caricature Günther Finneisen
Prisons are places of darkness, of gloom, real life cannot flourish there. Because what is “real life”? It is one in freedom, integrated in friendly relationships, experiencing oneself as an individual. Because we live ourselves and are not lived.
It is not without reason that prison criticism is therefore always also a fundamental critique of society and the system, because within the prison walls the same mechanisms prevail as outside the gates, only in a much more severe form.
ABC’s Solidarity week for anarchist prisoners takes place in a time marked by the Corona pandemic. The pandemic in particular once again clearly reveals the injustices.
Members of marginalized social groups have a disproportionately higher risk of infection, illness and death (which also applies outside pandemic times, but is only currently particularly evident). And those who are in prison are even more vulnerable, because the general conditions, as the Prisoners’ Union (GG/BO) also tirelessly points out, are often pretty lousy.
Action weeks are much more than mere rituals, because ABC always has an effect on society as a whole – and abolishing prisons is a mega-thick board that we are drilling, because it means overcoming contemporary society.
Heart-beating and solidary greetings from Freiburg
Thomas Meyer-Falk
About himself: Born on may 15th 1971, i have been in prison since my arrest in 1996, first in isolation custody in Stuttgart Stammheim until spring 1998, then somewhat “relaxed” in Bavarian
Straubing, since autumn 1998 in isolation custody in Bruchsal. i was sentenced in 1997 for a bank robbery with hostage-taking, on the occasion of which money was to be organized for legal and illegal left political projects. i am a so called red-skin / rash = red & anarchist skinhead and since i sometimes express myself clearly, in 2000 and 2004 further convictions for coercion, insults, threats – as the lawyers call it – were made “to the detriment” of prison lawyers, judges, prosecutors, as well as a few politicians (and some others). a. federal chancellor Schroeder, bavarian minister of the interior Beckstein, hessian prime minister Koch). In total 16 years 9 months and three weeks imprisonment (end of 2013) and after that preventive detention, i.e. a release is unforeseeable.
more text, thoughts and publications: https://freedomforthomas.wordpress.com
