Marius Is Free! Free Them All

After 17 years, Marius Mason is finally free. Marius, an environmental and animal rights activist, anarchist, writer, artist and trans advocate, was serving the longest sentence to date for acts of environmental sabotage. He was released to a half way house on May 14th.

A statement and poem from Marius prepared for June 11th International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason & All Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners:

I am feeling some bittersweet feelings, having left prison after some 17 years. I met so many people, from so many communities and families, who found themselves incarcerated for a myriad of reasons. As we move into this time of contention, where there will be conflict between the state and the communities we know – there may be more of the people we love sharing that hidden world behind bars and kept apart. To recognize and remember them is important and it keeps those ties we have to them strong. Please help me this June 11th, to send some love, some hope and a promise to remember to all of our people who are living behind bars.

I am including a poem I wrote for my Yale poetry class in prison. At Danbury, we had a tradition of hugging a certain tree in the parking lot as we got ready to leave one of the three prisons there, the camp, the FSL or the FCI. I was able to hug this sycamore tree, and to tie a new crocheted wrap that a lot of people at the FSL had contributed, so many stitches, so many colors, so many lives maintaining hope for freedom and the embrace of our family and friends.

The Freedom Tree
It’s the sycamore tree that’s in the parking lot,
From two day’s warmth, has put out leaves.
The bleached bark, peeling and stark, is shot
Against the sky, arms lifted in a silent plea,
The “Freedom Tree”.
Willing time to move forward, we see it expand,
The days are in those fingertips.
Buds break to burgeon into hands
That sweep the sky, wide, now that wind no longer keens
And grass grows green.
There is a wild crocheted belt that encircles it,
Proof that one of us made it out,
And left behind a sign that’s spun
From everything we dreamed, while we longed to be
Touching this tree.

Bob Marley also sang of a sycamore tree that was part of his songs about freedom and history. I hope that you will participate in this event, helping me mark a day to remember all the friends I left behind, and all of the people we are missing from our movement, and our communities. Anything will do, as long as it is braided or crocheted or knitted to show how we are all part of a whole together, and stronger together than any one strand alone. There is no particular color combination, as many as you have to weave together. We are all different, but all of us belong together and free. Please help me mark this very first Freedom Tree event on June 11th.

Thank you so much for your act of solidarity.

The June 11 collective is encouraging supporters to help create a “Freedom Tree” with Marius:

Solidarity does not end when our friends get out of prison. While we support them from the outside, they also build relationships of mutual support with others inside. Our movement prisoners act as a bridge between outside support and everyone inside, sharing words, ideas, material support, and solidarity. Alongside the joy of release is the pain of leaving friends behind.

At FCI Danbury, they have a tradition of decorating the Freedom Tree whenever somebody is released. This June 11th, the International Day of Solidarity with Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners, Marius has invited all of us to create a Freedom Tree wherever we are for June 11th – at events, at our homes, outside a jail, in a special forest. These Trees and the act of creating them are message of solidarity not only to Marius but to everyone held captive by the state.

Solidarity without end.
Until all are free.

Send photos of you and your people and your Freedom Tree to June11th@riseup.net or tag J11 on Instagram or Mastodon. (Consider covering faces and identifying characteristics if posting publicly.)

Support Marius:

1. A system has been set up for purchase of gift cards, like “Vanilla Gift” that can be purchased, using contact info: Moira Meltzer-Cohen, Attorney at Law, 277 Broadway Suite 1501 NY, NY 10007. For phone # needed with the address, use (212) 219-1919.

2. In addition, there will be a trust account to receive direct donations through the donations page on supportmariusmason.org.

3. All May long, AK Press will be donating $2 from every item they sell to Marius.

Thank you to all who are able to celebrate his release by contributing and sharing. Everything helps.

Read Marius’ full statement on his release on the June 11 noblogs:

It demonstrated that in our movement, though we were physically separated, we could stay together in spirit, that solidarity and love are action words, and that we are all in it for the long haul.

Mujera is Free! Free Them All

Mujera Benjamin Lunga’ho, a George Floyd Uprising prisoner released from federal prison in April 2026! Mujera was sentenced to 5 and a half years in federal prison after pleading guilty to arson during protests in Arkansas released in April 2026. For more information about state repression of the George Floyd Uprising in Arkansas and the cases that resulted in the imprisonment of Mujera, Renea Goddard, Cody Nowlin and Ángel Espinosa-Villegas (who was deported to Chile in 2025), read  “How to Crush a Movement for Racial Justice” and “Little Rock police vehicle arson cases end with federal sentencing of four defendants.” As of publishing, we’re unaware of any post-release support needs, but please email us or check in at uprisingsupport.org!

Nikita Is Free! Free Them All

After seven years on an original four year sentence, Nikita Emelyanov was released. From ABC Belarus:

Anarchist Nikita Emelyanov is free!

After six and a half years in prison, Nikita Emelyanov was released on May 2.

Nikita was detained on October 20, 2019, on suspicion of attempting to set fire to Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Minsk and was sentenced to four years in prison. Subsequently, his sentence was extended twice under Article 411 (disobeying the prison administration’s orders) , bringing Nikita’s total sentence to seven years.

While in prison, Nikita was frequently subjected to punishments such as placement in solitary confinement and physical punishment, and was eventually transferred to a prison regime.

We are very happy to see Nikita free! 

Ali Is Free! Free Them All

Palestinian journalist Ali al-Samoudi was released from zionist prisons after over a year being held without charge.

It was a real hell. Prison today is hell in every sense of the word … Everything they practiced with us was punishment and revenge … My arrest is part of the Israeli war against the Palestinian press and media. To silence my voice and block my camera and break my pen, and thus prevent me from practicing my right that all laws and international norms guarantee: the freedom of the press.

Completing a four year sentence, the longest sentence for a female prisoner, Aya Khatib was released from zionist prisons having been accused of “raising funds to support terrorism” by organizing on Facebook several humanitarian community mutual aid projects such as raising funds for sick children in Palestine.

Layan Is Free! Free Them All

25-year-old Palestinian Christian Layan Nasser was released after eight months in administrative detention in zionist prison Al-Damon. Layan posted a video reflecting on the necessity to keep fighting to free the others still languishing in such harsh conditions:

“Today I was released from Israeli prisons. I was in Al-Damon prison where I left behind 79 female prisoners living in extremely harsh conditions. So today, my freedom is incomplete and my joy is incomplete. It won’t be completed until the full liberation of all our prisoners from the zionist dungeons. Prison conditions has worsened; our daily struggles for survival are gone. There was hope or the expectation that after the war was over, prison conditions would improve; but it went from bad to worse. Various policies are being imposed on them; most notably the policy of starvation, the policy of medical neglect. Today our women prisoners need medical care but the available medical care is at the bare minimum. This, of course, increases the bitterness and difficulty of the experience. There are nearly daily acts of abuse including the use of tear gas and violent harassment. The amount of food is very little, the food in terms of quantity and quality is very bad. Our prisoners call on the world and the people to shed more light on these issues. Israeli prisons are generally a living cematery; this is the only summary we can tell about zionist dungeons. They are cemeteries for the living. They are singled out; policies are enforced against them, they are subjected to physical and psychological pressure. All this means the world must be aware of it. There must be an urgent call to action. As I’m being released, a large group of prisoners were sending messages saying that it’s essential for the world to act after understanding how the prisoners conditions is and the ability to withstand it is temporary, I mean we know that prisoners are facing these difficult conditions which may get worse. So today we are saying that the world must not overlook those practices. The policies that are being adopted and every Palestinian is at risk of being detained. From this perspective we know how widespread the arrest campaigns have become and that they affect everyone; at the very least we must be aware we have prisoners inside who are suffering under very difficult conditions. Their lives are unstable and they face daily humiliations. All of this must come to an end because honestly the situation is unbearable. We demand more attention to be shed on our prisoners and that we work to improve their situation through official institutions or international organizations in the hope that change will happen.