In Contempt #33: Prisoner Strikes & Rebellions, Running Down the Walls Report Backs, Hands off Lief

In this column, we present our monthly roundup of political prisoner, prison rebel, and repression news, happenings, announcements, action and analysis. Packed in as always are updates, fundraisers, and birthdays.

There’s a lot happening, so let’s dive right in!

Political Prisoner News

September saw Running Down the Walls events held in a number of cities, and New York and Portland have now published reports of theirs. The New York report includes statements that were sent in by current and former political prisoners Yorch, Ray Luc Levasseur, Jalil Muntaqim, and Xinachtli. Eric King has also published a statement for this year’s events. Upcoming Running Down the Walls events are still scheduled for October 15 in Hamilton, Ontario, and Newfoundland & Labrador.

Rattling the Cages, the oral history of political prisoners but together by Eric King and Josh Davidson, is now available for pre-order, and you can learn more about the book by reading this interview on Truthout or listening to this interview from The Final Straw. Josh is also involved in the Certain Days collective, and the 2024 Certain Days calendar is also now available for pre-order.

Mexican anarchist prisoner Yorch has published a new letter. Joshua Williams, a prisoner serving a lengthy sentence from the Ferguson Uprising, is coming up for parole soon, and is asking for people to send letters in support of his parole bid. At time of writing, there doesn’t seem to be much of a public campaign in support of Josh, but you can find information and letter-writing tips from his last parole bid in 2020 here, including a template letter to be adapted. Letters should be sent to Joshua Williams #1292002, Potosi Correctional Center, 11593 State Highway O, Mineral Point, MO 63660, but the letters themselves should be addressed to Missouri Department of Corrections, The Missouri Board of Probation and Parole, 3400 Knipp Drive, Jefferson City, MO 65109.

Former antifascist political prisoner David Campbell has written a new article reflecting on his experience of being incarcerated during the first wave of COVID lockdowns.

An event in support of Native American political prisoner Leonard Peltier is planned for Friday, October 6th in New York, and will also be streamed online. The lineup will include former political prisoners such as Jalil Muntaqim, as well as Mike Africa, Jr, a child of two MOVE prisoners.

Current Cases, Atlanta Forest, and Uprising Defendants

Portland uprising prisoner Malik Muhammad has published a new article on his blog about the power of music.

The Final Straw Radio have shared a recent interview on the use of RICO indictments against the Stop Cop City/Defend the Atlanta forest movement, a story which has also been covered by outlets such as Unicorn Riot and Natasha Lennard in the Intercept. You can read Crimethinc’s analysis of the charges here, and It’s Going Down has covered the spread of demonstrations in solidarity with the movement and against the RICO charges.

The support crew for Atlanta forest defendant Hannah Kass are raising funds to support her through the indictment process, and ask for donations to be sent through venmo to @madisonsolidarity with subject line “support,” and general donations can also be sent to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. There’s also a current tour promoting the Atlanta struggle and upcoming mass action on November 10th. Check out Block Cop City for more info and tour dates across the so-called US.

Antifascists in Fort Worth, Texas, are facing ongoing charges for a drag defense action, although a court date scheduled for September has now been canceled, with no new date announced yet. In Wadsworth, Ohio, another drag defender has a court date for October 11th, and you can donate to Leif’s defense funds here.

A meeting was held in Miami, Florida to discuss ongoing political repression in Florida, with participants from the Tampa 5 case (facing charges for an anti-DeSantis protest) and the Florida 4 (facing heavy charges for alleged graffiti on anti-abortion fake clinics). Another defendant in Ohio is also facing charges for similar alleged graffiti, and you can donate to their legal funds here.

In Houston, Texas, a Food Not Bombs volunteer is fighting 17 tickets for feeding homeless people. You can donate to help with her costs at venmo: @Shere-Dore, cashapp: $sheredore76, or paypal.me/homelessadvocacyhou. Food Not Bombs activists in West Palm Beach, Florida are also pushing back against ongoing police harassment, ticketing, and a new ordinance which criminalizes the sharing of food with 25 people or more without a permit.

The International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund has made a donation to the costs of two people facing charges resulting from a transphobic event in Pittsburgh. One of which, Brian DiPippa, has now been locked up for three months and has a birthday on October 1st. Send some letters of support!

Prisoner Solidarity Demos

On August 22nd and then again on September 5th, activists paid surprise visits to Gary Junker, the deputy secretary for comprehensive health services in the so-called North Carolina department of adult correction, at his home in Carrboro, NC.  They were there to protest the withholding of medical treatment from Shine White, an incarcerated organizer currently being held at Granville Correctional Institution. Soon after the second visit, they received word that Shine White was receiving treatment, which had previously been withheld for six months.

It’s Going Down has published two reports from a noise demo that was held at Thurston County Jail in Washington state on September 7th.

General Prison News and Abolitionist Media Projects

Unicorn Riot has reported on several acts of prisoner and detainee resistance recently, including a mass hunger strike at the Stewart ICE Detention Center in Georgia, prisoners refusing to return to their cells at Stillwater prison in Minnesota, as well as the subsequent repression they faced, and a strike at Oak Park Heights prison, also in Minnesota. The Texas prison system was also put on a statewide lockdown in early September.

Scalawag magazine recently ran Condemned, a week of writing, personal experiences, and abolitionist analyses on capital punishment from those with firsthand experience, primarily on Death Row, and Death Row prisoners also got more mainstream media coverage with Keri Blakinger’s story on Dungeons & Dragons players facing execution in Texas.

TruthOut recently ran a story on Muslim jailhouse lawyers, including contributions from a member of Jailhouse Lawyers Speak.

In Virginia, a variety of prison justice organizations are due to hold a “People’s Tribunal on Virginia’s Prisons, Jails and Detention Centers” on October 7th, with contributions from a number of currently incarcerated people.

New York City Jericho Movement report that incarcerated Indiana organizer Kwame Beans Shakur is facing serious medical neglect and a phone/email zap has been called to help get him the treatment he needs. IDOC Watch have also recently published testimony from Khalfani Malik Khaldun, another organizer in the Indiana prison system, describing the effects of medical negligence and indifference.

Texas anarchist prisoner Julio “Comrade Z” Zuniga is preparing for an upcoming parole bid in early 2024. Letters in support of his parole bid and any other offers of help can be sent to

Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Julio Zuniga #01961551
P.O. Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400 USA

Mongoose Distro continues to publish new writings by Texas prisoners regularly, including Jamon Hestand on the new mail restrictions and Steven McCain on the notoriously deadly heat.

Prisoners working on the Angola prison farm in Louisiana have filed a new class action lawsuit challenging their brutal conditions.

In North Carolina, a “Poetic Justice” event was held highlighting poetry from incarcerated writers, which can be watched on YouTube here.

Land defender Victor Puertas, who currently is being held in an ICE facility in Georgia after being arrested at a concert in support of the movement against Cop City, is featured in a new documentary from Al-Jazeera. For more info on Victor and how you can support him, go here. Write to Victor here:

Victor Puertas
095610252
6B 215B
P.O. Box 248
Lumpkin, GA 31815

International

In the UK, anarchist Toby Shone has been returned to prison, having been accused of breaching his release conditions by possessing an unauthorized phone and having spoken at a meeting. After his recall, anarchists gathered at HMP Bristol to set off fireworks. You can write to Toby at:

Toby Shone A7645EP
HMP Bristol
19 Cambridge Road
Bishopston, Bristol, BS7 8PS, UK

The fight also continues to free Sarah Jane Baker, a trans woman being held in a men’s prison despite being found not guilty of the offense she was arrested for. Bristol ABC are selling a new “queers hate prisons” fundraiser t-shirt. Dalston Solidarity Cafe are fundraising for a comrade who’s currently appealing against a four-year sentence for participation in an anti-border protest in Italy.

Northern Irish anarchists have published a report on Belfast solidarity with anarchist prisoners during the international week of solidarity.

German anarchist and former political prisoner Thomas Meyer-Falk has published an article looking at his first few days after being released from long-term incarceration.

In Russia, anarchist prisoner Azat Miftakhov was released from prison and then immediately arrested on new charges of “justifying terrorism”. ABC Belarus have published another of their regular roundups of news about anarchist political prisoners in Belarus. An event in support of Russian political prisoners is being organized for October 6 in Helsinki.

Italian anarchist prisoner Alfredo Cospito is due in court on October 19 for a hearing that could overturn his restrictive 41 bis supermax status. He also had a court date in mid-September to decide if he was allowed to keep photographs of his parents in his cell, but at the time of writing no English-language report of the result of this hearing was available. The Italian anarchist movement has also been targeted by a recent series of raids attacking the newspaper Bezmotivny.

Nazila Maroofian, a Kurdish journalist imprisoned in Iran, has launched a hunger strike after being repeatedly arrested and imprisoned for her journalism, including an interview with the family of Jina Mahsa Amini. Mapuche political prisoners held by the Chilean state have issued a new joint statement in solidarity with anarchist and subversive prisoners.

The International Antifascist Defense Fund has made a donation to the legal costs of five defendants from Offensive Antifascist Bordeaux facing charges for an alleged clash with fascists from the Rassemblement National (National Rally, formerly known as the National Front).

The Palestinian prisoners’ movement has called for a mass hunger strike, while Palestinian prisoner Kayed Fasfous has now reached 50 days on hunger strike. Meanwhile, Zaid, an organizer with the Samidoun prisoner solidarity network based in Germany, is fighting against a deportation threat.

Atlanta Forest Defendants

According to Unoffensive Animal, the current list of Atlanta Forest/Cop City defendants is:

People who can accept any letter type or length:

• pen and marker only
• mail is scanned digitally to jail
• mail takes about 3 weeks to arrive

Charley (they/them)

ADDRESS:
JAILATM.COM BARTOW COUNTY JAIL
CAROLINE TENNENBAUM #376204
925B PEACHTREE ST NE
BOX 2062
ATLANTA , GA 30309 USA

Victor

ADDRESS:
VICTOR PUERTAS
095610252
6B 215B
P.O Box 248
Lumpkin GA 31815 USA

People who can only accept usps postcards:

• premetered usps postcards (buy from a US post office or from usps.com)
• no alterations
• blue or black ink only, sometimes drawings get rejected

Luke

ADDRESS:
LUKE HARPER X2312491
DEKALB COUNTY JAIL
4415 MEMORIAL DRIVE
DECATUR, GA 30032 USA

Uprising Defendants

See Uprising Support for more info, and check out the Antirepression PDX site for updates from Portland cases. To the best of our knowledge they currently include:

Tyre Means 49981-086
USP Atwater
P.O. Box 019001
Atwater, CA 95301

Kelly Jackson 50288-086
FCI Phoenix
Federal Correctional Institution
37910 N. 45th Ave
Phoenix, AZ 85086

Margaret Channon 49955-086
Currently in transit, check the BOP inmate locator for updates

Gavaughn Streeter #19203494
Oregon State Penitentiary
2605 State Street
Salem, Oregon 97310

You can donate to Gavaughn’s post-release fundraiser here.

Malik Muhammad #23935744
Oregon State Penitentiary
2605 State Street
Salem, OR 97310

Cyan Waters Bass #23905849
Oregon State Correctional Institution
3405 Deer Park Drive SE
Salem, Oregon 97310

Montez Lee 22429-041
FCI Ray Brook
Federal Correctional Institution
PO Box 900
Ray Brook, NY 12977

Matthew White #21434-041
FCI Terre Haute
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. BOX 33
Terre Haute, IN 47808

Matthew Rupert #55013-424
USP McCreary
P.O. Box 3000
Pine Knot, KY 42635

José Felan #54146-380
FCI Terre Haute
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 33
Terre Haute, IN  47808

Dylan Robinson 45802-013
USP Thomson
U.S. Penitentiary
PO Box 1002
Thomson, IL  61285

David Elmakayes 77782-066
FCI McKean
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 8000
Bradford, PA 16701

Carlos Matchett 73583-050
FCI Schuylkill
Federal Correctional Institution
PO Box 759
Minersville, PA 17954

Andrew Augustyniak-Duncan
Smart Communications/PA DOC
Andrew Duncan-Augustyniak / QN9211
SCI Rockview
PO Box 33028
St Petersburg, Florida 33733

Ellie Brett 14822509
FCI Petersburg Medium
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 1000
Petersburg, VA 23804

John Wade 14762509
FCI Beckley
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 350
General & Legal Mail
Beaver, WV 25813

Alvin Joseph 1002016959
Hays State Prison
PO Box 668
Trion, GA 30753

Richard Hunsinger 16066-509
FCI Forrest City Low
P.O. Box 9000
Forrest City, AR 72335

Diego Vargas 55070-424
FCI Allenwood Medium
PO Box 2000
White Deer, PA 17887

Howard Eugene Nall #586907
Newberry Correctional Facility
13747 E. County Road 428
Newberry, MI 49868

T’Andre Buchanan 67637-060
Milan FCI
PO Box 1000
Milan, MI 48160

Upcoming Birthdays

Brian DiPippa

One of two Pittsburgh, PA based activists who were targeted with trumped up federal charges following protests at a university against a transphobic far-Right speaker.

Birthday: October 1

Address:

Butler County Prison
c/o Brian DiPippa
#42322 PO Box 9156
Seminole, FL 33775-9156

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, Imam

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly H. Rap Brown, was a legendary black liberation leader, serving as the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and later the Justice Minister of the Black Panther Party. Wrongfully convicted of murder in the 1990s after an intense campaign of state harassment.

The Federal system uses Corrlinks, a system where a prisoner must send a request to connect to someone on the outside before they can exchange emails, so if you’re not already connected to Imam Jalil then you’re best off just sending him a card or a letter.

Birthday: October 4

Address:

Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin #99974-555
USP Tucson
P.O. Box 24550
Tucson, AZ 85734
United States

Jennifer Rose

Jennifer Amelia Rose (previously known as Jennifer Gann) is an anti-authoritarian trans woman and insurrectionist amazon held captive for over 25 years for armed robberies and a 1995 attack on a district attorney and associate prison warden. She took part in the 1991 Folsom Prison hunger strike, after which she was beaten and tortured, convicted for armed resistance, and sentenced to multiple 25-to-life sentences under the Three Strikes Law. She has spent over ten years in solitary confinement at Folsom and the Pelican Bay Secure Housing Unit. Despite all of this, Jennifer continues to struggle for freedom, remaining a committed anti-authoritarian, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, anti-fascist, and anti-capitalist. For more information, you can listen to this recent interview she did with the Final Straw.

California uses Connect Network/GTL.

Birthday: October 6

Address:

Jennifer Amelia Rose #E-23852
Salinas Valley State Prison
P. O. Box 1050
Soledad, CA 93960-1050

Malik Bey (Meral Smith)

Malik is one of the Virgin Island 5 serving 8 consecutive life sentences after being tortured into a false confession then wrongly imprisoned since 2001 when his sentence was vacated.

Malik is in an institution run by CoreCivic, and it appears that you can email him here.

Birthday: October 8

Address:

Meral Smith #19-1874
Citrus County Detention Facility
2604 W. Woodland Ridge Dr.
Lecanto, FL 34461
United States

Aleksandr Zaitsev

Aliaksandr Zaytsev is an anarchist who was accused of attempting to set fire to Chairman of the Supreme Court Sukalo’s dacha. On April 15, 2022 Aliaksandr was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Belarusian prisons will usually only accept letters in Belarusian or Russian, so if you don’t speak one of those languages your best bet is to email your message to belarus_abc(AT)riseup.net or use this online form and they should be able to translate your greetings and pass them on.

Birthday: October 8

Address:

(Belarusian or Russian letters only – use this form for English messages)

Zaitsev Aleksandr Vladimirovich
212013, Mogilev, p/o Veino, Slavgorodskoe shosse 183, IK №15
Belarus

Kenny Zulu Whitmore

Kenny Zulu Whitmore is a former Black Panther, wrongfully held for over 45 years, over 30 of which were spent in solitary confinement. You can read more about Zulu’s case here. Zulu is not allowed to receive greeting cards.

Louisiana uses JPay, so you can send him a message by going to jpay.com, clicking “inmate search”, then selecting “State: Louisiana, Inmate ID: 86468”.

Birthday: October 14

Address:

Kenny Zulu Whitmore
86468 – Cypress#3
LA State Prison
Angola, LA 70712

Alexander Kozlyanko

Anarchist from Brest. Detained on 2 March 2021 on suspicion of involvement in a criminal organization of anarchists and gross violation of public order (Articles 285 and 342 of the Criminal Code). Allegedly he was involved in a road blockage in Brest in May 2018: anarchists then blocked three lanes of the M1 motorway, opposing the construction of a battery plant. On September 6, 2022, Aliaksandr was sentenced to 6 years in prison.

Belarusian prisons will usually only accept letters in Belarusian or Russian, so if you don’t speak one of those languages your best bet is to email your message to belarus_abc(AT)riseup.net or use this online form and they should be able to translate your greetings and pass them on.

Birthday: October 15

Address:

(Belarusian or Russian letters only – use this form for English messages)

IK-1, ul. Tekhnicheskaya, 8, g. Novopolotsk, 211440, Belarus
Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Kozlyanko

Daniil Chul

Daniil Chul is an anarchist from Brest. Detained on 2 March 2021 on suspicion of involvement in a criminal organisation of anarchists and gross violation of public order (Articles 285 and 342 of the Criminal Code). On September 6, 2022, Chul was sentenced — he received five years in a medium-security penal colony and a fine of about $6,300.

Belarusian prisons will usually only accept letters in Belarusian or Russian, so if you don’t speak one of those languages your best bet is to email your message to belarus_abc(AT)riseup.net or use this online form and they should be able to translate your greetings and pass them on.

Birthday: October 15

Address:

(Belarusian or Russian letters only – use this form for English messages)

IK №15, Slavgorodskoye shosse 183, p/o Veyno, g.Mogilov, 213105, Belarus
Daniil Romanovich Chul

Toby Shone

Toby Shone is an anarchist who was prosecuted under terrorism charges for alleged involvement with the insurrectionist website 325, and then later sentenced for drugs charges when the terror charges were dropped for lack of evidence. He continues to receive repressive treatment from the state due to his unapologetic anarchist politics, and was recently released, only to then be sent back to prison for an alleged breach of bail conditions. You can read more about his case here and here.

UK prisoners can be emailed using emailaprisoner.com.

Birthday: October 20

Address:

Toby Shone A7645EP
HMP Bristol
19 Cambridge Road
Bishopston
Bristol
BS7 8PS
United Kingdom