repression in austria

from indymedia.org:

At around 7:00 am on May 21, 2008, members of the Austrian elite police force (WEGA) 

stormed several apartments across the country. Some of the residents were woken up 

in their beds at gunpoint. A total of twentythree (23) apartments, houses and offices

 were searches in Vienna, Lower Austria, Styria and Tirol. In many of the apartments 

the WEGA kicked in the doors. The officers stormed the apartments like in bad 

Hollywood movies. Only after the residents had been intimidated, “secured” on the 

wall and/or put in handcuffs did the police start the searches. 

All the arrestees are active in the animal rights movement in Austria. 

The offices of at least 4 animal rights group were search by police. 

The 10 people, a few of which are currently on hunger strike, are 

still in custody. On a bail hearing on June 6th, the judge decided to 

keep them in jail for at least 4 weeks further. 

There have been solidarity demonstrations in Austria and around 

the world to demand the immediate release of the activists and 

for the authorities to drop the charges. 

U.S. Prison Population Hits All-Time High: 2.3 Million Incarcerated.

The Justice Department has released a new report showing the nation’s prison and jail population reached a record 2.3 million people last year. A record 2.3 million people were in the nation’s prisons and jails in 2007, according to a Justice Department report released on June 6, 2008.The report notes that in the 10 largest states, prison populations increased “during 2006 at more than three times (3.2 percent) the average annual rate of growth (0.9 percent) from 2000 through 2005.”The new report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that in the first half of 2007 the growth rate slowed, but prison admissions growth outpaced the number of prison releases. The report provides a breakdown, noting “of the 2.3 million inmates in custody, 2.1 million were men and 208,300 were women. Black males represented the largest percentage (35.4 percent) of inmates held in custody, followed by white males (32.9 percent) and Hispanic males (17.9 percent).”The United States leads the industrialized world in incarceration. In fact, the U.S. rate of incarceration (762 per 100,000) is five to eight times that of other highly developed countries, according to The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice think tank. Locking up these prisoners comes with huge economic costs. The Sentencing Project estimates that cost to be $60 billion per year for federal, state and local prison systems.

 

paul taggart, wheels of justice

this past spring, wheels of justice came through the cities, and some of us got to see paul taggart, photojournalist, talk and show slides of iraq. he has a website that includes other stories–his pictures of the lebanon war are pretty incredible as he’s based out of beruit. here’s some photos from his 2004 iraq story–he followed a family that had three of their children gunned down by US forces in their field as they went through the burial process. at his talk, taggart showed the photo of the kids lined up that looks like they’re all armed fighters, and then showed a second photograph that revealed that they were holding wooden table legs and other pieces of junk. some of this is also photos of dead iraqis that don’t make it onto american newsmedia. 

palestine solidarity co-founder still in israeli detention

After being arrested from his home in the middle of the night by Israeli forces on April 11th, Mousa Abu Maria, co-founder of the Palestine Solidarity Project remains in administrative detention, being held without charge or trial. PSP is a peace and justice organization that advocates and agitates for popular unarmed resistance to the occupation, and works on projects to increase Palestinian self-sufficiency. 

If you’re in the cities, you may have seen Bekah Wolf, another PSP member speak at Macalester. Mousa is Bekah’s longtime partner and friend. She appears in the video below posted on the PSP site which gets a little schmultzy and sentimental, but is still worth watching. 

Two ways to help:

1. By contacting your governmental representatives to demand that they inquire into Mousa’s unjust detention with the Israeli foreign ministry in their respective country.

2. By holding a fundraiser, benefit, or personally donating to PSP and to Mousa’s legal fund via the website:
http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/donate/
or by writing a check made out to PSP-NY and mailing it to:

PSP-NYC
P.O. Box 721234
Jackson Heights, NY 11372

cops use force in 20% of stops

More from infoshop:

One in five New Yorkers stopped by police in 2006 encountered some use of force, from simple restraint to facing a drawn service weapon, a Daily News analysis of new data found. In 102,000 of the more than 500,000 police stops – about 20% – cops did things such as restrained people, threw them to the ground or against a wall or pointed a gun at them, the newly released data show.The NYPD has refused to release use-of-force data in previous and subsequent years. In nine out of 10 police stops involving use of force in 2006, the suspects were not arrested.”Force is liberally defined to include such things as placing the individual on a wall for a pat down, or on a car, or on the ground or handcuffing whether an arrest is made [or] not,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

more refusals to serve…

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A month after US army reservist Matthis Chiroux publicly refused to deploy to Iraq, the former sergeant on Sunday set himself up for possible prosecution by failing to report for active duty with his unit in South Carolina.”Tonight at midnight, I may face further action from the army for refusing to reactivate to participate in the Iraq occupation,” Chiroux told reporters in Washington.”I stand here today in defense of those who have been stripped of their voices in this occupation, the warriors of this nation…”, Chiroux read from a statement as his father Rob, who had travelled to Washington from Alabama to support his son on Father’s Day, stood beside him.Chiroux served five years in the army, with tours in Afghanistan, Japan, Germany and the Philippines.Matthis’ father Rob, a rocket scientist who lives in the army town of Huntsville, Alabama, said mobilizing IRR members was a form of back-door draft.He said, “moms and dads, who represent millions and millions of voters, would say: wait a minute — you want to draft my kid? Iraq’s got to stop.”

domestic anti-war arrests on the rise

 

from infoshop.org/inews:

“There have been over 15,000 arrests for resistance to war since 2002 in the United States. There were large numbers right after the run up to and invasion of Iraq. Recently, arrests have begun climbing again. Though arrests are a small part of anti-war organizing, their rise is an indicator of increasing resistance.

The information comes from the Nuclear Resister, a newsletter that has been reporting detailed arrest information on peace activists and other social justice campaigns since 1980. Felice and Jack Cohen-Joppa, publishers of the Nuclear Resister, document arrests by name and date based on information collected from newspapers across the country and from defense lawyers and peace activists.

Since 2002, the Nuclear Resister has documented anti-war arrests for protestors each year:

2002 – 1800 arrests

2003 – 6072 arrests

2004 – 2440 arrests

2005 – 975 arrests

2006 – 950 arrests

2007 – 2272 arrests

2008 – 810 as of May”

we interrupt this empire

last thing today, 

is online in its entirety here: http://www.archive.org/details/we_interrupt_this_empire

 events of the day were organized by Bay Area Direct Action to Stop the War (http://bayareadirectaction.wordpress.com/) which is still active. 

 

COINTELPRO: The FBI’s War on Black America

also, i watched this film on youtube which is worth seeing about COINTELPRO. it’s nice because it both gives a history of infiltration and also has some cool newsreel footage and interviews looking at the move from the civil rights to the black power movement. it’s shitty quality but worth watching. i posted all parts of it below. 

blackwater: the rise of the world’s most powerful mercenary army

in portland i saw journalist jeremy scahill talk at powell’s bookstore about his book

 which was interesting both because i learned a lot more about the war industry, private military contracting, and blackwater in particular, but also because jeremy scahill was a clear and direct speaker who, while writing for mainstream progressive publications and appearing on tv and radio programs of the like, offers an analysis of war and war profiteering that leads to a systematic critique of government regardless of party politics. below’s a clip of him on bill moyers talking about blackwater and other contractors in new orleans. i bought the book too, which you should borrow from me when i’m done with it.