REPRESSION TARGETS CHITA ANARCHISTS ALREADY JAILED FOR WAR RESISTANCE AND ANTI-REGIME GRAFFITI ~ Antti Rautiainen ~ The regional prosecutor’s office for the Trans-Baikal region in eastern Siberia has submitted a petition to a local court to recognize the “Trans-Baikal Left Association” as a terrorist organisation. The petition refers to the telegram channel 75zlo, allegedly maintained by jailed anarchists Aleksandr Snezhkov and Lyubov Lizunova, which the petition asks to declare as “leaders” of this association. The court hearing is scheduled for January 13. Currently the channel has 72 subscribers, and no posts have been published there since the anarchists were detained. If the court agrees with the prosecutor’s office and recognises 75zlo as a “terrorist community”, any activity related to it will be prohibited. In Russia, “forming a terrorist organisation” is punishable from 15 years in prison to a life sentence. Aleksandr does not agree with the prosecutor’s claim and will seek to participate in the hearing. Snezhkov and Lizunova, then 19 and 16 years old, were arrested in October 2022 in Chita, Eastern Siberia, and accused of “vandalism” and “propaganda of terrorism” for spraying graffiti against the regime and maintaining anti-war Telegram channels. More than two years later, in November 2024, they were sentenced by a military court to 6 and 3.5 years in prison, respectively. 75 is the regional code of the Trans-Baikal region used in car licence plates, and zlo is an acronym for both the Trans-Baikal Left Association and the popular anti-police slogan “to revenge everything on cops”. Last October, Snezhkov was sentenced to an additional five years for “justification of terrorism” for reading his case files to his cellmates. During his imprisonment, Snezhkov has been sent to solitary confinement for long periods, last spring he spent 90 days in the hole. During his current pre-trial detention he was again sent to the hole for 20 days. Recently, a support group announced a collection of 280 thousand rubles (about £2,600) to help the two anarchists for costs of parcels during the next six months. Letters of support must be written in Russian (use auto-translate) and can be sent to Aleksandr at: Снежкову Александру Евгеньевичу 2003 г.р. Россия, 672010, Забайкальский край, г. Чита, ул Ингодинская, 1а, СиЗО-1. России по Забайкальскому краю and to Lyubov at: Лизуновой Любови Витальевне, 2006 г.р. Россия, 670000, г.Улан-Удэ, ул.Пристанская, 4-а, ИК-7 It is also possible to write to Alexandr via prisonmail.online using region “Zabaykalsky Krai” and prison “SIZO-1 Chita” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With information from Moscow Anarchist Black Cross, Fires of Freedom and Ivan Astashin The post Russia plans to declare anti-war Telegram channel a “terrorist organisation” appeared first on Freedom News.

THE CLOSE SUPERVISION CENTRE (CSC) IS PART OF A SYSTEM THAT REQUIRES ENDLESSLY GREATER PUNISHMENT AND RESOURCES TO DISCIPLINE PRISONERS FACING DEGRADING CONDITIONS ~ Kevan Thakrar ~ On 26 March 2010, I was condemned to the Close Supervision Centre (CSC) system following the false and malicious allegations from the corrupt employees of HMP Frankland, who claimed I had committed an unprovoked attack upon multiple prison officers there on the 13 March 2010. As was later proven in Newcastle Crown Court, I had actually unsuccessfully attempted to defend myself using lawful force against a brutal gang of racist prison officers. The CSC system is purportedly designed to detain only the most dangerous and disruptive prisoners, utilising Prison Rule 46 of the Prison Rules 1999 to effectively impose indefinite solitary confinement upon those of us allocated to it. The United Nations (UN) defines solitary confinement as an individual being kept locked inside a cell in isolation for at least 22-hours per day. The UN Nelson Mandela Rules prohibits this occurring in excess of 15-consecutive days, classifying any longer as inhumane which is precisely what the CSC is. Since its creation in 1998 following the Spurr Report by low-ranking prison official Michael Spurr, it has been misused as an unofficial punishment and plagued by endemic discrimination easily amounting to institutional racism and Islamophobia, as well as institutional corruption. This was exposed by the state itself when, during the rare occasion its prison inspection body (HMIP) conducted a ‘full inspection’ of CSC 2015, it was unable to ignore the fact that around half of the CSC population were Muslim. If not through discrimination, how else could a minority group possibly become the majority within the most oppressive conditions available within English prisons? Dare to resist the state or come from a minority background, and prison is where they send you; but resist within prison, especially as a minority, and the CSC is the state’s further retaliation. Moreover, many CSC victims suffer from extreme mental health conditions amounting to disabilities, often developed within the CSC itself, making us even more vulnerable. This failing system costs the taxpayer more than £200,000 per prisoner per year, which is over 4-times the amount spent to detain those within the mainstream prison population. Despite these exorbitant costs, the CSC continues to expand like a cancer. This has become supercharged from the moment since Spurr himself somehow managed to slime his way into becoming Director of HMPPS, the most senior role within the prison and probation service. Since March 2010, although the overall prison population has remained relatively stable, the CSC has almost tripled in capacity going from around 20 men (women have never been deemed dangerous enough to warrant detention within the CSC it seems) to almost 60. Although Spurr himself was unceremoniously dismissed for the chaos in prisons under his leadership, he had already appointed minions who share his sadistic views to senior positions. The CSC experiment forms part of a much wider structural drive for control and oppression by those in power within British society not limited to the vision of its lead architect. Richard Vince, a former CSC prison officer and who was appointed to Executive Director of High Security Prisons by Spurr, is currently pressing ahead on the Spurr agenda by creating another costly CSC unit. Their plan is to close part of G-wing in HMP Frankland, which is where I suffered the racist events leading to my CSC detention, and a large part of it re-designated as a CSC unit. As each CSC unit only operates with the consent of the Prison Officers Association (POA), they have ensured a wildly disproportionate ratio of them to prisoners. This enables them to feel safe to abuse the prisoners knowing back-up is ready should any resistance occur. Currently, HMP Frankland is due to be plunged into a staffing crisis impacting the entire prison. This will lead to lockdowns, and these lockdowns in turn will build frustration, leading to behaviour that will result in CSC referrals. This process of degrading standards leading to the need for even more CSC facilities is central to endless need for more resources in our prisons, despite the fact that prisoners themselves are living off as little as a £2 food budget per day. It should come as no surprise when the direction of prisons emulates society, which at this time includes increasing police numbers and powers, creating new oppressive anti-resistance laws, and greater exploitation of the poor and disadvantaged who are directed to fight each other for scarce affordable handouts. As the system expands, those referred to the CSC who would otherwise be returned to main population due to a lack of space become more likely to be condemned to the system, and the chances of those within the CSC progressing out of it diminish further. This same principle applies with the expansion of all forms of prisons regardless of name or their target, it is the ‘Field of Dreams’ concept, “If you build it, they will come”. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kevan Thakrar is one of the UK prisoners under ongoing solitary confinement under the Close Supervision Centre (CSC) system. He can be written to at: Kevan Thakrar A4907AE, HMP Whitemoor, Longhill Road, March PE15 0PR —- or via emailaprisoner.com The post Field of Nightmares: The never-ending expansion of torture units in England appeared first on Freedom News.

THE REGIME DEPORTED 52 POLITICAL PRISONERS IN EXCHANGE FOR SANCTIONS RELIEF ~ Nikita Ivansky ~ Anarchist Nikolai (Mikola) Dziadok was among 52 political prisoners released and deported from Belarus to Lithuania on 11 September, following negotiations between dictator Alexander Lukashenko and US envoy John Colae. In return, the US lifted sanctions on the state airline Belavia and renewed calls to reopen its embassy in Minsk—one of the largest prisoner buyouts since the 2020 uprising. Dziadok, arrested in 2020 and held in torture conditions and near-total isolation, had faced up to 13 years in prison on charges of organising “Autonomous Action Belarus”, labelled a criminal group by the regime. He had previously served five years (2010–2015) before being pardoned as one of the last prisoners of that period. Although his release had been nominally scheduled for April, a new case was opened against him, prolonging his detention. Like the others freed, Dziadok was taken by bus to the Lithuanian border and expelled. Belarusian KGB officers tore up his passport, as they did for several prisoners that day, deliberately complicating their lives in exile. Most of those deported had no legal status in the EU, though Lithuania has granted them temporary visas. Anarchists from the Belarusian group Pramen described the deportations as “a new punishment: instead of jail time, they’re now facing indefinite exile to EU countries. Lukashenko’s regime is trying to get rid of not only the prisoners themselves, but also their families, kids, and loved ones, who’ll be forced to leave Belarus after five years of fighting against prison”. Not all accepted the deal. Opposition leader Mikola Statkevich refused to leave Belarus when brought to the “neutral” border zone, reportedly telling KGB agents: “I don’t care about your kolkhoz leader”—a jab at Lukashenko’s Soviet-era past. After several hours, masked men took him back into Belarus. His fate remains unknown. Talks of trading political prisoners for sanctions have circulated for months. Liberal opposition circles in exile are even discussing a temporary camp in Lithuania to host further releases. More than 1,300 people remain imprisoned in Belarus today, including 24 anarchists and antifascists. The post Anarchist prisoner released from Belarus appeared first on Freedom News.

YELINSKY’S SHADOWS IN THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY IS A MASTERFUL EXPLORATION OF HIS LIFETIME SUPPORTING POLITICAL PRISONERS ~ SoraLX ~ During the current crescendo of authoritarianism, and daily reports of students and activists branded “political enemies” being hustled into unmarked vans, it seems especially pertinent to consider the history and trajectory of a movement created for the very purpose of aiding such victims of state repression. Boris Yelensky’s Shadows in the Struggle for Equality: A History of the Anarchist Red Cross is his consideration of Russian revolutionary history, the origins and evolution of the ARC (later to become the Anarchist Black Cross), and his lifelong work aiding anarchist political prisoners. Boris Yelensky stands as one of the lesser-known figures in the history of anarchist struggle. Through the medium of his informal and immensely readable style, his retelling of his life and work encourages us to reconsider who is celebrated in revolutionary history. By his own account, Yelensky is not a theorist, but his story reveals a powerful and pragmatic organiser who devoted a lifetime’s worth of energy to the support of anarchist political prisoners. As Yelensky humbly asserts, “The work was not done for glory, but because we believed in mutual aid”. The primary text is flanked by a foreword written by editor Matthew Hart, a long-standing member of the Los Angeles chapter of the Anarchist Black Cross and archivist of the organisation’s history, as well as a set of appendices which include related primary sources and Hart’s own writing on the 1914 Lexington Avenue explosion and its relationship to the ARC. The 17 page-size black and white illustrations by artist N.O. Bonzo are a visual analogue to this reconsideration of canon. Each is portrait of an ARC/ABC member whose contributions may not be familiar to the reader, but are touched on as central to the movement’s history throughout the book. Bonzo’s graphic line drawings are a celebration and memorial of each comrade, their faces wreathed with floral Arts and Crafts-style garlands. Hart’s text provides a rigorous contextualisation of Yelensky’s narrative and a full accounting of the organisation, while the appendices breathe life into ARC’s history via the voices of its past members. Aside from neatly outlining the roots, rise, and complications of the ARC as an organisation, the book delivers what is nearly a parable of life lived in service to the cause. The complications of such work are well described throughout both Hart’s foreword and Yelensky’s own writing. The internal conflicts of the movement as it evolved from pre-1905 revolutionary Russia through and after the Second World War are on display. The narrative follows the course of the ARC throughout decades-long struggles to define itself, decisions about with whom to align, and how to best serve imprisoned comrades. The details and causes of the debate between those within the organisation who favoured aiding all self-described revolutionary political prisoners and those who felt that ARC relief should be directed singularly toward anarchists is well chronicled by both Yelensky and Hart. This question is still not easily resolved, and is addressed again and again throughout ARC’s history. As Yelensky writes, “It is only for lack of space which prevents me from quoting many other sources which would help to show how the foundation of a separate anarchist relief organisation was rendered necessary primarily by the inhumanely sectarian attitude of those social democrats who at the same time claimed to have an intention of bringing to an end the unjust society in which we were living then and which we unfortunately still live”. Yelensky’s text is scattered with primary sources, including letters from Alexander Berkman and Rudolph Rocker, which bring to life the particulars of the debate for modern readers. A letter from Berkman in response to his comrade Lillie Sarnoff is particularly charming and potentially relatable to the modern reader.  Berkman writes: “Concerning your remark that we cannot work with Left SR’s, I may tell you that we, at least I, could also not work together with many of the anarchists who are in the prisons of the Bolsheviki. Yet I am willing to help them, as prisoners”. Matthew Hart’s prologue is knowledgeable and thorough and gives extra contextualization of Yelensky’s writing, including decisions the Yelensky made to omit pieces of ARC history in his narrative. Given that Shadows numbers only 96 pages, however, I couldn’t help but feel that a 78-pages of Foreword and Introduction gave an impression that Yelensky’s own words were somehow insufficient. This is hardly the case, and any reader willing to delve into the history he relates so lucidly will be rewarded by his engaging text and its modern relevance. In all, Yelensky’s writing serves as masterful exploration of the labour of building and maintaining a revolutionary organisation; labour which has heretofore been underappreciated. The history provided makes clear the absolute necessity of the work of the Anarchist Red Cross—and the Anarchist Black Cross today—and delivers a template for readers seeking to understand how they might support anarchist prisoners. Shadows in The Struggle For Equality: The History of The Anarchist Red Cross, Boris Yelensky, edited by Matthew Hart, illustrations by N. O. Bonzo, 145 pages, PM Press, 2025. The post Book review: History of the Anarchist Red Cross appeared first on Freedom News.