter.
Oakland Abolition and Solidarity shared their February bulletin: Fighting back everywhere ❤️🔥 And that’s a good thing: Open meeting Tues / Jail banning mail? / Letter stuffing party Wed / Chinga La Migra noise demo / Flock fight pops off w/Sheriff / Detention resistance roundup.
Imprisoned journalist Kwaneta Harris posted an article “Frozen Justice” about the realities of extreme cold in prisons with insufficient heating. Kwaneta also posted an interview with Uhuru Rowe, a New Afrikan revolutionary releast last year after thirty one years in Virginia state prisons. Check out Uhuru Rowe on Instagram and support his Patreon.
Malik Muhammed posted a few sketches and articles on their blog including this piece “On Iran”:
“No gods, no the masters, no borders.” That’s how I was introduced to anarchism on Tumblr as a kid. Up until that point, I knew but couldn’t have put it more concisely. I grew up in poverty and loved music, and music articulated my conditions more than anything. From Kanye West’s College Dropout album, to Rage Against the Machine, and System of a Down’s Toxicity, I had known to question everything, including authority, from a young age, as my mom told me to resist any teacher that attempted to force me to say the pledge or fuck up my name. It’s “Ma-lik,” not “Malik,” it’s “Muhammed,” not “Mohammed.” Hierarchical structures’s authority was thus immediately disregarded to me. Religion was questioned as my devout father walked out the door the last time. So went with him, my adherence. I went through institutions my whole life — school, foster care, jail, military, prison, college, job core, and the workforce — the only difference I gleaned was the level of access, surveillance, and state sanctioned violence.
My first experience knowing the fallacy of authority was a walkout I scheduled after Treyvon Martin’s murder. We were threatened with suspension, expulsion, and violence from school security and pigs if we staged this walk out. So when I was asked, I rationally said, “they can’t suspend everyone.” When I was asked about the school pigs and security attacking us, if we went through with the walkout, I replied, “if a pig touches you, then we’re all fighting. And there’s always more of us than them.” Come the week of, every day, on the morning announcements, the principal lobs his threats. Every day, I emphasized it as being more of a reason to do it, in defiance of being told not to. “Our people are being murdered. How do I just come to class?” I would ask.
On the day of, I float[ed] out into the hall as they filled with kids walking out of class, past pigs and security and the principal. I stood on the table and looked around at the collective united front, and it took me back. The collective united front, that show of us, the many, and they, the few, impacted me greatly, and I knew authority isn’t real. It’s not derived from consent but coercion and threat of force and violence and should state or institutional violence be outmatched, authority is nothing more than a word.
When I read “no gods, no masters, no borders,” it clicked. “No gods,” being a Muslim, took the longest to jive, but no gods isn’t or doesn’t have to be the absence of faith or spirituality, but the absence of organized hierarchical structures that produced holy wars, jihad, molested kids, and dogmatic views of gender and sexuality. Religious institutions that back and support state functions and give legitimacy to illegitimate entities, those are inherently oppressive.
“No masters” is self-explanatory, though I also immediately, given my ancestry, thought of slavery. No masters, to me at least, also alludes to the construct of race and its nature being to create Others and oppress them justifiably. And no borders means no nation states, no invisible lines separating made up races, people who all happened to be born in the geographical location.
The common thread through all this is hierarchy. The commonality, the crux of it, is hierarchical constructs based on coercion and oppression — gender, sexuality, race, nation states, religion, all hierarchical social constructs meant to give legitimacy to the illegitimate and create classes of Others to oppress. If hierarchy is the problem, and I do believe it is, it doesn’t matter how your hierarchy gets established, nor where or why. It doesn’t matter. Hierarchy is inherently evil, as capitalism is inherently evil, and they are symbiotic. When undergoing the excising of a tumor, you don’t ponder what to put in place of the tumor. No, you extract the thing that’s killing you. The tumor is hierarchy, and never can the tumor be convinced to reform and not kill you.
So when I say, “I stand with the Iranian people and not the Iranian regime,” it’s ’cause I believe in the people. I love the people, I’ll fight with, die, and kill for the people. I will never champion a state. None are benevolent. None are without their oppression or exploitation. I do not stand with any state. The enemy of my enemy is most often just another enemy. The Iranian regime would not want me or those I love to live, as the u.s. doesn’t, as most states don’t. Being an enemy of the u.s. doesn’t make you a friend to the people.
On a micro sense, prison is full of white supremacists who hold ideologies of oppression and violence towards me and the ones I love. Should we partner with these hateful groups against the fascist pigs here, even if it were possible for white people to leave aside their place of privilege, we’d have to kill the whole white supremacist community immediately after the fact. The reason being, they still have oppressive ideologies, they still want me dead. To set that aside momentarily is nothing more than opportunistic. Not even close to altruism.
Iran funding the freedom fighters in Palestine and Lebanon and Yemen is also not altruistic, but based in an opportunistic need to protect its regime. It’s certainly no secret the u.s. has wanted to topple Iran for decades. They’ve been under sanctions. They’ve been cyber attacked by the u.s., chemical weapons used against them by Saddam provided by the u.s., and the u.s. using israel as its arm in the region, coupled with a real belief, a very valid belief, that israel shouldn’t exist, creates a cocktail for an opportunity to fund people to fight and die away from their borders and fight the u.s. imperialist by proxy, wrapped up in the flag of a good deed. All so long as the fighting stayed outside their borders and their military doesn’t get used. And the states do play the optics game and hope the optics of it all plays in their favor. In the end, the Iranian regime, like all states, are determined to protect themselves at the expense of everyone else.
I’d [never] champion the Iranian regime like I’d never champion any state because they all are inherently evil. And that’s an objective fact. To claim a right to rule using the threat of force is evil, and every step a state must take to preserve itself and uphold its false authority is wrought with violence and blood. I believe as those before me did, that all power belongs to the people. I believe those who still cling to the state come from a place of privilege. For those people, they could possibly survive the state, even thrive. For others like me —queer, Black, brown, women of color — assimilation is impossible, passing unlikely, and being safe unrealistic. For people like me, who have seen our people murdered all my life, as a person who got beat close to death as a teen by state attack dogs serving the function they do, as someone currently kidnapped by the state, who has been in institutions of the state all my life, someone who has seen it for what it is and holds that revolutionary love in my heart that drives me to rage and fight against this for the people — shit, for the people, the only people that matter, supplanting a state with another states will not save us. We struggle with the people, not with the state. ‘Cause it’ll never be the state that keeps us safe, and I don’t believe our focus should be on championing states disaligned with the u.s., but rather championing the freedom fighters around the world taking bold autonomous actions against their state, like Russians blowing up the railways to impede the war machine. [We should champion] them and [emulate] that here because to liberate the world, the u.s. needs to be brought to heel.
Doing our part in radical direct action against the u.s. is much more effective than championing or critiquing Iran. Call me in accelerationist or an idealist, I just like to be called an anarchist.
Championing communalism, a communism devoid of a central hierarchical government structure, would make for a better position than championing states. An anarcho-communist at least can recognize the illegitimacy of authority and the need for the absence of the state. To say empirically that state communism is objectively better than state capitalism or fascism is like saying a bullet to the head is better than a cyanide capsule. If I only have the choice between a slower or quicker death, I guess that’s a choice, but perhaps there’s a third. Perhaps one can use their imagination to think outside the confines of the box that caused the problem.
Communism has been attacked by u.s. imperialism for decades, yes, and communism can do bad all by herself, too. There are living descendants of the great terror, and as communism has had to fight to survive, in its centralized state, they persecuted and killed many. Just as capitalism has. It’s not that they’re equal in their scope of violence, but the same in the end result is oppression for the many by the few.
The argument shouldn’t be, “well, communism hasn’t killed as many people as capitalism.” That’s the same red herring argument used to justify pigs killing Blacks, saying, “well, pigs kill more white people per year.” The point is, pigs kill people, the state kills people. These entities seek a monopoly on violence and attempt to legitimize theirs as benevolence and in the name of the greater good.
I’m sure some Russians disdain [Russia’s] aggression and also see the West’s provocation. They don’t side with the West, they side with the people. I’m sure Iranians disdain their theocracy and also u.s. aggression the same. Two things can be true at the same time. One doesn’t have to be pro Iran to be anti u.s.. [You can be] pro the people everywhere and anti state everywhere.
You can interrogate the multitudes of global conflict and try to make it two sides, but the only side that matters is the people. States oppress and coerce through violence against the people. Any way you slice it, no matter the flag you drape it in, or the economic centralized hierarchical structure it’s placed on, under a king, president, parliament, socialism, capitalism, or communism — the end result for the people is the same. States and state sponsored violence has killed more people than any -ism it’s postured itself under.
The Frankensteinian Efforts To Control Us Have Failed
It’s no coincidence so many of us on the fringes of society find ourselves as fragments of what we formerly were.
The struggle to make ends meet, to keep it together – ICE tearing families apart. The feeling – the knowing – that we don’t fit in, in the system here to exploit and alienate us.
From these alienated margins, we see the government operating to manipulate the ways that we move, and to control us with its contradictions. The same system tanker-jacking cargo from Venezuela is the same that labels us criminals for life for holding up a gas station for seventy bucks. That’s like the grease calling the oil slick!
The fight to control us doesn’t stop in the streets. When we’re thrown in prison, extreme measures are taken to disarm us from every sense of autonomy. Radical literature, relevant literature – banned. The colorfully drawn letter – photocopied, portions of them amputated. Kiosks and tablets – void of imagery, are screwed in place, mechanizing emotions.
Completing groups – like “Cage Your Rage” – is required for making parole. The brain that rebels against confining conditions is locked away in the behavior modification program. With fascist precision, reform regulates all movement in lockstep with ideals that have only led to where we find ourselves now.
But the Frankensteinian efforts to control us have failed! Isolating our bodies in fluorescent lit cells 24/7 has proven unable to desensitize us.
The programs used to scientifically modify our behavior has been rebelliously breached. Instead of caging the rage, the radical within is autonomously being tapped into; to transform that rage or redirect it to rip apart the false logic that caging people with caging ideas could ever free us from caging conditions.
No door closed in the mind is unable to be unlatched. Every attempt to divide us only strengthens mutual aid. The more the idea is repressed, the more zines like Fire Ant are found dangerously crawling in circulation.
The dignity the DOC aims to strip from us by digitally scanning our correspondence gives rise to Mothers Activating Movements for Abolition and Solidarity.
In the face of those who try to ideologically disarm us, our outreach has become dangerously extended. Every volt from their tasers appear to only electrify us, disobedient to their orders, uncontrolled by commands. The ripped-off, the broken-down, the torn-apart can be seen repositioning ourselves as parts of each other, with alarming recognition that their Frankensteinian efforts to control us have failed!
Your Compa, Hybachi LeMar
Benjamin Song, one of the Prairieland defendants, has published a zine of poems with Mongoose Distro, including this one titled “And A Happy New Year”:
And a Happy New Year
On my way from prison to court I passed a homeless sweep polo shirts, always standing around poor workers in reflective vests picking up trash, belongings, clothes, haul away tents, meds, lives Neighbors shuffle away they carry on, shelter gone 2 days before Christmas And a Happy New Year
Birthdays
Malik Muhammed
Birthday: February 15
Malik Muhammed is an Black Palestinian pansexual anarchist imprisoned for throwing molotovs at police during the 2020 George Floyd uprisings in Portland. Malik was recently transferred after a campaign to release them from solitary confinement and other abuses. They continue to publish articles art and audio recordings on their website and instagram.
You can write to Malik at the following mailing address or on gettingout.com
Malik Muhammed #23935744 Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution 2500 Westgate Pendleton, OR 97801
Kamau Sadiki
Birthday: February 19
Kamau Sadiki is a father, grandfather, and Political Prisoner. He is also a veteran of the Black Panther Party, wrongfully convicted when the FBI, in their efforts to recapture Assata Shakur, convinced Atlanta police to reopen a 30-year-old cold case murder of a Fulton County police officer, and charge Mr. Sadiki.
Kamau can be written at the following address:
Freddie Hilton #0001150688 Augusta State Medical Prison, Building 13A-2 E7 3001 Gordon Highway Grovetown, GA 30813
Please write his government name Freddie Hilton on the envelope but use his name Kamau in letters
Oso Blanco
Birthday: February 26
Oso Blanco is an indigenous anarchist political prisoner doing 55 years in federal prison for a series of bank expropriations throughout the southwest to fund indigenous independence struggles in Chiapas.
Write to Oso Blanco at the following address:
Byron Chubbuck #07909-051 USP Atwater PO Box 019001 Atwater, CA 95301
Please write his government name Byron Chubbuck on the envelope but use his name Oso Blanco in lettters
Alex Stokes Contompasis
Birthday: February 26
Alex is an antifascist independent journalist imprisoned on a 20 year sentence for defending community from Proud Boys and Oath Keepers during counter-protests at the January 6th Stop The Steal event at the New York state capital.
Alex was also transferred to a different state prison this month; here is his updated mailing address:
Alexander Contompasis 22-B-5028 Sing Sing Correctional Facility 354 Hunter Street Ossining, New York 10562
Aleksei Golovko
Birthday: February 26
Aleksei Golovko is imprisoned in Belarus sentenced to 12 years in a reinforced regime colony for association with an alleged anarchist international criminal extremist organization.
Belarus prisons can only accept letters in Belarus or Russian – but ABC Belarus can translate and forward messages from this online form
Hridindu Roychowdhury
Birthday: February 24
Hridindu Roychowdhury is an anarchist sentenced to 90 months in federal prison for participating in an attack against an anti-choice organization amidst the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v Wade. The building was hit with a Molotov and the walls tagged “If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either”.
In May 2005, Hridindu was transferred to a county jail in Wisconsin and held in contempt of court for refusing to answer questions in front of a grand jury. He was held with the clock on his federal sentence suspended until he beat the contempt charge with a with a Grumbles motion and was returned back to federal prison. This month he was transferred to FCI Thomson in Illinois.
Hridindu Roychowdhury #51111-510 FCI Thomson PO Box 1002 Thomson, IL 61285
Reverend Joy Powell
Birthday: March 5
As a pastor and a consistent activist against police brutality, violence and oppression in her community, Rev. Joy Powell was warned by the Rochester Police department that she was a target because of her speaking out against corruption. On many occasions, from 1995 to 2006, Rev. Joy had held rallies and spoke out against the police brutality and “police justifications” in Rochester NY. In 2006, she was accused and convicted of 1st Degree Burglary and Assault. Joy is sure the prosecution was politically motivated based on her activism through her organization, Equality and Justice For All.
An all-white jury tried her; the state provided no evidence and no eyewitnesses. Rev. Joy was not allowed to discuss her activism or say that she was a pastor. The person that testified for her was not allowed to tell the court that he knew Rev. Joy through their activist work and the church. Furthermore, Judge Francis Affronti promised he was going to give her a harsh sentence because he was biased against her. While serving a 16-year sentence for the conviction, a cold murder case was pinned on her. The trial was fraught with misconduct, yet she was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life. She is currently seeking counsel to file an appeal.
Khalid Raheem, a decades-long organizer and Chairman of the New Afrikan Independence Party among many other organizations, transitioned on February 14th. Brother Khalid, was a member of the LGF community, most recently thru the CADBI West reboot this winter.
Some of the things that come to mind when we think of Brother Khalid: abolishing the fraternal order of police, reparations, freeing ALL political prisoners & principled participation in the struggle. Where did you see Khalid? Everywhere. Meetings, the bus, protests, conferences, downtown, workshops— always sharing greetings, important insights & representing the voices of those he left behind in prison.
We reflect on our many positive memories of Brother Khalid and send our thoughts to his family and many comrades. His presence, lived experience in prisons, commitment to free incarcerated people, and eldership will be missed. Salute
From Khalid’s son Jamal Raheem:
Good evening Family,
It is with heartfelt sadness that I shared with you all the passing of Khalid Raheem, on February 14, at 5:51pm. He transitioned with the comfort of his family around him, the teachings of Islam, and the prayers of us all.. Please reset assured his transition was peaceful and of Allah’s will.
Thank you for the support, love, and patience this week, as I know many have been affected by the news I shared two days earlier. Please know that I provided as much information as I could given the circumstances. Further details will be shared as soon as they are available to honor my father.
In love, Jamal Raheem
Family, Friends, and Loved Ones of Khalid Raheem,
My father’s Islamic burial service (Janazah) will take place tomorrow, February 17th, at 12:45pm. Service will be held at the Muslim Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh following afternoon prayer at address 233 Seaman Ln Monroeville, PA 15146. My father’s burial will take place at Restland Memorial Park following service. Restland Memorial Park is located at 990 Patton Street Extension, Monroeville, PA 15146.
Know that Brother Khalid’s family aims to celebrate his life/legacy at a later date, however the expeditiousness with which we acted regarding Islamic burial customs have been done based on what the family believes are his wishes.
Good evening Family,
It is with heartfelt sadness that I shared with you all the passing of Khalid Raheem, on February 14, at 5:51pm. He transitioned with the comfort of his family around him, the teachings of Islam, and the prayers of us all.. Please reset assured his transition was peaceful and of Allah’s will.
Thank you for the support, love, and patience this week, as I know many have been affected by the news I shared two days earlier. Please know that I provided as much information as I could given the circumstances. Further details will be shared as soon as they are available to honor my father.
In love, Jamal Raheem
Family, Friends, and Loved Ones of Khalid Raheem,
My father’s Islamic burial service (Janazah) will take place tomorrow, February 17th, at 12:45pm. Service will be held at the Muslim Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh following afternoon prayer at address 233 Seaman Ln Monroeville, PA 15146. My father’s burial will take place at Restland Memorial Park following service. Restland Memorial Park is located at 990 Patton Street Extension, Monroeville, PA 15146.
Know that Brother Khalid’s family aims to celebrate his life/legacy at a later date, however the expeditiousness with which we acted regarding Islamic burial customs have been done based on what the family believes are his wishes.
