Anarchist Black Cross

In evening of 14th of April officers of Center of Counteraction Against Extremism (“Center E”) in Tyumen region searched house and arrested for 48 hours local anarchist and member of Autonomous Action Andrey Kutuzov. According to friends of Andrey, pretext of the arrest was a leaflet, which Center E officers considered “extremist”. Friends of Andrey say that leaflet was planted during the search. Andrey Kutuzov and Rustam Fahretdninov were arrested in January of 2009 for “political vandalism”, eventually criminal case against them was closed due to “lack of proof”. This history resulted a criminal case against officers of “Center E”, who back then beat up one of the arrested. 
 

Recently we learned, that imprisoned anti-fascist Andrey Mergenyov was paroled. He was in prison since june 2007 after a fight with a Nazi in Saratov. Our congratulations for Andrey, but remember that there are still other prisoners in need of our support. 

For the occasion, please also change address of Aleksey Bychin, doing 5 years for a fight with Nazi who is also a police officer, in your prisoner lists as he has been moved to another subsection in the prison colony - letters sent to previous address will reach him as well, but with a substantial delay:

New full-length CD by Canadian metal / punk band ISKRA www.myspace.com/diskra - you can listen to songs from the album online) has been released on March 17. The CD is called "Bureval" and includes a full-colour digipack with 28-page booklet. About half of the ten songs on the album deal with history of anarchism and resistance in Russia, so this release (by Bloodspit, Drink & Be Merry, Headnoise, Mad Fly and Total Punk) is a benefit for the St.Petersburg Anarchist Black Cross group ( piter.indymedia.org/a4k ), which organises support for political (anarchist and antifascist) prisoners in Russia.  

Andrei Mergenyov is imprisoned in Saratov after a fight with a Nazi in June 2007. Recently we received a following letter from him, and we translated it just to remind you about one of the less known Russian anti-fascist prisoners.

Address of Andrey (note that this is a new address!): 

Andrey Mergenyov

Saratovskaya oblast G. Engels,

FBU IK-13

3 otryad 413116

You may also write address in cyrillic: 
Мергеневу А.К.

Short film Actions vs. repressions gives a voice to Russian anti-authoritarian activists from Autonomous Action of St. Petersburg and Ufa, Anarchist Black Cross of Moscow and St. Petersburg and Vsevolod Ostapov, who got brutalised by Police in April of 2007 and whose case became a rallying cry for a significiant campaign against police brutality in Moscow during last two years.

Catalan anarchist prisoner Amadeu Casellas Ramon was released from prison at midday on Tuesday, 9 March!!!

The director of the penitentiary center at Girona (Catalunya, Spanish State) finally considered all the complaints and petitions submitted by Casellas' lawyers and concluded that Casellas had been imprisoned for 8 years too long, and ordered his immediate release.

Currently there is a fabricated case against 3 antifascists going on Izhevsk, we raised funds for this in autumn: http://www.avtonom.org/old/index.php?nid=2530

During court proceedings, defence presented as a proof a phone conversation which took place 3rd of March between one of the accused anti-fascists (Mark Kolbin) and one of the alleged Nazi victims (Andrey Agafonov).

A British soldier who refused to return to duty in Afghanistan and went on to speak at anti-war rallies was sentenced to nine months' detention in a military prison on 5th of March. Support group in London is going to appeal, but it's not known whether that can change the situation. Though, people from all over the world already could show, how much solidarity can be effective, organised on 4th and 5th of March actions in support of Joe  in UK, Italy, USA, Germany, Greece, Russia and earlier, in January, also in New Zealand and Poland. Thanks to those people, charge of desertion was dropped and instead of 10 years detention in prison Joe was sentenced to 9 months.

In the modern world every single life is considered to be the highest value but wars are not on the decrease, people keep on dying and staying crippled, keep on running away from the places they were born because their homeland has turned to ruins. And those, who try to protest against war have arraignment, followed by prison sentence. We going to take issue with that! We support all soldiers-antimilitarists, who refuse to take part in military action!
Today, 4th of March, near the British Embassy was organised a picket in support of lance corporal Joe Glenton, one of those, who could say, what millions of people all over the world want to say. All those people want the same thing - to stop senseless wars and murders.

It is an open secret that the newly created centers for counteraction of extremism in Russia often become the tool of repression and work against civil liberties and initiatives. Doing their work the "fighters against extremism" don't despise to break the law brutally. In Petrozavodsk 3 young people became the victims of the police outrage. They were being pressed and tortured and now the case is being fabricated.

On 5 March UK refusenik Joe Glenton faces court martial and possibly two years in jail for going AWOL (absent without leave). According to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), soldiers have gone on the run from their posts on more than 17,000 occasions since 2003.

WHY PICK ON JOE GLENTON? Because Joe has spoken publicly about his refusal to take part in the war and occupation of Afghanistan.   The steady drumbeat of attacks on civilians continues:  On 21 February, 33 civilians including women and children were killed in Uruzgan province in a NATO airstrike on a convoy of vehicles. When will the killing end?

A British soldier who refused to return to duty in Afghanistan and subsequently spoke at anti-war rallies today admitted going absent without leave after a more serious charge of desertion was dropped.

During a brief military court hearing, Lance Corporal Joe Glenton admitted going awol between June 2007 and June 2009.

On 6th January 2010 the police arrested 23 people in Ankara (Turkey) by using brutal force. The arrests occurred during a demonstration and press conference for the immediate release of the imprisoned milit

German-Ukrainian blogger Alexander "shiitman" Volodarsky

15th of December of 2009 regional court of Primorsky overturned sentence of anarchist anti-fascist Yuri Mishutkin, who was 12th of October given a one-year probational sentence according to statute 108 part 1 of the Russian criminal codex (manslaughter due to exceeding necessary limits of self-defence).

In Izhevsk, officers of Centre of Counteraction Against Extremism (CPE, new Russian political police, formed in January of 2009) are falsifying a case against members of Autonomous Action. According to Galina Shutova, who is yet a witness in the case, state wants to make her a terrorist: “Officer of CPE Artyom Ahmetzyanov said to me directly, that he wants to do anything to lock me down”.

12th of October sentencing of Yura M., anarchist who killed a local Nazi in self-defence 22nd of November 2008. This was third time Yura got attacked by Nazis, he was jumped in April of 2006 15 to 5 and was hospitalized with a brain damage. He also suffered seriously in attack against Ecological protest camp in Angarsk 21st of July 2007, after attack he spent days in coma, two months in hospital and it took a whole year for him to recover. His friend Ilya Borodaenko was not that lucky, and he died as a result of the attack.