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6 years on – Shut down Guantanamo now!

On January 11th 1908 Mahatma Gandhi received his first ever prison sentence (2 months) in Johannesburg, South Africa, for failing to register as Asiatic. 100 years later, on January 11th, the world not only celebrates Gandhi's act of resistance against a racist South African State, but also mourns the continued existence of the notorious U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - 6 years since the first prisoners arrived to the detention camps as 'enemy combatants.'

We invite you do read our detailed comparison between the provisions of the 'new' Lisbon Treaty and the proposed EU Constitution which was rejected by the voters of France and the Netherlands.

http://www.people.ie/english8.html

Republication from the New Jersey Star Ledger.

Martha Goldsmith Scara may be the last anarchist in Piscataway.

More than 80 years ago, her parents traveled Stelton Road to reach the Modern School Ferrer Colony, a rural community inspired by the teachings of Spanish anarchist Francisco Ferrer y Guardia.

Workers from the Budryk mine have intensified their protest. Over 300 miners are currently occupying the mine at 700 meters below ground, with 40 more at the 1050 meter level. Over the weekend, about 400 miners were underground, but conditions are hard for them to stay many days underground. Yesterday two miners had to be evacuated and needed medical attention.

The miners say they will stay underground until their demands to end wage discrimination are fulfilled.

The management of the state-owned mine have claimed that the strike is illegal and have informed the prosecutor and state security agency of this "crime". They claim that the mine is losing over 1 million USD per day because of the strike and that after the action is over, they will sue the organizers of the strike for damages.

On Saturday, hundreds of supporters, including members of the miners' families, gathered in front of the mine in solidarity with the strikers.

The public prosecutor's office will be reading the Polish translation of Jan Gross's "Fear" in order to determine if Gross has "slandered the Polish nation". The book is due to appear in the bookshops at the end of the week. In the summer of 2006, a group of nationalist parliamentarians demanded that Gross be prosecuted. According to them, talking about antisemitism and crimes committed in postwar pograms "slander" Poles. The crime carries a sentence of up to 3 years in prison.

This letter was sent to ABC Poznan address, we have no idea how this prisoner got our address. But three months before sending this letter, he sent the first letter asking us to send him some press, zines etc. We did so, but apparently, he didn't get the package we sent to him. This letter was sent without any censorship. We don't know the case of this prisoner, but the letter describes Polish prison reality perfectly. Artur asks for publishing it all over and he also wrote that press is very welcome. We don't think he speaks any other language that Polish but you're all welcome to send him signs of solidarity and publishing this letter everywhere you can.

Updates:
Jan. 26
Solidarity Picket in Siberia
Hunger strike
Jan.15
Jan. 10
Solidarity / ATTAC leader against strike

Budryk Miners have been on strike since Dec. 17th. Click here for more information and a translation of the miners' appeal.

The miners are fighting for equal pay. Their state-owned mine is going to be merged with a larger state-owned group, JSW, the largest coal producer in Europe. Despite the fact that the Budryk workers are extremely efficient, they found out their salaries would be up to 200 euros less a month than their colleagues at JSW.

The Board at Budryk announced on New Year's Day that it sent a letter to the state security agency and the prosecutor's office about the strikers. They claim that the strikers are causing financial losses for the state treasury and have committed "crimes" during the strike.

Please show your solidarity with the striking miners by sending a solidarity letter. Here are some sample letters:

by Sam Diener

Hugo Chávez has not turned Venezuela into a totalitarian dungeon. In fact, several chavista initiatives have the potential to be models of egalitarian, large-scale, participatory democracy. Nevertheless, Chávez's avowed fondness for the repressive aspects of dictatorships around the world, increasing militarization, and the threat of centralized control of society, could concentrate power in authoritarian hands.

Chávez Proclaims Affinity for Dictatorships

According to the BBC, in July of 2006, Chávez visited the dictator of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, and said, "We see here a model social state like the one we are beginning to create."
Chávez personally received the Iranian regime's highest award from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2006, according to Breitbart.com. Chávez said he "admired the Iranian president for ëhis wisdom and strength.'"

German-based transnational corporation Metro Cash&Carry oppresses an independent labour union in its megamarkets in Ukraine, Eastern Europe.

One of its leaders Vladimir Demyan was fired for proposing a collective labour contract to the administration.

On 12 December 2007 Vladimir Demyan, a trade union leader and the chairperson of Protection of Labour [ Zaschita Truda ] a Kyiv independent union, technician for electrical installations at the Commercial Centre 16 of METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine (part of the METRO Group multinational holding company headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany) was unlawfully dismissed in Kyiv.

We're here again. We’ve always existed. Confronting the uniformed troops of the exploiter and terrorist state. Confronting them. 100 years ago we challenged its slave-master hatred in the city of Iquique, in the port bloodied by its patriotic bullets and sabers that December of 1907. Today, in the consumerist December of 2007, we attack this damned place devoted as a center of torture and extermination, this symbol of its state. Antonio Ramón Ramón came before us with the stabbing of the assassin Silva Renard. Our homage to this anarchist and his vindicating dagger. Insurrectionary vengeance is always relentless. We are here again.

Dear Fellow- Workers and Comrades,
We would like to publish an appeal from the Strike Committee of the Budryk Mine.

The miners have been on strike since December 17th and have been spending their holidays in an occupation of the mine, often accompanied by family and friends. The situation in a nutshell is that, even though the mine is quite profitable and output per worker is twice the average in Poland, the wages there are the lowest in the industry. When the state decided that they wanted to merge this mine, which is state-owned, with the JSW group of mines, also state-owned, the workers where again reminded that their wages are lower than in the rest of JSW mines. They want to receive equal wages like the workers in the JSW mines.

The Board doesn’t want to negotiate with them. The situation has been going on for months. Now that the workers are on strike, they are not entitled to wages, so their families are being hit hard – not a nice present for the holidays. The strikers feel that the Board is intent on breaking the strike economically, therefore the Strike Committee decided to appeal for help.
Please spread this appeal. If you need any more information, would like to translate a solidarity letter into Polish or need help understanding the bank details, please contact warsaw@zsp.net.pl. Please put BUDRYK in the subject line.

ZSP Warsaw

Click on the right "czytaj dalej" to read the appeal.

We are writing to express our solidarity with the workers of Frape-Behr who are fighting to maintain their workplaces. We understand that this case will be discussed on January 2. We are asking the Generalitat not to accept the labour force adjustment plan (ERE) and the company to reconsider the firings.

As we understand, the Behr company is in good financial standing and has improved its market position and profits, in large part by pursuing cheap labour practices in places such as Mexico, the Czech Republic, India, South Africa and China. According to Behr’s annual report, Frape Behr increased sales in 2006 by 5.5% to 365 million euros (one million euros per day!). Behr predicts even more growth in the future. Due to the healthy financial performance of the company, and due to the fact that Frape Behr was to start new projects with the Japanese and Turkish markets, we understand that this labour force “adjustment” is not neccessitated by real financial problems but represents rather a global tendency to seek cheap labour in order to maximize corporate profits.

The strange part was seeing this fence - a flimsy piece of metal, a line drawn in the dust, and believing that the barrier was anything other than imaginary.

I ducked underneath the metal poles (I've seen this same kind of fence used to separate cattle) into Mexico and felt like I'd pushed through the Looking Glass into a different world I'd been glancing at for the past several days. But no, I turned around and looked back through the fence at the northern side of the camp and saw the same stretch of barren desert that had suffered at the hands of humans manipulating it on behalf of governments. The New River picks up where the fence leaves off, separating North from South, and shimmers in a dangerous yet almost tempting shade of green, and stretches forward underneath arches of industrial floodlights. (It is the most polluted river in the United States, and it is sometimes swum through to avoid La Migra.) At this strategic location, border patrol agents lined shoulder-to-shoulder, creating an impervious barrier and filling any cracks that have been left by the river or fence, lest the sacred barrier should be breached. Strapped with weapons and with their backs arched like cats prepared to strike, they stared straight ahead and chewed their gum ferociously, amused and irritated and maintaining some sense of being official while they engaged in a game of tug-of-war over how much space this No Borders camp could take up.

WOUNDED KNEE, Lakota (formerly South Dakota) – Thirteen days and 287 miles ago, 44 people mounted horses and began the Memorial Chief Big Foot Ride in honor of Si Tanka (Chief Big Foot) and his unarmed band of Mniconjou and Hunkpapa refuges who were slaughtered by U.S. Calvary in 1890 at Wounded Knee.

Here's the news that the mainstream media in the U.S., and the puppets of the U.S. government, do not want you to hear:

Many people associate the Schegen system with open borders but for Poland's refugees, "open" borders have meant more police and patrols at border points, on buses and on trains. People wishing to see for themselves what "travelling without passport control" have found out this week that passport control has been replaced by "face control" on the borders.

This week at least 4 groups of Chechens travelling from Poland have been captured and turned back. It started on Monday with a group of 59 Chechens aboard a train bound for Berlin. Then a group of Chechens were taken off a bus headed for Paris, off the train to Vienna and even out of taxis at the German border.

A group of Polish people have now been caught trying to bring Russian citizens into Austria. It is not clear if these are also Chechens, ethnic Russians or some other people who live in the Russian Federation.