The Freedom Shop Aotearoa

On Tuesday evening, April 4th, Jake Conroy spoke at Tory St in Wellington. Jake describes himself as 'a scrawny white American vegan who got sentenced to time in a US prison'. About 40 people attended his talk 'From Activist to Terrorist'. He left us with three key messages: Think about prisons and prisoners, the lives people are forced to live there - the spaces they are forced to inhabit. One simple thing to do is write letters to people inside.  Don't be scared of the threat of state repression. Do fight-back. Figure out what you can do and find like-minded people and strategise how to bring about liberation. At the Freedom Shop we have a range of books written by people inside or those involved in prison abolition and penal politics, including: Abolitionist Demands: Toward the End of Prisons in Aotearoa by No Pride in Prison Outrage: An Anarchist Memoir of a Penal Colony  by Clément Duval Hauling Up the Morning: Writings and Art by political prisoners and pri

On Tuesday evening, April 4th, Jake Conroy spoke at Tory St in Wellington. Jake describes himself as 'a scrawny white American vegan who got sentenced to time in a US prison'. About 40 people attended his talk 'From Activist to Terrorist'. He left us with three key messages: Think about prisons and prisoners, the lives people are forced to live there - the spaces they are forced to inhabit. One simple thing to do is write letters to people inside.  Don't be scared of the threat of state repression. Do fight-back. Figure out what you can do and find like-minded people and strategise how to bring about liberation. At the Freedom Shop we have a range of books written by people inside or those involved in prison abolition and penal politics, including: Abolitionist Demands: Toward the End of Prisons in Aotearoa by No Pride in Prison Outrage: An Anarchist Memoir of a Penal Colony  by Clément Duval Hauling Up the Morning: Writings and Art by political prisoners and pri

Come along on Tuesday 4 April at 7pm at 17 Tory St and have a chance to talk with Jake Conroy, one of the SHAC 7 (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA). Jake will talk about his experience of state repression and the US prison system. Jake was one of the members of SHAC imprisoned for several years after campaigning to shut down Huntingdon Life Sciences. Their campaign didn’t involve bombs or arson, rather they campaigned to break the financial ties that Huntingdon had with other corporations. They also ran a website on which they posted news about the campaign — legal actions like protests and illegal actions like stealing animals from labs. They were imprisoned for  'reporting on and encouraging others to engage in legal  demonstrations and supporting the ideology of direct action'. For more info about the SHAC7: SHAC7  &  Sometimes We Had a Brick

Come along on Tuesday 4 April at 7pm at 17 Tory St and have a chance to talk with Jake Conroy, one of the SHAC 7 (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA). Jake will talk about his experience of state repression and the US prison system. Jake was one of the members of SHAC imprisoned for several years after campaigning to shut down Huntingdon Life Sciences. Their campaign didn’t involve bombs or arson, rather they campaigned to break the financial ties that Huntingdon had with other corporations. They also ran a website on which they posted news about the campaign — legal actions like protests and illegal actions like stealing animals from labs. They were imprisoned for  'reporting on and encouraging others to engage in legal  demonstrations and supporting the ideology of direct action'. For more info about the SHAC7: SHAC7  &  Sometimes We Had a Brick

aargh   issue 7 is now online and can be downloaded  here When we picked the theme What is anarchism and how do we get there we thought this would be a positive, uplifting collection of articles. We should have known better. A look at the world around us should have been enough: millions fleeing from war and terror, and more terror being inflicted on those who thought that they had escaped, children being tortured in the hell hole of Nauru as part of a policy of deterrence, homelessness and poverty becoming rampant even in a relatively rich country like NZ. So what are we supposed to think of a world where you get into trouble for eating food instead of throwing it away? What do you do if the act of dreaming seems to be too concrete, but you don’t want to give up hope? How do you escape the daily urge to waste your energy fighting against yet another neo-liberal austerity measure?  A common thread of angst, frustration and anger runs through  this edition of aargh!, but there is also