Avalanche - The Anarchist correspondence zine Avalanche - The Anarchist correspondence zine 6 | Page 21

to politically grow. In what would we differ from those
who defend and reinforce the current system? In our
acts and their coherence.
Having said this, if, as anarchists, we consider impracticable any alliance or common project with groups or
persons linked to the institutions, we think in the same
way that it is impossible to create links with those who,
confronting repression, chose for strategies that we absolutely do not share, and that not in any way we would
wish to back up. In a period marked by repression, arrests and prison, our convictions and their coherence
are at stake and are unavoidably under tension, but not
everything goes to avoid getting into prison, not even to
get out of it. We believe that certain options destroy our
dignity and definitively bury what we are and the ideas
we defend. Asking for pardon is one of these options
we reject. [1]
As anarchist prisoners, we affirm that we do not participate and will not participate in anti-repression mobilisations or manifestations together with those who decide
to follow the strategy of pardon (partial or not). We do
not want to be on their sides because of the insurmountable divergence we mentioned, we do not want to be
accomplices by omission of a strategy that represents
for us a determining point of inflexion. And if in the end
the consequences of our convictions lead to our bodies being imprisoned for more years, we will go forward
with our heads high and with dignity.
We do not want the pardon of the state, we only
desire its destruction.

Note
[1] Eight of the nineteen persons accused for “illicit association against the institutions” following the blockade of Catalan
Parliament in Juni 2011 by the movement of the Indignados,
have been convicted to 3 years of imprisonment. While the
Audiencia Nacional acquitted them in July 2014, the Supreme
Court cancelled this verdict in March 2015 after an appeal
from the prosecutor, pronouncing a punishment of three years
imprisonment against eight amongst the accused. This punishment would go in effect starting from May. The convicted persons have immediately asked for partial pardon to the Ministry
of Justice. On the 18th of June 2015, the Audiencia Nacional
suspended their entry in prison awaiting the examination of
this demand for pardon.
But one must not believe that such a dangerous precedent
as asking for pardon to the state [indulto] as to avoid prison or to get a lower sentence has only been done by the Indignados. Last year, the anarchist Tamara Hernández Heras,
convicted to eight years of imprisonment in September 2011
for “attempted homicide” against a former responsible of the
prison administration of Catalonia, after a the sending of an
explosive parcel (deactivated before explosion) to his professional address in October 2009, has asked for (suspensive)
pardon after her conviction. Four months after her entry into
prison, her demand for pardon was accepted. The Council of
Ministers justified this decision by stating that between the
moment of the attack (2009) and today (2014), she proved
“her good integration in society” and that she nowadays lives a
“totally normal personal, family and work life”, that she’s “no
longer part of the Cruz Negra Anarquista” and that she hasn’t
had any prior convictions. And another necessary condition
to obtain the pardon of the King was that the “victim”, Albert
Batlle Bastardas, the torturer former responsible of the prison administration, didn’t oppose to it... (-Note from Brèves du
Désordre)

Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar
(Prison of Villabona)

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