On Sunday 17th March a gourmet menu was served up to around 30 people at BASE social centre in Bristol for the regular sunday evening vegan meal: foraged wild garlic pesto, homemade hummus and coleslaw, thai curry soup, baked potatoes, banana cheesecake with raspberry coulis and raw chocolate. This was followed by a talk about Operation Adream and the case of imprisoned anarchist Toby Shone. An engaged and animated discussion followed about the implications of the broadening of the extremism definition for anarchists in UK and abroad; the failed attempt by Operation Adream to apply terrorist legislation to a suspected administrator of anarchist website and paper publication 325.nostate.net; how to deal with a Schedule 7 border stop; the extra-legal police state powers of the probation service and the various political policing quangos such as the National Security Division; the importance of recognising that we are in the middle of a 4th and 5th Industrial Revolution similar in scale and brutality to the First Industrial Revolution and acting accordingly; and finally a passionate reminder of our strength and power as anarchists with an inspiring and powerful lineage going back hundreds of years. The State attacked 325 (and other anarchists and rioters in UK and around the world) precisely because this is one of those historical moments where our anarchist ideas and praxis can have enormous impact due to the social collapse.
They took down 325 because it is one of the few internationalist
anarchist projects focusing it’s critique on the technological civilisation, the technological singularity and 4IR and 5IR; and because counter-information is a thorn in the side of the system, preventing it from controlling the narrative. The organising collective of the evening would like to thank everyone for such a thoughtful and stimulating discussion, for signing cards to Toby and to BASE for providing the space and support. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. You can keep up to date with news of Toby on brightonabc.org.uk and you can write to him at: Toby Shone A7645EP, HMP Garth, Ulnes Walton Lane, Leyland, PR26 8NE. Please keep writing even if you don’t get a reply.
The prison are under orders to try to isolate Toby from “perceived support” by telling him that he has no mail. Please drop us an email at forestcase@riseup.net letting us know you have written so even if he doesn’t get it, he knows people are still writing.
Our passion for freedom is stronger than their prisons!
Some anarchists
