Category: News and Analysis

#FreeThemAll: Email campaign to release federal prisoners

Posted on

SUPPORT ALL PRISONERS NOW! NO ONE SHOULD SPEND A PANDEMIC IN PRISON!

The situation facing prisoners during the COVID19 pandemic is terrifying. It is widely understood that prisoners are in a dangerous position during this pandemic due to the close living quarters, lack of health care, and lack of access to sanitary supplies. Correctional Services Canada has done little to address the risks inside, aside from cancelling all visits, temporary work releases, and trailer visits. Predictably, COVID19 has already started to spread in the federal prison system with prisoners and staff testing positive in more and more institutions. Read More …

Lambs to the Slaughter: An Ontario prisoner on COVID-19 behind bars

Posted on

For the past two weeks, we have heard from dozens of prisoners locked up behind the walls of the Hamilton-Wentworth detention centre. People are feeling scared about catching the virus, concerned for their families, and angry about the myths that are being reported about the conditions that they’re living in.

Some prisoners, despite fear of reprisals from guards, have decided that it’s worth risking their own safety to get their stories out. As one put it, “this is bigger than me”. Read More …

For Autonomous Communication: North Shore Counter-Info at Two Years

Posted on

North Shore Counter-Info launched just over two years ago, at the start of March 2018. Since then, we’ve published 302 texts with the goal of providing a platform for autonomous communication and connecting related struggles across the region. We’ve had a lot of feedback that the project is useful – starting from the repression in Hamilton around the Locke St affair in the project’s first days to the Wet’suwet’en solidarity movement this winter. This text is written by some members of the collective to share a few thoughts about what North Shore has been able to do so far and offer some directions for future growth. Read More …

Kingston: Radio Pandemic — surveillance, rent, and killing time

Posted on

Radio Pandemic is a three-times a week live call in show on CFRC in Kingston that started on March 23 as a space for people to discuss COVID-19 and especially society’s reactions to it. It highlights critical perspectives on what’s going on and tries to broaden the conversation about the virus, while making lots of space for personal reflections and factual information. They are well worth a listen during long days around the house Read More …

Hamilton: Barton Jail Update — Freeing all the prisoners is possible

Posted on

Since last Friday when it was confirmed that a Barton Jail employee tested positive for the coronavirus, we’ve been on the phone daily with inmates asking how the news has played out on the inside. Today, the jail is on lockdown — just the most recent in a string of at least ten lockdowns in the last month. This one, however, is expected to last since it’s caused by guards no longer showing up to work due to the virus. It is expected to last until at least Thursday, though some have been told to expect it to last even longer. Read More …

COVID-19: Preliminary Thoughts on the Current Situation

Posted on

What follows are preliminary thoughts; things are changing quickly and in unpredictable ways, and while we don’t claim to have anything particularly original to say, we feel it’s important to communicate some thoughts and connect some dots from an anti-racist, anti-fascist perspective, as the exercise might be useful, and to start thinking now about how we will move forward from this. Read More …

From Embers: New Episodes in March 2020

Posted on

From Embers is a regular anarchist podcast produced in Kingston, Ontario. We produce a few episodes each month about actions and projects going on in so-called Canada that inspire us, or about topics that we think will be relevant to anarchists living north of the border. We are part of the Channel Zero Anarchist Podcast Network. Read More …

Announcement regarding the 2020 Montreal Anarchist Bookfair

Posted on

We are writing to update you on the 2020 Montreal Anarchist Bookfair. As everyone is more than aware, the global pandemic has resulted in the postponement or cancellation of large gatherings, and many upcoming anarchist bookfairs worldwide (from Europe to Aotearoa and beyond) have been forced to call off their events. Our collective has yet to make a decision. It is clear to us, however, that if we organize a gathering on the weekend of May 16 and 17, it will look significantly different from what the bookfair has been for the past twenty years. Read More …

Hamilton: March 27 Update from the Barton Jail

Posted on

A lot happened in Barton today and the people we talked to were feeling stressed. Late morning today the jail was put on lockdown, we got a quick call from someone just as prisoners were being made to return to their cells. While they were locked up, word came out that a prison employee had tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday, March 25th after being told to go into self isolation on Friday, March 20th. Prisoners were allowed back out of their cells in the afternoon, so seemingly they were just locked up in case people had strong reactions to the news that they could have been exposed to the virus. Read More …

Ask a Different Question: Reclaiming autonomy of action during the virus

Posted on

The situation changes quickly. Along with everyone else, I follow it avidly and share updates, watch our lives change from day to day, get bogged down in uncertainty. It can feel like there is only a single crisis whose facts are objective, allowing only one single path, one that involves separation, enclosure, obedience, control. The state and its appendages become the only ones legitimate to act, and the mainstream media narrative with the mass fear it produces swamps our ability for independent action.

Some anarchists though have pointed out that there are two crises playing out in parallel — one is a pandemic that is spreading rapdily and causing serious harm and even death for thousands. The other is crisis management strategy imposed by the the state. The state claims to be acting in the interest of everyone’s health — it wants us to see its response as objective and inevitable. Read More …