Amadeu Casellas is Free!!!

iberia | crime prison and punishment | other libertarian press Thursday March 11, 2010 01:58 by no

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.

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.

Casellas spent 24 years in prison for bank robberies to support workers' struggles in the 1970s, during periods of strong struggle against the state during the stage-managed transition from dictatorship to democracy. In the 1980s he took part in the strong prisoners' resistance movement.

He conducted two extremely long hunger strikes for his release, in 2008 and 2009, and received a great deal of solidarity from the outside. He has vocally protested torture and repression inside the Catalan prisons, and stood in solidarity with all prisoners.

Although the state pretends to find a legal basis for his release, we are sure that without the solidarity actions he would have been left to rot in prison indefinitely.

Over the past several years, Casellas has received solidarity from all over the Spanish state, and from other countries as well. Anarchists have written letters, raised money, visited, stayed in contact with his family, protested outside embassies and Spanish government buildings, made thousands of protestors and graffiti on all the walls calling for his release, sabotaged train lines, attacked police vehicles, smashed or set fire to banks and cash machines, held info events, put up stickers, blocked roads, sent letters of protest to prison officials, and worked within legal channels. Though there were conflicts between different support groups, they kept their sights on liberty for Amadeu and avoided unnecessary infighting, despite strong differences in politics and strategy.

Meanwhile, the anarchists have not watered down their goals but continue to vocally advocate freedom for all prisoners and the destruction of all prisons. Although legal arguments were used for part of the support campaign, that Amadeu has been imprisoned longer than he should be according to their own laws, the fundamental message is that no one should be in prison and that we want him out here with us. There were never any arguments that Amadeu was innocent, or that prison in any form is legitimate.

In the past year, anarchists have won freedom for the two main Catalan prisoners they have supported, Amadeu Casellas and Ramon Garces. They continue to support all prisoners and not make distinctions for "political prisoners" but after major failures in the prisoner solidarity movement earlier in the decade they have focused on supporting prisoners who are active within the prisons and can lead their own struggles.

Freedom for all prisoners! Down with all walls!
Llibertat per Amadeu! Llibertat per a tots i totes!!