Forced to consent to completely draconian bail conditions or be placed in solitary confinement...

hmmm...i don't think that resistance post g20 occupation in toronto is ready to come of age. yes, i know this sounds inflammatory but that's how i feel. given the groundswell of interest and support he clearly has, he could have decided not to sign the bail conditions. he could have gone into solitary and riveted the attention of many to the causes he espouses. he could have become a defiant firebrand motivating many to once more take the streets. instead he signed the bail papers and walked back into house arrest...silenced. he went home to his family. which leads me to point out the obvious - there are people for whom going home is not a respite. going home is also a place of oppression where there is no safety from the state. there are people who do not have the privilege to just call uncle for a second. whether they sign the papers or not it's a life as watched, followed, criminalized. there are people who cannot rely on privilege when the going gets too rough. they go to jail not because they refuse to sign a document. nah. they go to jail because that's where the power structure, the state, the law has decided they belong. resistance is inevitable and unavoidable. resistance for them means having to draw their line in the sand saying NO multiple times a day just so they can survive and walk with head held high. i think that as a Black woman who has, to a certain extent, middle class/ed, who is very well educated, who is married and (read as) heterosexual but who does not experience the kinds of intimate male domination many wimmin do, i know that those people are not me. i know i cannot stand in the vanguard and say that life is as dangerous for me as for people who do not have various kinds of privilege combined to shield them. i always wonder about white activists, about white middle class activists, about white middle class male educated (read as) heterosexual activists and whether they think about their own privilege, more specifically about the privilege to just go home. i think the activists who are being fingered are all and have all been doing right work and pushing the limits of the state. nonetheless, i think they can take an example from the movements they track and follow and emulate all over the world, movements where strategic people have been targeted and jailed for their actions and beliefs. i think that these white and/or male and/or middle class and/or educated and/or (read as) heterosexual activists can take the fall. they can refuse to take the trap door/exit privilege offers. they can refuse to crawl through any systemically built cat doors/escape hatches allowing them safe passage away from evil uniformed things that go bump in the solitary night. don't get me wrong, i already respect their work and their courage and skills. i'm just saying, they could go there. they could make that choice. this man could make that choice. he could think about the massive amount of privilege he has and about how this has shaped and smoothed his relationships inside different communities of resistance. he could think about what it means to be seen as ally by different groups of people who do not have the privilege he does. he could decide to sit inside the crucible alongside the individuals, whole families with children, whole communities who have no choice, who have no say. he could refuse to sign or reneg because his signature was coerced anyways. he could bite the bullet rather than draw back. then maybe we'd all come out to "play" again, this time for good.

Alex Hundert “released” on bail

Thrown in solitary confinement and coerced into accepting outrageous bail conditions

Thursday October 15, Toronto, Mississauga New Credit - Less than 24 hours after refusing to sign outrageous bail conditions which included not expressing political views in public and non-associations intended to further isolate him, Alex Hundert was forced to consent to his release.

On the night of Wednesday October 14th, Alex was told by the security manager at the Toronto East Detention Centre that he had to sign the bail conditions or face solitary confinement in “the hole”, without access to phone calls or writing paper. He was put in solitary confinement after an initial confrontation with correction staff where he resisted initial attempts to make him sign. He was denied the right to call his lawyer, and told that if he didn’t sign now, they would revoke the bail offer and he would be held in solitary confinement until his eventual release from prison.

Coerced into signing these conditions, Alex was thrown out of Toronto East and left to find his own way home to his sureties’ house. The prison authorities forced him into a position where he could potentially be accused of further breaching his bail. Alex is now back on house arrest with an enforced curfew, with non-associations with co-accused and members of SOAR, AWOL, NOII and other community organizers. He also has the additionally imposed restrictions of no direct or indirect posting to the internet, no assisting, planning, or attending any public meeting or march, and no expressing of views on a political issue.

Over the past week, Alex has experienced a particularly malicious targeting. Last week, the criminal injustice system made the ludicrous finding that Alex had breached his previous ‘no-demonstration’ bail condition by speaking on a panel because he was supposedly engaging in the same kind of “behaviour that he exhibited in meetings leading up to the G20.” Then, he was forced to take a stand to go back to jail by refusing to sign fundamentally unjust and repressive bail conditions. And now, his right to refuse to accept such a blatant violation of his freedom to express political views and his freedom to associate has been further attacked through coercive and punitive attempts to force his own release.

In a previously published media statement, Alex has stated “They are targeting me because I am part of communities that are effectively organizing across movements. Whether it is the criminalization of anarchists and community organizers like me, or the daily demonization of Indigenous peoples, poor people and migrant communities, we have to show them that our resolve and our solidarity can be stronger than their intimidation and repression.”

Alex’s family, friends and allies are outraged and upset by the harassment and coercion Alex faced after refusing to set a dangerous precedent for our broader movements by choosing not to consent to egregious bail conditions. Outrage has been building across the country as the implications of politically-motivated G20 conspiracy charges become clear. The Crown, the prison, the police and the corporate and colonial interests they represent are clearly afraid of what we think and say, not only what we do.

Rallies in Kitchener-Waterloo, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Toronto on Tuesday echoed with chants of “this is what a demonstration looks like”. We continue to strengthen our resolve, and will fight these trumped-up charges until the end. One hundred conspiracy charges were dropped today against Montreal organizers arrested at gunpoint during a morning raid at the University of Toronto on June 27th. We cannot be silenced or intimidated, our resistance will only increase as we keep organizing for liberation for all people, especially those who daily bear the brunt of police, state, and corporate oppression.

Please stay posted for further updates.

For more information contact Jonah Hundert at jonah.hundert@gmail.com.

For the press release from last week, please read http://www.facebook.com/l/87f6dewEnK9K1oyar-rkys9buhA;g20.torontomobilize.org/node/549 and for further background information on Alex’s arrest and the numerous attempts by the police and Crown to throw him back in jail, read this press release: http://www.facebook.com/l/87f6duTbddITpEPyoNten_WJr4g;g20.torontomobilize.org/node/504

For ongoing G20 defence and fundraising visit: http://www.facebook.com/l/87f6d5owdWZ3kKD8ebgHFjw_zCw;g20.torontomobilize.org/

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