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Home | 4th August 1995 | Issue 34Grade 1 dereliction -v- Homeless Eviction

Justice? Brighton's Campaign in Defiance of the Criminal Injustice Act

SchNEWS
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CJA ARRESTOMETER
Hunt Sabs 151
Road Protestors 67
Footie Fans 45
Environmentalists 43
No Live Exports* 38
Travellers# 11
Tree Defenders 11
Ravers 3
Illegal Gatherers 3
Peace Campaigners 2
Druids 1
* 1000+ animal rights activists nicked this year
# not including grief and harassment

PIER PRESSURE!

SQUATTERS TAKE OVER BRIGHTON'S DERELICT WEST PIER

"IT'LL TAKE THE S.A.S. TO GET US OFF!"

As the defiant people of the UK's first ever squatted Pier begin clearing up the dilapidated structure, owners West Pier Trust, who acquired the building for a token £1, have stated they will not seek an eviction order. Squatters are repairing floorboards on the 129-year-old Grade One listed building which has been left in shabby neglect since it was closed 20 years ago.

Laughably the Trust, which includes former Goon Spike Milligan, accused the squatters of making the derelict Pier an 'eyesore' with their banners, worried it might jeopardise their £42m National Mockery application. Brighton has the highest number of homeless people in the UK outside London and they are being criminalised and harassed for taking the initiative in making homes, culture and entertainment for themselves.

For the last two years a community of, for the most part, happy free peaceful people have been living in the beach chalets next to the Pier. The chalets are Council-owned and have not been used since 1982 despite repeated requests to rent by the occupiers. It had become a haven for anyone who needed shelter, food and friendship in the town. However, all this came to an end last Tuesday when sixty police, bailiffs, Council officials, bricklayers and dustbin men gave the squatters two minutes to get out. Any who were not there at the time had their life's possessions thrown into the back of a Council rubbish lorry. And those who did not get their stuff out in time had it smashed as policemen threw it out of the doorways on to the pavement. Over the next four days bricklayers, overseen by Council officials, bricked up the doorways from the inside with steel reinforced breeze blocks and then covered the outside of each doorway with wooden boards to disguise to the general public what had occurred. A hastily prepared campsite was set up opposite the beach huts.

'OPERATION CRUSTY'

Angry and defiant, the self-sufficient community of 30 squatters launched 'Operation Crusty'. Swimming at low tide, they climbed the rusty Pier ladder, forced up the trapdoor and opened a tidal wave of protest. The action has captured the public imagination with support flooding in. John Lloyd, 71, who saved the Victorian Pier from demolition in the seventies, said: "Good for them. It is great for them to draw attention to the failure of this government's housing policy in this way." Banners cut across the horizon declaring: "Equal rights for all" and "More Injustice from the Criminal Justice Act". The anti-squatting sections of the Act become law later this month meaning eviction hearings can be held in secret, giving squatters 24 hours notice to leave, and landlords powers to use violence to gain entry to evict.

The Pier is the latest in a long-line of high-profile squats in the town. Last November Justice? put the government on trial in a derelict 100-year-old Courthouse, transforming it into a free arts and action community centre complete with crèche and cafe for two months before being evicted. After a short stay in Holy Trinity Church, the collective went in-yer-face in the High Street at 'CJ's' and, continuing the poetic theme, squatted the Council's empty Housing Advice Centre. An alternative Estate Agents was set up which helped a further 200 to short-term shelter. Following evictions all the buildings still remain unused, boarded up and fortified.

The 'West Pie' (the 'r' hasn't been illuminated for ages) is said to be on a ley-line which gives the area a lively, and sometimes bizarre, spirit. At sunset each evening thousands of starlings dance magical patterns before settling, while the word-of-mouth Sunday drumming carnival attracts percussionists and party-heads from across the South East. There's also the colourful history: The late Professor Cyril cycled off the end every day for years to make his money - and died as a result - while boxer Chris Eubank wants to buy it all for himself.

There are so many disused buildings and so many homeless people, Alex, one of the squatters, told SchNEWS. "We need somewhere stable to be allowed to live instead of being moved on time and time again. We therefore ask for a building in Brighton which we can have for at least one year, where the community can live together again doing creative and positive things and helping each other and anyone else who needs it". Go down the beach and give 'em support. The squatters camping on the seafront esplanade are up in Brighton Magistrates Court at 1030am on Monday.

SEE YER THERE!!

crap arrests of the week

During the beach chalet eviction two squatters were arrested, cautioned and DNA'd for: 1. Possession of a fire juggling stick, an 'offensive weapon'. 2. Theft of a fuse!

Open Cast mine protestors at Selar Farm Nature reserve were nicked for swearing at a lorry and rolling a fag.

INSIDE SchNEWS

SPECIAL REPORT

John Bowden was arrested in 1980 for murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1992, after years of brutality and repression, he managed to escape and was on the run from the police for a year and a half. He was recaptured in March 1994 and has since been in Perth Prison in Scotland. Here he talks about various aspects of being inside, including the reasons as to why he committed murder and his subsequent politicisation.

How do you justify asking for our support, having taken a life?

The murder itself cannot be looked upon as an isolated incident, it has to be tied in with my history. Being identified as Irish I experienced racism as well as extreme poverty very early on in life. Unfortunately my instinctive rebellion against both sets of disadvantages was always blind and misdirected. I rebelled early by committing serious anti-social acts (I burnt a factory to the ground when I was nine!) and so was criminalised and incarcerated quite early on in life. I was fed into the 'criminal justice system' as a mere child and systematically brutalised and de-socialised to the extent where I became a complete outsider, made hard and violent by institutionalisation and predatory in my relationship to 'straight' society.

The writer Norman Mailer has drawn some interesting and profoundly accurate parallels between the condition of 'state raised convicts' (people who had literally grown up in penal institutions) and that of the rebellious slaves sold into the gladiator schools of ancient Rome. Both groups suffered extreme dehumanisation and were turned into killers - the gladiators so that they would kill each other for the entertainment of the rich; the state raised convicts so that they would represent the ultimate social folk devil from which 'normal' society must be protected and carefully policed against.

By the time I had reached my early twenties I had already spent the bulk of my time locked away in various prison-type institutions and had accumulated a long criminal record, composed mostly of violent offences, which were becoming increasingly more violent. There was therefore a certain inevitability about my arrest for murder in 1980 and subsequent imprisonment for life. Within a year of being sentenced I was involved in a highly publicised hostage taking incident at Parkhurst Prison when an assistant governor was seized in protest over the murder of a prisoner in the hospital wing. I was sentenced to an additional ten years imprisonment, on top of life, and buried in solitary confinement for over four years. At that point my life was effectively over, and yet in a very real sense it was only just beginning. Somehow in the midst of all that hopelessness, pain and repression I actually began to discover my true humanity and experienced a process of deep politicisation which drew me closer to my fellow prisoners and oppressed people everywhere. From a brutalised and anti social criminal I metamorphasised into a totally committed revolutionary.

My politicisation happened while I was being held in solitary confinement and I suppose it had the intensity of a religious conversion almost. I was held in solitary for over four consecutive years at one point and so read and thought a great deal, and began to make connections between the struggle that I'd been fighting all of my life, albeit in an individualistic and self-destructive way, and the far wider struggles of oppressed people everywhere. I was also radicalised by my direct experience of struggle in prison essentially because in its treatment of rebellious prisoners, the state always reveals its true nature which of course is pure fascism. Revolutionary politics helped me to properly contextualise my struggle in prison and also to sustain and inspire me when I experienced repression of the most brutal and soul-destroying sort.

...Malcolm X once described prisons as universities of revolution. I discovered myself in prison and also a sort of freedom that I had never before known - my body might have been imprisoned but my mind and spirit became completely liberated...

What's it like being in prison?

The pain of my recapture and the soul-destroying reality of being back in prison wounded me terribly and at one point caused me to contemplate offering up my life in one final struggle against the system - but then you made contact and I felt as if I still had some link with the outside.

Life here is much the same; I eat, I exercise, I sleep. Someone once described prisons as huge human battery farms, designed simply to warehouse people and maintain their biological existence. We're fed (badly), clothed and housed in tiny boxes devoid of even the most basic human comforts. Though physically sustained men are spiritually crushed and driven insane almost routinely.

One day there will be a 'carnival of the oppressed' (my favourite description of revolution) and these bastards will be held accountable for their actions.

During summer prison becomes even harder to endure and accept and right now my longing for freedom is so painfully overwhelming and desperate. I want to be away from this awful place and free to wander with the sun on my face and the sounds and colours of summer all around me.

There are moments here, especially in the early mornings when I first awake and struggle to make the psychological adjustment from dreams of freedom to the hard edged reality of captivity, when I feel totally overwhelmed by depression and deep deep sadness. It sometimes requires a real Herculean effort of will power just to climb upright each morning and endure yet another soul-destroying day in this place, another day filled with dead time and frustrated desires, with such a desperate craving for freedom. Prison is a veritable evil exactly because it is so deliberately designed and structured to destroy the human spirit. I feel that psychological and emotional violence very keenly.

The experience of such extreme oppression, however, will never break or diminish me because in a sense I've been held captive all my life and so have grown hardened to their efforts of breaking me. Being imprisoned wounds and injures me but never will it touch my essential core, that vital source of strength and resistance. Despite all the pain and hardship of prison, I do somehow manage to survive with dignity and integrity and even humour.

...no matter how overwhelmingly bad the odds, retain a powerful hope and belief in the possibility of struggle and a far better world as a result of it...

I'm fortunate that I have apolitical perspective on prisons and so can universalise my struggle and relate it to the struggle of oppressed people everywhere. That awareness does provide a real source of strength and hope in this situation. In prison, especially you learn to understand the importance of collective struggle and mutual support and there really is no way that I could endure and survive this experience merely as an individual prisoner, depending on my own individual dreams and hopes.

How important is it to write to prisoners?

Prison, more than anything, is designed to isolate and alienate people from any source of support on the outside, and it is exactly that sensation of isolation that often destroys prisoner activists and political prisoners especially. There is no greater feeling of demoralisation than that created by the feeling that one is completely alone and isolated here, because no matter how strong or committed one is we all still need to feel that we are part of a much wider struggle with comrades supporting and assisting us even if they are not physically present. If I know that people on the outside recognise and support my struggle here in prison then I can endure and continue to resist infinitely even if buried in the deepest solitary confinement unit. Your own expressions of solidarity are a constant inspiration and source of so much that makes life bearable at the moment. A single letter is always sufficient to restore my belief in struggling on and reaching beyond all that presently exists to oppress and crush me.

WRITING TO PRISONERS

Prison life is extremely boring, so letters are generally the highlight of the day. Don't be afraid of talking about your life, about things you are doing - it all helps to relieve the tedium that is prison. Just be careful that anything you write will not get the prisoner or anyone else into trouble - as always, use your head.

If you are writing to people from political movements (eg. poll tax prisoners, anti-CJA), keep them involved in the struggle. Discuss ideas, strategies (general, not specific actions!), theory, but again be careful, as 'political' prisoners often get singled out for harassment.

Most prisons do not allow letters in without a return address. Letters do sometimes get stopped, read, 'diverted', 'lost' so its often worth sending the first letter via recorded delivery to make sure that it gets opened in the prisoners presence.

Most prisoners are not the 'mad beasts' portrayed by the tabloids, they are ordinary people, and the only way they are going to know you support them is if you tell them, so GET WRITING...

INSIDE SchNEWS

MARK SKELLY has been sent down for 12 months for his alleged role in the CJB riot in Hyde Park last October. "I threw a couple of banner sticks - no-one got hurt -but they put me down as a prime trouble maker" Writing from prison "I'm finding it hard and could do with some support. This is my first time in prison and I'm lonely and homesick." Mark Skelly, FH 1589, Brixton Prison, London,

MICHELLE RATCLIFFE (RL 1456) suffers from epilepsy and has not been receiving a cheap version of her usual drug and this has been making her sick. A few days ago she passed out and a friend who called for help was taken down to the punishment block for creating a scene. When she was last visited she had had four fits in 3 and a half days! They are using the medication (or lack of) as a means of control and punishment! The governor told her 'the trouble with you Michelle is that you're just a bloody anarchist'! Please write to the governor at HMP Holloway ...and, of course, Michelle...

The people below are on remand for their alleged involvement in the arson attacks connected with the Shoreham Protests.

Michelle Ratcliffe RL1456, BARBARA TRENDHOME RL1292, Wing B3 HMP Holloway, Parkhurst Road, London, N7 ONU, DUNCAN GEORGE GE 3097, JUSTIN WRIGHT GE3 046, & KEVIN CHAPMAN GE3 148 segregation unit, HMP Lewes, 1 Brighton Road Lewes BN7 1EO STUART EDWARDS PB1864 & JIM CHAMBERS PV2504 were recently sentenced to 18 months for alleged criminal damage to a road construction site, HMP Pentonville, Caledonian Road London N7 8TT.

PRISONERS JUSTICE DAY - August 10th

Every 10th August, since 1975, prisoners in Canada have commemorated the anniversary of Eddie Nalon's suicide in Millhaven Penitentiary by refusing to work etc., whilst supporters outside have shown their solidarity in other ways. Thousands of people support this event in Canada, and in the U.K. the A.B.C. network has been holding demos on the PJD since 1992. Demos have been held outside various prisons including, Brixton, Pentonville, Armley and Winson Green. Last year Holloway Prison was picketed in a show of solidarity with women prisoners.

This year it's time to remember not only those who have died in custody at the hands of the screws or the police, but also those who have been driven to take their own lives by the brutality of the prison system, or whose health has been worn down by the inhuman conditions.

There will be demos at: Winson Green in Birmingham, Annley in Leeds and at Stoke Newington Police Station in London. Get in touch with your local A.B.C. group to get a local protest organised or just sort out your own event. Further information can be obtained from London A.B.C.

Crime, Public Order And Prisons

In Britain 94% of recorded crimes are against property

Someone once said that you can judge a political movement by the way it treats those people who get imprisoned fighting for its goals. One of the good things about the direct action/anti-CJA movement is that it doesn't leave activists to rot in prison.

Direct action prisoners however are only a tiny minority of the 50,000 people in British prisons. The vast majority are not part of any political movement. They are simply working class people who have been incarcerated for merely trying to survive. A third are inside for non-payment of taxes and fines, and others for theft.

A lot of people in the anti-CJA movement might think 'Why should we support these people?' 'What have they got to do with us?' Other more naive protesters argue that people who are inside for offences like burglary are exactly the people the police should be after. How often have you heard such misguided people going on about how the police should be doing their job chasing the 'real criminals' instead of hassling 'respectable' people like us?

But the protester who is imprisoned for public order offences and the person who is incarcerated for theft are linked and both need to be supported. Public order and crime are both dealt with by a judicial system whose purpose is to maintain current society with all its divisions and inequalities. The justice system exists to protect private property. If we break the rules of private property either individually through theft or collectively through things like squatting or holding free parties then the police will intervene. Any alternative to a life of meaningless work, consumption, and commercial leisure has to be stamped out by the authorities.

Like us, prisoners sometimes resist on an individual basis, and sometimes they do it collectively. Not only should we write to and visit prisons but we must learn from their struggles inside, even as they are inspired by ours outside. It's no accident that the Strangeways uprising kicked off the day after the poll tax riot. But to do this we must try and breakdown the barrier between 'political' and 'normal' prisoners.

By accepting this distinction such people are accepting the whole system of cops, courts and prisons, they just think that they should be used on the 'real criminals' rather than on them. Such misguided ideas are as dangerous to the development of our direct action movement as are the activities of the police. It's no good us staying out of jail if our minds are imprisoned in liberal dogma.

ABC

The A.B.C. is a network of autonomous prisoner support groups. They actively support prisoners with letters, publicity for their cases and struggles, demonstrations, material aid and encouraging other people to write to and support people inside. They welcome contact from prisoners, their friends, relatives and anyone interested in their work.

To find out more about the A.B.C. or any aspect of prisoner support, please contact one of the following groups: (National enquires do London A.B.C.)

London A.B.C. c/o 121 Railton Road, London SE24 0LR

Conviction P0 Box 522, Sheffield S1 3FF (support group for framed prisoners)

MUMIA - 12 DAYS TO LIVE

"Would he be on death row if he we're not black, not a Black Panther; not a MOVE supporter; not a powerful voice of the oppressed?"

In the early hours of 9th December 1981, Mumia Abu-Jamal was driving through Philadelphia when he saw his brother - who had been pulled over for a minor traffic violation - being beaten by a police officer. Jamal got out of his cab and took a near fatal bullet in the stomach. In the ensuring chaos a cop was killed. At the time night clubs were closing and over a hundred people witnessed the incident. Many claim to have seen a man, 50 pounds heavier than Mumia and with short hair rather than his distinctive dreads, shoot the policeman. Despite his injuries, witnesses saw him beaten by the police who were later forced to admit they rammed his head into a pole 'accidentally'.

In 1983, despite witness statements saying Mumia didn't shoot the cop, despite ballistic and forensic evidence saying Mumia didn't shoot the cop, he was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to death. He has been on death row ever since.

Mumia has been involved in radical politics since his early teens first with the revolutionary Black Panther Party, and later with the radical ecology group MOVE. As a journalist he came known as the 'voice of the voiceless' - and a thorn in the authorities' side. One warned him "They believe what you write, what you say. And it's got to stop. And one day, and I hope it's in my career, that you're going to have to be held responsible and accountable for what you do." Because of his beliefs he has been framed, locked up - and is due to be executed by lethal injection on the 17th August 1995.

PLEASE write in protest to Govemor Tom Ridge, Main Capitol Building, Room 225, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA.

Send donations to 'Mumia-Abu Jamal Defence' Committee, 163 Amsterdam Avenue, No.115, New York, 10023-5001.

Write directly to Mumia, AM 8335, SCI Green, 1040 E. Roy Furman Hwy, Waynesburg,

Pennsylvania, PA 15370

From 1st August there will be a non-stop vigil every day outside the US embassy in Grosvenor Sq. London. Nearest tube: Bond Street.

There will be a demonstration in Brighton on Thursday 10th August (Prisoners Justice Day) to highlight the plight of Mumia. PLEASE show you're support. Meet Churchill Square 1pm. Read 'Live from Death Row' (Addison-Wesley).

GET CONSCIOUS!

Conscious Cinema is launched today - a kind of SchNEWS on video. Featured this month: WEST PIER, SELAR FARM, OPERATION SOLSTICE, VE DAY @ STONEHENGE, CRAP ARRETS, THE MOTHER, SHOREHAM, RECLAIM THE STREETS, CRITICAL MASS and MUMIA ABU-JAMAL. 60 mins. Available for donation on condition it is publicly shown - not just home viewing! PO Box 2679, Brighton, East Sussex BN2 1UJ.

MOTHER UPDATE

"The Mother' was billed as the free festival of the summer - in direct defiance of the Criminal Justice Act (CJA). However, due to a huge police operation - involving phone tapping, dawn raids and roadblocks - it splintered off into smaller festivals around the country.

At one of the parties three people from the Black Moon Sound System became the first people in the country to be charged under Section 63 of the CJA. They were arrested and their £9,000 rig confiscated. If convicted each defendant faces up to a £2,500 fine or 3 months in prison - as well as being charged for the cost of destroying their own sound equipment! They are appearing at Corby Magistrates Court on 11th August 9.45 am for a pre-trial and are asking for people to turn up and give support.

Eight other people have been targeted as 'organisers' of the festival. Debbie and Andy of United Systems have been charged with 'Conspiracy to cause a breach of the peace' which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The other six have not yet been charged. All are due to appear at Corby police station early next week.

In another twist Debbie is to sue the police after a dawn raid where police used a battering ram to enter her home while she and her daughter were asleep. The police first produced a warrant to search for cannabis and amphetamines but after this proved unsuccessful, produced another warrant for documents relating to the organisation of 'The Mother'. Debbie said: "The cops are really gunning for this one. They were trawling for anything. I believe this was politically inspired by my high-profile opposition to the Criminal Justice Act."

United Systems: 0181 959 7525

FREE FESTIVAL
Ozrics, Astralasia, Citizen Fish, Tofu Love Frogs, dance tent, circus, stalls, 2 stages
Sat 5th August @ Wild Park on A27 just b4 Falmer, Brighton

SchNEWS IN BRIEF

SchLURVE! Jane Greenwood, 27, are you out there? SchNEWS received a heart-tugging phone-call from a geezer who gave you a lift hitching from the Lake District to Deptford Free Festival. He's fallen head over heels and asked us to put out an appeal coz you gave him a SchNEWS. Do we get a wedding invite? What is this, Dateline or something! Give us a call and we'll put you in touch. Aaaah

*** Help needed! Were you at Reclaim The Streets in Islington on Sunday, 23rd July? Were you still there when the riot police attacked? Did you witness any arrests? If you did then the Legal Defence and Monitoring Group need your name and tel no. immediately. Contact 0181 802 9804. There were 38 arrests. Also, if you've any thoughts and feelings on the day you'd like to express for a forthcoming film call 01273 389507

*** First arrest at the Newbury Bypass when digger-divers tried to stop the demolition of a school. Yes, it was the CJA. Better than flapping bits of red paper over yer head, Friends of the Earth! The Third Battle of Newbury will 'Converge on Costain" this Wednesday to politely ask them not to sign the contract for the road - join them 01488 682817

*** The UN Human Rights Committee this week highlighted the case of Joy Gardener. Her death by asphyxiation suggested she had been treated like a "ferocious canine", despite the fact she couldn't walk. Keeping her gagged with 13 feet of tape was "inexplicable". Well, quite

*** In the same report the UN condemned the changes to a suspect's right to silence brought in by the CJA., stating "The provisions may develop into a weapon to intimidate vulnerable suspects" and violates Britain's international treaty obligations

Party and Protest

Freedom Network Action Line 0171 501 9253

Week of Action Against the CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT:

7August Squash Action, 0171 226 8938

7 August Dover 4 charged with wilful obstruction. Bring drums, whistles 01342 303166

8-9 August Action to mark 50th anniversary of A-bomb blitz of Nagasaki, at Faslane Peace Camp, Dumbartonshire, Scotland. 01436 820901 /CND 0171 700 2393

8- 13 August 3rd National LETS Camp (Local Exchange Trading System) info from Green & Away PO Box 10 Malvern WR14 1YS

10 August Prisoners Justice Day 0171 501 9253

10 August Mass trespass and full moon party against the Blue Route in Kent, 01227 275404

12 AugustWolvestock Free Festy, Wohverhampton, 01902 312030

11- 13 August Bulldog Bash, Long Marston airfield, Stratford, Avon. PO Box 51 Luton, Beds LU1

11-14 Reclaim the Land! Solsbury Hill, Bath 01225 448556

11 - 20 Merryment Womens Camp, 01865 717173

12 August Hunt Sabs National Day of Action, against 'GloriousTwelfth' grouse shooting 01159 590357

12 August A DiY guide to Agenda 21. Stalls, speakers, networking. Agenda 21, 0161 6274862

13 August Smokey Bears Picnic 2pm Southsea Common, Portsmouth

14- 19 August Democracy & Ecology Conference, West Coast of Scotland 0131 229 9052

Every Mon & Fri, Live and Direct Action against the M11 Link, more info. 0181 518 8222

and Finally

SchNEWS raided - shock! Your sunbathing scribes were shocked to read in the NME that Justice?, who share space with The Levellers in the Medway building, had been turned over by the (invisible) police. We rushed from beach to the HQ only to find those dodgy cops had replaced everything exactly where we left it. Singer Mark Chadwick has promised not to be drunk in charge of a music hack again! (yeah, right)

DISCLAIMER

The SchNEWS warns all readers not to attend any illegal gatherings or take part in any criminal activities. Always stay within the law. In fact please just sit in, watch tv and go on endless shopping sprees filling your house and lives with endless consumer crap.... you will then feel content. Honest.

To subscribe to SchNEWS send 1st class stamps/donations (payable to Justice?) SchNEWS c/o on-the-fiddle PD Box 2600 Brighton East Sussex . Tel: (01213) 685913. Or pick one up @ Peace Centre, Gardener St, Brighton and around town

Justice? meet at the new kensington, kensington gardens, every Wed @ 7pm

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