Prisoner Awareness – by Dan Baker

Hello friends,

I am writing today to raise awareness for friends all over the world who have been facing captivity due to human rights activism. At it’s core all anarchist activism is a struggle for human rights. Freedom of expression, bodily autonomy, freedom from captivity, freedom to live a life as one see fit, with access to healthcare, housing, transportation education and community- all of these are anarchist struggles. Often our work intersects with other movements who have similar goals for specific groups of marginalized people, and even compassion for animals and environmental activism. People who profit from the exploitation of people, plant and animals find the existence of motivated anarchists and intersectional class struggle to be a threat to their social structure of hierarchy and domination. We are often striving to exist within the nation state systems, at peace, solving our own problems in autonomous zones, if only so we can claim the moral high ground of non-aggression and let the overbearing authorities cast the first stone. But many of us sincerely wish to have happy, healthy lives of peaceful coexistence, living close to nature and each other, living honestly in the face of institutionalized lies, dogmatic stone age mysticisms and hypocrisies, living in a way that is separate from the profit driven economy which is doomed to endless cycles of class division, exploitation, collapse and violent ‘forever wars’.

Those who do act out in aggressive ways are often only struggling for survival again lionized police forces who outlaw their very existence- for example patriarchy religious structures like zealous adherents to Abrahamic mythologies; the Kurds struggling against genocide in many different nations; Black communities world wide, but especially in Amerikkka, where police and federal government are putting white supremacist ideologies into practice; the Jewish Diaspora worldwide; Palestinian communities; Indigenous communities who managed to survive colonialism; and the Irish, victims of the United Kingdom’s first colony.

Right now we are seeing anarchists under attack on a global scale, and it’s important that we know the names of those who are facing imprisonment so they are not forgotten. By raising awareness we protect their bodies with accountability. Police who work as prison guards are made aware that they are being watched by the entire world, just like Derek Chauvin. Please look into the conditions faced by Belarus political prisoners and European political prisoners. We should also look into the state of Chinese and Russian political prisoners, and Ukrainian anarchists. Here are the names of friends I am aware of. Please look up these people and reach out to them and their friends and family. They can also receive money for their prison commissary account. If you send me any money, please send me less money so you can also send some to these friends. Instead of sending me twenty dollars I would rather get one dollar and know that nineteen other friends are getting one dollar also. The Belarus friends are in particular need of help in relation to their stance on the Ukraine and Russian war. They can be helped by contacting this fundraiser:

https://www.firefund.net/abcbelarus

Names of international anarchist friends who need help more than I do:

Mahmut Demir

Gabriel Bombo Da Silva

Claudio Lavazza

Monica Caballero

Francisco Solar

Giannis Michailidis

Juan Aliste Vega

Ihar Alinevich

Mikalai Dziadok

Mikita Jemialjanau

Jauhen Rubashka

Artsiom D. Salavej

Artsiom S. Salavej

Toby Shone

Eric King

Jessica Reznicek

Leonard Peletier

Mumia Abu Jamal

Dr. Mutulu Shakur

Please add names to this list and forward this message or write your own statement to friends and family and activists on a global scale. We will show the forces that attempt to dominate our ungovernable spirit of love and freedom that our solidarity is greater than their violence and oppression!

Thank you for keeping me in your thoughts and for all of your actual aid. My own family loves white Jesus and trump more than they love me, so the only help I get is from the activist community. I receive letters, money and books on a regular basis and this cuts through the depression and keeps me going. I can imagine how much more difficult in other places where conditions are much harsher, like Eric King’s situation. I would very much like to receive pictures of as many political prisoners as you can send me, either printed on paper or through a photo app like pelipost or freeprints. In prison one of the only tools available to me is my imagination, which I use in meditation to send all my love, strength and courage to other political prisoners, and I imagine them being happy, healthy and free, receiving resources like money, books and healthy food and nutrients. Please join me in this meditation. Another aspect of this meditation is to imagine all of the negative aspects of the political prisoner’s existence coming off of them like a black cloud of smoke, which we then inhale and in doing so we share their burden by taking on the negative karma that is making their life difficult. I like to call it “smoking our own thoughts”! Then we imagine clean air and beams of light energy going from us back to the political prisoners. Please remember that this exercise is just our imagination, and it is worthless without physical action and actual support in reality. Its purpose is to motivate us to action and to help us through times when we cannot act, so that we remember to help when can act.

Thanks again for all of your love and support!

May all beings everywhere be happy and free!

Dan, aka Alishare