Monday, September 6, 2010

More than 4,000 inmates at three Venezuelan jails on hunger strike


September 5th, 2010


More than 4,000 inmates at three Venezuelan jails began a hunger strike in protest against alleged brutality by guards, judicial delays and chronic overcrowding. The protest involves 32 of the 80 inmates at Tocuyito prison, some 3,000 in the Aragua penitentiary and another 1,137 at Vista Hermosa prison, the Caracas daily El Universal said. It began in Tocuyito, where inmates reported physical and psychological mistreatment by guards following the escape of an important criminal from the jail this week.
Antonio Molina, defense counsel for one of the hunger strikers, told El Universal that the guards “have repeatedly beaten” the striking prisoners and have “kicked and smashed their belongings and suspended their visits.”
The inmates at Vista Hermosa joined the hunger strike in solidarity with the prisoners in Tocuyito, Julio Martinez, who has been held for two years in that penitentiary, said. “We joined the strike…for the outrages committed against our fellow-prisoners over at Tocuyito, who are kept in solitary confinement, are permitted no visits and are being beaten,” Martinez told the Caracas newspaper.
Inmates at Vista Hermosa have not suffered mistreatment by guards for at least “four years” and have “enough to eat,” but there is a huge backlog of cases pending trial that has caused overcrowding, Florentino Ariza, another inmate, said. That jail is designed for 450 prisoners, and currently houses 1,137, nearly three-quarters of them still awaiting trial, Ariza told the daily El Universal.
Aragua’s more than 3,000 prisoners joined the protest to complain about overcrowding, trial delays and the mistreatment they and their families receive from the guards, they said in a communique. In the document, the inmates said that this penitentiary was build to hold 600 people but now has 3,400, of whom only 350 have been tried and convicted.

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Solidarity Poster for Polykarpos Georgiadis and Vaggelis Chrisohoidis (greece)



POSTER SAYS:
did anyone speak of a
KIDNAPPING?
“…A handful of capitalists
have organized a criminal gang
and have kidnapped the proletarians,
demanding for ransom
their labor force,
merchandising their human activity,
their time (which is turned into money),
their own being itself…”
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
to vaggelis Chrisohoidis and Polykarpos Georgiadis
who the persecuting authorities, exactly because they denied to betray values and people,
accuse them as participators in the kidnapping of industrialist Milonas
anarchists from Serres from north-greece


Anarchists solidarity protest outside Korydallos prison, the main prison in Athens, at the time of the change of the year. This protest happens every New Year's Eve for the past six years. This year more than 400 people took part in the protest that interacted with the prisoners inside through shouting mutual slogans and fireworks. The main slogan was "The passion for freedom is stronger that your prisons".
NEW YEAR OUTSIDE IN KORRIDALOS PRISON 2011
Watch live streaming video from agitprop at livestream.com
FIRE TO ALL PRISONS

A society that punishes/the condition of incarceration/the prison of the mind/the prison as punishment/the rage of the damned will sound on the ruins of prisons/those denying obedience and misery of our era even within its hellholes/will dance together on the ruins of every last prison/with the flame of rebellion avenging whatever creates prisons.

To the prisoners struggle already counting one dead and thousands in hunger strike across greece, we stand in solidarity and anger until the destruction of every last prison.


ARSON AND WILDFIRE FOR EVERY PRISON

SOLIDARITY TO ALL PRISONERS IN GREECE


Keny Arkana - La Rage English Subtitles

1976 - 2000 Greek Anarchists Fight for Freedom

(December Riots in Greece)