Amadeu Casellas is an anarchist prisoner who has spent 22 years in prison for bank robberies. He has been active within the struggle against the Spanish prison system. Though he should be eligible for release, he remains locked up. To protest this, he launched a hunger strike over the summer, fasting for 76 days, until the prison authorities promised to grant him a series of furloughs and then place him in the third degree (open prison, in which a prisoner can leave during the day and a certain number of nights). People across Europe and in other countries organized protests, held talks, distributed information, and attacked state targets in solidarity with Amadeu.

The Situation of Amadeu Casellas Two Months after his Hunger Strike

Amadeu Casellas is an anarchist prisoner who has spent 22 years in prison for bank robberies. He has been active within the struggle against the Spanish prison system. Though he should be eligible for release, he remains locked up. To protest this, he launched a hunger strike over the summer, fasting for 76 days, until the prison authorities promised to grant him a series of furloughs and then place him in the third degree (open prison, in which a prisoner can leave during the day and a certain number of nights). People across Europe and in other countries organized protests, held talks, distributed information, and attacked state targets in solidarity with Amadeu.

Currently Amadeu is still recovering physically from his 76-day hunger strike which he carried out this summer. He is still waiting for the authorities to honor the promises they made to get him to stop his hunger strike.

On the medical level he has extreme pain in his extremities, owing, it seems, to nerve exposure that occurred in the last phase of the hunger strike. This makes it so that simply the touch of the bedsheets causes discomfort. We are certain that his recovery is slowed due to the prison medical services, which through incompetence or intention have not given him the treatment he needs. Since he arrived at Brians 2 [the prison in Catalunya where he was transferred after he left the prison hospital], Amadeu has been requesting a special diet, given the meagerness of the food, and he is still awaiting it. On the 31st of October he was visited by a doctor from outside the prison—not the trusted doctor whom we have been demanding since July—and he cut him off all the medications he was taking, by prescription from the prison doctor, and substituted better ones, since the others were actually causing him harm. The doctor also prescribed vitamin supplements and amino acids, which they had not been giving him. He also performed a blood analysis—the first one in two months. This visit comes after Amadeu submitted various requests to the director of Brians 2 in which he explained his difficulties in the recovery. On the other hand, the multiple petitions to allow the visit of a trusted doctor are still falling on deaf ears. The director of Brians 2, as well as the secretary of the DGSP Albert Batlle and the representative of the Syndicate of Greuges all know about the situation but they are avoiding it shamelessly.

On the legal level, recall that there were two ways open for Amadeu to win his liberty. One was the petition for release, which was rejected by the Provincial Court of Barcelona on 27 October. The other was the attainment of benefits within the prison system, which was agreed on in September, causing the end of the hunger strike. On the 15th of November, supposedly, they will give Amadeu a an individualized program which will include furloughs during the next 6 months, to complete the period of attaining 100.2 (third degree imprisonment). Thus, we'll soon know if it was all a scam or if they really will let Amadeu leave the prison on permitted furloughs, which is what they promised.

On the political level the attacks by the institution have not ceased. First were the three comrades whom they prohibited to communicate with Amadeu without any explanation. Then Franki (a comrade from Terrassa in the third degree) was threatened and punished for showing solidarity with Amadeu. And finally, from the hospital in Terrassa (where Amadeu was for the majority of the hunger strike) they attacked his lawyers with false accusations, trying to punish them. Who will be next?

Whether or not they complete their promises so we can see Amadeu in the streets again, the attitude of the prison institution is reprehensible. We are staying alert. They won't silence us, and their repression will create more solidarity, until all of us are free.

DEATH TO THE STATE. LIBERTY AND ANARCHY!

Supresión, Coordinación Anticarcelaria of Catalunya

Barcelona, 7 November 2008

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