Synopsis Eric was found not guilty at trial but within a week, was put on the road and is being sent to a notorious and dangerous prison (USP Lee). We need your help to call attention to this situation and to shine light on the Bureau of Prisons so history does not repeat itself and Eric is put put in harm’s way by the BOP (Eric was marched into the chow hall to fight a nazi enforcer at USP McCreary by BOP staff).
We have to do everything we can to protect Eric and call attention to the hazardous situation they are putting him in by sending him to USP Lee. The Bop can and should send him to a low security prison as he is 18 months from release.
Eric King has been moved and held at Grady County Jail in Oklahoma. He has been told he will be sent to USP Lee, a maximum security prison where he has already been threatened by white supremacists.
Eric was found not guilty at trial but within a week, was put on the road and is being sent to a notorious and dangerous prison. We need your help to call attention to this situation and to shine light on the Bureau of Prisons so history does not repeat itself and Eric is put in harm’s way by the BOP (Eric was marched into the chow hall to fight a nazi enforcer at USP McCreary by BOP staff). Hear Eric talk about what he needs at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt0m8Hj1W0U
We have to do everything we can to protect Eric and call attention to the hazardous situation they are putting him in by sending him to USP Lee.
Within days of winning a federal court case in Colorado against his treatment at the hands of the Federal Bureau of Prisons staff, Eric is in the process of being transferred to USP Lee, a high security prison across the country in Virginia. Eric, who should be placed at a medium security facility, reasonably fears that this move is punitive and that at USP Lee he will lose access to reading materials and, more importantly, his ability to communicate with his loved ones.
Elements in the BOP have already shown their petty and desire for vengeance against Eric through multiple instances of him being moved across the country, pitted against racist prisoners, beaten by guards and suffering years of mail, phone, visitation and book bans. During the trial, Eric’s safety and health were disrupted and property for his case destroyed by BOP staff so blatantly that Judge Martinez noted that it would be far reaching to say the disruptiveness wasn’t intentional on the part of the BOP. The judge also noted that the BOP was setting itself up for a civil suit, which is currently underway by the CLDC.
In the meantime, Eric needs our help. As Eric isn’t set for release until December of 2023, we need to keep the light on him to avoid EK being isolated and further harmed. Below you’ll find a script and contact information for public officials in the Federal system who must be pressed to check in Eic’s well being and demand to know:
Why is Eric King, who is at a medium level according to the BOP, being moved to a high security facility across the country?;
Why is this move coming so quickly after Eric successfully won a lawsuit showing that the BOP was closing ranks to set Eric up for 20 years of additional prison as he approaches his out time?;
What will you, as a public official, do to challenge the impunity of the federal prisons to persecute prisoners and violate their human rights?;
The Certain Days collective will be releasing our 22nd calendar this coming autumn. In lieu of a 2023 theme, we are doing an open call for abolition-related art and article submissions to feature in the calendar, which hangs in more than 6,000 homes, workplaces, prison cells, and community spaces around the world. We encourage contributors to submit both new and existing work. We especially seek submissions from people in prison or jail, so please forward this call to any prison-based artists and writers.
Why no theme?, you ask. Since 2008, the Certain Days collective has developed a theme for each year’s calendar. During our “off season” this year, the collective has been weighing the decision of whether to continue this project or wrap it up. After much deliberation, we are going full-steam ahead with a 2023 calendar and decided to do an open call for submissions. While “transition” may be a great theme for us, at this moment, we leave it to you, trusted artists and authors, to submit what you think would be a great fit for our 22nd calendar! Download as PDF
Deadline: Friday, June 14, 2022
FORMAT GUIDELINES
ARTICLES
ART
• 400-500 words max. If you submit a longer piece, we will have to edit for length.• Poetry is also welcome but needs to be significantly shorter than 400 words to accommodate layout. • Please include a suggested title.
• The calendar is 11” tall by 8.5” wide, so art with a ‘portrait’ orientation is preferred. Art need not fit those dimensions exactly. • We are interested in a diversity of media.• The calendar is printed in colour and we prefer colour images.
Due to space limitations, submissions may be lightly edited for clarity and concision, with no change to the original intent.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
1. Send your submissions by June 14, 2022, to [email protected]2. ARTISTS: You can send a low-res file as a submission, but if your piece is chosen, we will need a high-res version of it for print (600 dpi). 3. You may send as many submissions as you like. Chosen artists and authors will receive a free copy of the calendar and promotional postcards. Because the calendar is a fundraiser, we cannot offer money to contributors. Prisoner submissions are due July 1, 2022, and can be mailed to: Certain Days, c/o Burning Books, 420 Connecticut Street, Buffalo, NY 14213.Download the call as a PDF.
ABOUT THE CALENDAR
The Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar is a joint fundraising and educational project between outside organizers in Montreal, New York, and Baltimore, and current and former political prisoners, including currently imprisoned Xinachtli (s/n Alvaro Luna Hernandez) in Texas. We were happy to welcome founding members Herman Bell and Robert Seth Hayes (Rest in Power) home from prison in 2018, and David Gilbert in 2021, each of whom spent over forty years behind bars. All of the current members of the outside collective are grounded in day-to-day organizing work other than the calendar, on issues ranging from legal aid to community media, radical education to prisoner solidarity. We work from an anti-imperialist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, feminist, queer- and trans-liberationist position. All proceeds from the calendar go to abolitionist organizations working for a better world.
NYC ABC has finished the latest version of the “Illustrated Guide to Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War” and it’s available for viewing (and download) at https://nycabc.wordpress.com/2022/03/30/guide_15_2/
This update includes updated mini-bios, photos, and address changes for several prisoners. We are thankful to remove Doug Wright (time served). Welcome home, comrade!
On March 18, 2022, political prisoner Eric King was acquitted by a federal jury of twelve people in the U.S. District Court in Colorado. Eric was charged with assaulting a federal officer, a federal felony with a potential 20-year sentence, after he defended himself from an attack by a Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Lieutenant in a storage closet. After Eric was punched repeatedly in the face, he was subjected to retaliatory physical punishment including the use of four-point restraints (in which he was shackled by his wrists and ankles in a spread-eagle position to a concrete bed for more than six hours), “diesel therapy,” additional physical attacks, and nearly continuous solitary confinement in the Special Housing Unit (SHU) for the last 3 and a half years, all at the hands of the BOP. CLDC is currently suing the BOP on Eric’s behalf because of these appalling acts of abuse. As such, this win is incredibly momentous for Eric, his family, his community, and our movement, and we hope you join us in celebrating this hard-fought victory.
Eric’s acquittal is especially significant in the face of the horrific odds most federal criminal defendants face, and the intense pressure and blatant aggression directed from the BOP against Eric, before and during his trial. Less than 1% ofall federal criminal defendants are acquitted at trial.[1] The criminal punishment system is always stacked against defendants, especially political prisoners like Eric.
Before Eric’s trial started, the judge ruled that all evidence related to Eric’s torture at the hands of BOP had to be withheld from the jury, including the illegal use of four-point restraints. This meant that the jury never got to hear that Eric was subjected to violent retaliation by the BOP, or that Eric was suing the BOP—even though this evidence would have shown that the BOP and its employees were engaged in a cover-up, were biased against Eric, and had a motive to lie and justify their torture during the trial.
The jury also didn’t get to hear that on nearly every day of Eric’s trial, the BOP attempted to disrupt Eric’s emotional well-being and his ability to defend himself in court. After the first day of Eric’s trial, he was informed he would be moved to a “suicide cell,” for unspecified “security reasons.” Eric was told the new unit would be for suicide monitoring, with continuous lights on and camera monitoring while Eric was inside his cell, despite the fact that Eric was not suicidal, and needed to sleep and prepare for his trial. Even though Eric was ultimately never moved, his property, including his legal paperwork, was removed from his cell after he left for court and twice inventoried by the BOP. That same inventory paperwork was later destroyed when, according to BOP, a bird flew into Mr. King’s cell, a guard chased the bird into the cell, and somehow upended a cup full of coffee onto Mr. King’s papers. According to BOP, during this same time period, toilet paper ended up in Eric’s sink (also blamed on the bird) which caused Mr. King’s cell to flood while he was in court for his trial, damaging his books, personal photographs, and legal paperwork.
Many of the witnesses called by the government had previously physically attacked or injured Eric during his incarceration, and Eric had to calmly face them all for hours. Even though all criminal defendants have a constitutional right to testify on their own behalf it can be risky and terrifying. As such, many defendants make the strategic choice to invoke their constitutional right to remain silent during a trial. Eric decided to testify on his own behalf, facing dogged cross-examination by the government’s lawyer and despite BOP’s actions during the trial. Not only did Eric testify about what Lt. Wilcox did to him in the storage room, but also about the violent realities of prison life:
So being in prison sucks. Prison is not like normal life. Prison is dark. And there’s good things you can do in prison, but you have to seek out those things. You have to find those things. For the most part, prison is built around violence. It’s built around who can have the most power, who can take the most power, who can inflict most damage.
In the face of hours of frustrating and opaque testimony by BOP employees, Eric’s direct and truthful testimony was a breath of fresh air—he was clearly the most important witness in the case and he rose to the occasion.
During almost the entire trial, including during Eric’s testimony, a BOP lawyer sat in the gallery, within Eric’s eyeshot and directly behind where some of the jurors sat. Spectators in the gallery heard the lawyer scoff or talk during trial testimony, possibly within earshot of the jurors. At one point, Eric’s current SHU Lieutenant, a BOP officer, also sat with that attorney.
CLDC attorneys put BOP’s behavior on the record, while government attorneys tried to say everything that happened was just a mere coincidence—just like getting taken to a storage closet for an “interview.” At one point, Judge Martínez stated in response, “I am just amazed — I have never had anything like this happen in one case in 11-plus years of being on the bench. At some point, the explanation that it was an accident becomes too far removed from reality.”
BOP’s behavior was clearly intended to throw a wrench in Eric’s defense, and another attempt to silence Eric, but they failed. Thanks to Eric’s courage and CLDC’s advocacy, Eric was able to boldly tell his story to the jury, even in the face of this persistent repression. Best of all, despite the limited picture painted for the jury, they were still able to clearly and unanimously see that Eric was not guilty. CLDC is still investigating the BOP’s egregious behavior during the trial to add additional claims to Eric’s civil suit against the BOP.
CLDC is honored to have worked with Eric to win his criminal case. With your help, we will continue to hold the BOP accountable, until there is no such place as prison. Please consider supporting our work with a sustaining donation.
In the past ten years, we’ve also seen state repression of movements coming out of Occupy Wall Street, the Ferguson uprising, Standing Rock, Line 3 and various anti-Trump movements. Green and Red has had numerous episodes on radical movements and state repression of political movements from antifascists in Portland and Austin to water protectors at Line 3 to DAPL saboteur Jessica Reznicek.
But, before that, we had the era known as the “Green Scare,” where radical environmental and animal rights activists were targeted by the “state” (corporations, politicians, law enforcement) for its anti-capitalist politics and escalating tactics that included sabotage, animal liberation, property destruction and arson. The FBI called their operation to stop these radical movements “Operation Backfire.” After 911, they labeled people taking action “domestic terrorists.” Congress passed corporate lobbyist written legislation, such as the Animal Enterprise Terror Act and the Patriot Act, to stop them.
In our latest episode, we talk with Daniel McGowan (@thetinyraccoon), an anarchist organizer, Earth Liberation Front (ELF) member and partisan during the Green Scare era. He was part of two ELF actions in 2001. After another ELF member turned informant, he was arrested by the FBI and charged with arson, property destruction and conspiracy. In June, 2007, McGowan was sentenced to seven years in federal prison and given a “terror enhancement” for his actions. Most of his time in prison was spent in a secret prison unit called a Communication Management Unit.
Daniel tells us about his journey as a radical environmentalist, actions with the ELF, time in federal prison and, now, supporter of political prisoners.
Daniel McGowan is a former political prisoner and former member of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). He spent 48 months in experimental Communication Management Units operated by the federal Bureau of Prisons during his seven year sentence. Daniel has been involved with political prisoner support and prison struggles for most of his activist life. He is currently a member of the Certain Days collective, NYC Books Through Bars and the Anarchist Black Cross Federation (ABCF). Daniel works on the campaign to defend and free anarchist political prisoner Eric King and is an advisory board member of the Civil Liberties Defense Center (CLDC) & the Coalition for Civil Freedoms. Daniel is a lifelong New Yorker and grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens, NYC. He works professionally as a paralegal and consults with people preparing to go to prison and their family & friends in setting up defense committees.
We women are standing up during Women’s History Month for Kamau Sadiki. We invite our whole community to join us for a letter-writing workshop. Sometimes it can be difficult to find the right words. Join us to gain some guidance on writing to captured Freedom Fighters like Kamau Sadiki. Together we will be in and build community as we learn about Kamau Sadiki, the efforts to bring him home, and the fight for all US Held Political Prisoners.
NYC ABC, along with several other individuals and prisoner support crews, now send hard copies to all political prisoners and prisoners of war we support.
If you consistently mail the latest updates to a specific prisoner, please let us know so we can insure there’s no overlap. The goal is to have copies sent to all of the prisoners we list.
We’ve also been told that some prisoners are not receiving the copies sent in, yet we aren’t getting rejection notices. If you are in steady contact with a prisoner, please ask them whether or not they are receiving the updates and let us know.
Join CLDC on Thursday, March 24th at 6:00pm EST to learn about supporting movement participants through incarceration, release, and transition back home from people who have lived it. Former political prisoners will share their experiences of support as well as how they continue to support people held behind the walls.
Panelists will include Daniel McGowan, Michael “Rattler” Markus, Linda Evans, Ray Luc Levasseur and Luke O’Donovan.
