For a long time, it has been an anarchist tradition to go to the jail on this day and start the new year with all prisoners and demand their freedom.

Now it may seem strange to some people when we talk about the freedom of all prisoners, because there may also be people there whose actions we deeply despise. This is also true, and yet we are convinced that a critical and solidarity-based approach to prisoners is needed.

The majority of those who spend days, months, years or even their entire lives in prisons are there for social reasons. In other words, their deeds are the result of social misery. They are thieves or burglars who have not physically harmed anyone, but merely wanted to survive in a world that has cast them out. They are people who have been caught driving illegally too often because tickets are becoming more and more expensive. Likewise, refugees are locked away, some of whom have travelled incredible distances to flee political persecution or simply to live a better life. From the beginning of our lives, we are confronted with laws and rules that we never decided or wanted. If we do not comply with them, there is punishment. The highest form of punishment in this State is prison, because this seems to people to be the most humane form of punishment. People look arrogantly at other countries that still carry out corporal and or death sentences. But let’s be honest, isn’t a (life) sentence also just a death sentence in instalments? Prisons are not hotels, life there is neither fair nor free of exploitation and oppression. It is also expensive.

In addition to those already listed, many friends and comrades are also in the prisons of this world because they dared to challenge the ruling order. Because they could not or did not want to fit into a society where competition and profit take precedence over solidarity and mutual aid.

We see the reasons for ending up in prison are manifold, the solution to these reasons is not. Because the number of those in jail is getting bigger and bigger. Let’s stop trying to lock away the problems that this social system produces. Let’s create a critical solidarity anti-prison movement that supports prisoners in their struggles.

FREEDOM FOR ALL
FOR A SOCIETY WITHOUT PRISONS

“I do not claim that there is an easy solution; prisons, in any case, are not a solution. We must continue to fight for their abolition: from within, i.e. on the part of the prisoners, and also from outside. Because without moral – as well as energetic – help from outside, those behind bars are ultimately lost.” Thomas Meyer-Falk

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via: de.indymedia

Translated by Act for freedom now!