Freedom News

Call for International Week of Solidarity With Anarchist Prisoners 2020

A number of Anarchist Black Cross groups have called for a week of action and support for anarchist prisoners worldwide, starting on Monday. In a statement groups from Europe, US and Middle East said: A new decade has started on this planet. With the rise of right-wing movements and the slow decline of social democracy,

Virtual Panopticon: Prison video calls and family support during the pandemic and beyond

The following text was kindly contributed to Freedom by Lisa Selby @bluebaglife (follow them on Instagram and Twitter), UK Prison Wives and the UK Prison Support Group. It describes the experiences of people in prisons and their loved in the time of COVID-19 and beyond. My partner, Elliot, has been out of prison for almost

Protesters gather at Secretary of State for Justice home demanding prisons are emptied in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic

On Monday morning, a protest took place on the doorstep of the home of the Secretary of State for Justice, Robert Buckland in Wroughton, Borough of Swindon. The protesters demanded the immediate release of all incarcerated people from the unsafe conditions in which they are being held in prisons, detention centres and psychiatric hospitals, in

The View Magazine: Artful Ways and Means

Note from the editor: this text contains a discussion on issues which may be triggering and difficult to read. However, we decided to publish it as it concerns hard questions prison abolitionists need to face. (zb) The View Magazine started at the request of the governor at HMP Downview, a new governor, who was woefully

‘This place is a death trap’: inside HMPs during COVID-19 

Content warnings: state violence, medical abuse and neglect, self-harm and suicide  The Ministry of Justice’s lack of response to COVID-19 is nothing short of genocidal. So far, there have been twelve recorded deaths of incarcerated people in HMP. Inadequate hygiene plus solitary confinement plus medical abuse and neglect have already proven lethal, and worse is

British prisons are Petri dishes for this pandemic; without immediate action it’s the death penalty by any other name

Carl Cattermole This past Tory decade has left public services looking like a bicycle locked up too long in East London: valuable parts stolen, everything else rusted. And if the service still has two wheels then I guarantee it doesn’t have the suspension to cope with bumps… and… COVID-19 isn’t a bump, it’s an assault