Rebel Girl: March 21, 2018: Hundreds of thousands of high school students defy adult authority and walkout against mass shootings, anti-pipeline camps hold strong from Virginia to West Virginia to so-called British Columbia, Brazil erupts after an anti-police brutality politician is assassinated while the annual march against police brutality in Montreal beats cops back, Russian anarchists explain why it’s not just Putin that’s the problem, or Trump for that matter, but the systems of power they inhabit, plus a repression round up and calls for exciting upcoming anarchist bookfairs and speaking tours on this episode of…   The Hotwire.   A weekly anarchist news show brought to you by The Ex-Worker.   With me, the Rebel Girl.   A full transcript of this episode with shownotes and useful links can be found at our website, CrimethInc.com/podcast. You can subscribe to The Hotwire on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, just search for The Ex-Worker. You can listen to us through the anarchist podcast network Channel Zero, or on your radio’s dial in… Eugene, Oregon every Sunday at noon on KEPW 97.3, Fairbanks, Alaska Saturday mornings at 9 on KWRK 90.9 and in Tacoma, Washington every Friday at 9 AM on KUPS 90.1. Believe it or not, every Hotwire is radio ready, and in our shownotes you can download a twenty-nine and a half minute version of this episode for standard radio timeslots. If there’s a story or upcoming event you’d like us to include in a future Hotwire, just hit us up at podcast[AT]crimethinc[DOT]com.   And now for the headlines…  

HEADLINES

  Lovers at the Wiri women’s prison in New Zealand have been setting fires to their facility in protest of being denied the choice to share a cell together.   In Portland, Oregon, anarchists and anti-fascists have been organizing community defense patrols with their houseless neighbors in response to a string of arson targeting people who live on the street.   On Thursday, riots broke out in Madrid after a Senegalese street vendor died after being chased by police. Demonstrators, many of them migrants themselves, called the police “cowards” and “murderers” and damaged banks, bus stops, and dumpsters.   On March 6, during the second demonstration in less than a month, anarchists rioted outside the pedagogica university in Bogota, blockading the financial district for hours, smashing corporate windows and covering the walls in anarchist graffiti. The demonstrations take place during a controversy over educational funding, but a report on ContraInfo details how anarchists, feminists, and trans-folks have participated in the demonstrations to argue for far more radical changes than simply more university funding.   It’s been a rough week for fashion outlet H&M, who, as VANDALISMS on It’s Going Down reports, “got into some hot water for filming an ad in front of street art painted by REVOK, who then insisted they didn’t get permission to do so… We don’t care about REVOK’s (or anyone’s) intellectual property rights. The interesting part is when this story broke in graffiti writer circles all over the U.S, and the calls on social media to ”Boycott H&M“ quickly gave way to multiple vandalism attacks on stores.”   H&M stores in cities like San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Philly have all been subjected to some beautifully ugly revenge tags. Check out the VANDALISMS column on ItsGoingDown.org for the photos, and check out The Walls Are Alive for ways to get started in the thrilling world of guerrilla beautification.   It’s also been a rough week for the alt-right! Richard Spencer admitted defeat after the antifascist opposition he faced in Michigan, which we reported on in Hotwire 21. Now, Spencer has cancelled his upcoming university speaking engagements. Antifascism works y’all.   In Indiana, a bizarre, Jerry Springer-esque drama has unraveled the Traditionalist Workers Party, when leader Matt Heimbach was caught sleeping with his wife’s stepfather’s new wife, and it was Heimbach’s wife and stepfather who busted them. The stepfather, by the way, was also the group’s spokesman. He was standing on a box to witness the gross Nazi sex, when the box collapsed and alerted Heimbach that someone was outside. The spokesman was literally de-platformed, and it descended into assaults, arrests, police reports, and the former spokesperson publicly resigning and taking the fascist group’s website down with him.   Meanwhile, Deandre Harris, one of the three black Charlottesville residents who faced charges after the neo-Nazi Unite the Right rally that ended in Heather Heyer’s murder, was found not guilty. Deandre faced bogus assault charges after being beaten himself by white supremacists on the day of the rally. An alt-right campaign lobbied a judge to issue a warrant for him based on doctored video provided by online trolls. The acquittal is a victory, for sure, but there are still two more Charlottesville-based black people facing charges for protesting white supremacy that day. Head over to solidaritycville.com to find out how you can support them.   Hopefully as the alt-right unravels, anarchists will have more energy to focus on the revolutionary overthrow of larger systems of oppression and authority, rather than just preventing a truly fascist movement from growing.   March 15 was international day against police brutality, and anarchists in Toronto observed the day by pasting posters around town with information on particularly brutal cops. This tactic is traditionally used by antifascists who want to warn neighbors about Nazis in their neighborhood, and this action is a great example of how we can use the skills and strategies we’ve developed fighting against fascism and use them in broader struggles.   International day against police brutality was also observed in Montreal, as it has been for the last 22 years, with a fierce, confrontational demonstration. Hundreds marched behind a banner that translates to “The whole world hates police and fascists.” Cops were attacked with flag poles, covered in paint, and banks got their windows smashed. Three comrades were arrested, and one was seriously injured.

On March 15 in Brazil, nearly 20 cities saw protests against police brutality and state violence in response to the assassination of Marielle Franco, a Rio de Janeiro councilwoman who spoke out against the police. We have an exclusive report from an anarchist correspondent in Brazil:   Anarchist in Brazil: The last Wednesday, March 14, the city council member Marielle Franco and her driver, Anderson Gomes, were shot and killed in a car leaving a gathering hosting a debate with Black women in downtown Rio de Janeiro. The attack has all the signs of ambush and execution because nothing was stolen and she was shot mostly in the head, and from behind. Days before and months before also, Marielle was denouncing on social media and every interview ever- everywhere, the police brutality in the neighborhood of Acari and many others in Rio de Janeiro, where the military police responsible for the region is perpetrating executions, and threatening the people who live there. Actually, the whole work of Marielle was based on describing and denouncing the occupation of the favelas, going on since 2008 with the UPPs, the Police Pacification Unit. Most recently she was one of the voices against the army occupation of the city and the state of Rio de Janeiro, after the president, Michel Temer, took away the control of security from the governor of the state and gave it to a general of the army. It’s an unprecedented measure, which reveals the unconstitutional aspects of this government, which uses explicit state of exception to keep control of people and the poor.

People from all over the country and social movements are showing they are concerned with the extreme violence used by those who want to shut up a voice who dares to speak up against police brutality and state violence. Dozens of prominent members of social movements were already killed this year and the last year in the country. But the thing is that maybe the fact that a militant who has the fifth highest vote count among council members in Rio de Janeiro that was in a big left party and was, like, shot in the middle of the street, in the middle of downtown in a big city like Rio de Janeiro shows that not even a position of power can protect you in the civil war that is happening right now in Brazil, and more specifically and most than ever in Rio de Janeiro right now. In the next day, and the weekend later, hundreds of thousands of people joined in the marches against police brutality and denouncing the murder of Marielle and Anderson Gomes. March 15, we have, like, huge march, and almost 20 cities in Brazil and many other cities around the world like Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Paris, London, Coimbra, Santiago, Bogotá, showing solidarity.

And, of course, the media is one the agents trying to hijack the discourse and trying to whitewash the radical aspects of Marielle’s activism and spread the notion that she was like fighting only for vague and generic politics like human rights, and using the murder to justify even more the occupation, as if the crime which took her life away happened because there was no police enough on the streets.

Many anarchists collectives and groups are joining the protests and campaigns denouncing the murder of Marielle showing solidarity above all things. She was a lesbian woman and a longtime grassroots militant on feminist movements and the Black resistance in the favelas. Her work at the biggest university of Rio de Janeiro was dedicated to expose the military occupation. She was a comrade of all those who fight against oppression, state violence, and patriarchy. As anarchists we should express unconditional support of a comrade like this, despite she became a politician or not. The political strategy of her activism is secondary right now. We cannot let her murder become a justification for more police on the streets, because police are the worst perpetrators of terrorism in cities like Rio de Janeiro. And the bullets used to kill her was the same bullets used by the police and those who killed her knew how to make it hard for the investigations to find out who did it. So, it’s not too soon to say that it was, it has all the aspects of crimes committed by the milicianos, the gangs of police and paramilitary criminals. This year is a year of election for president and governor and many others, and we cannot let the murder of another comrade become the justification of more politics of genocide against the Black and poor. We should keep on fighting as well, keep our battle for discourse at the same time we show solidarity for those who fall.   Rebel Girl: In Peters Mountain, West Virginia, the treesit blockading construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline is entering its third week strong. Meanwhile, the Three Sisters pipeline resistance camp in so-called Virginia, occupied Monacan and Tutelo land, just went public. The camp has been in preparation for months, and just last week they announced the start of a public campaign against the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in Virginia. You can keep up with the treesit in West Virginia by searching “Appalachians Against Pipelines” on Facebook, and you can keep up with the Three Sisters Camp at 3SistersCamp on Twitter.   On March 10, up to ten thousand marched in Vancouver against the construction of a Kinder Morgan pipeline in so-called British Columbia. However, there are also ongoing direct action campaigns on the ground, such as Camp Cloud and the Tiny House Warriors, who are directly blocking pipeline construction and have called for more boots on the ground. A video on Sub.Media reports that on March 19 people blocked tree cutting equipment on Burnaby Mountain in British Columbia, land which is slated to be cleared for Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion, that would bring oil from Alberta’s tar sands to the port of Vancouver. The actions were done by autonomous individuals unaffiliated with environmental NGO’s. Six were arrested.   On Saturday, wobblies agitated outside an Amazon Flex distribution center in Seattle. For a couple weeks before the action, they had covered the area around the warehouse with posters announcing an upcoming Amazon workers’ strike in Spain. On Saturday, they held banners that read “Make Amazon pay,” and “Never trust management.” A few of the workers expressed enthusiastic support for the action, and about two-dozen drivers took IWW material with them.   In their report on the action, some of the agitators explain the dystopian conditions of these Amazon Flex centers. “This machine is the primary robot the workers interact with throughout the day and the speed of the conveyor is accelerated when it seems the crew won’t meet their individual goals of 180 packages an hour. It’s unclear if management or an algorithm is in control of the conveyor belt’s speed. In more ways than just these simple mechanics, these warehouse workers are kept in a precarious and exploited state through every aspect of their employment with Amazon.   ”When the company decides to ‘flex up,’ workers are called in unexpectedly and given longer hours along the conveyor belt. The only way to get out of these sudden calls is to use a limited number of ‘voluntary’ leave days. If a worker runs out of these days, they will be fired for not ‘flexing up.’ When the company decides to ‘flex down,’ workers are placed on forced leave and given limited hours. Despite the hip and ‘flexy’ internal corporate lingo, this job remains highly insecure and precarious."   March 18 was election day in Russia. To no one’s surprise, Putin won, which liberal pundits treated as just further evidence that Putin is a dictator so Trump is bad because they colluded and Putin bad Trump bad collusion Putin Trump Putin Putin Trump Trump ad nauseam. But for as much as the Colbert-loving liberal laugh-o-sphere likes to paint Trump as being tied to an oppressive autocrat, they won’t focus on the anarchists who’ve been tortured and imprisoned in Putin’s Russia, nor their critique that it’s not Putin himself, but the power he holds that is oppressive. In the week leading up to the election, solidarity actions were called for with anarchists facing repression in Russia. The call was answered by actions outside Russian consulates in cities like Barcelona, Toronto, Prague, Berlin, Sydney, and many more. In Russia itself, actions were held in over a dozen cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Chelyabinsk. We caught up with a Russian anarchist to discuss the week of solidarity and the election.

Who are we speaking with?   Tanya: Okay. My name is Tanya, I’m from Murmansk in Russia, but now I’m in Germany and I’m involved in solidarity with a campaign with Russian anarchists and antifascists.

Rebel Girl: Can you talk about what’s been going on around the recent election in Russia?

Tanya: Yeah so, we were not surprised about who won. Maybe a little bit surprised of the percentage of how many people voted and how many people voted for Putin. But, actually, it doesn’t really matter. This is not a question of one person, anyone who would have such a power could become the same dictator. So, the problem is mostly in the system, not in the leader. That’s why we decided that… yeah, maybe it sounds quite strange in Russia to say that you are against democracy, because, like, so many people want it, and the opposition wants it, but, yeah. We know that it’s not what we want, and who, if not we, would be so radical to say that even democracy’s not the best thing in the world.

We were doing in Russia an anti-election campaign called the Illusion of Choice, or the Illusion of Election. We connected together topics of repressions and tortures that are going on in Russia and elections, and we were saying that, “Yes, you should not vote for this kind of regime,” and elections are an issue by itself, but also regimes that can only give you tortures, repressions and prisons is, not what we want. And that we should show solidarity of people who are suffering from them.

Rebel Girl: Will you tell us about the ongoing repression that’s happening there?

Tanya: So, close to elections and also because we’re going to have the World Cup, there’s always a reason for Secret Services to make some anti-terror activities, so starting from October, there were several people arrested first in Penza and then in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Chelyabinsk, and there is a case created called the case of Anarchist Terrorist Network and people are accused to do some explosions during elections and World Cup. But, all of them were tortured with electric shock, and now several people that are not connected to this case were also arrested for making solidarity actions and also were tortured by electric shock so now it’s, like, mostly anarchists and antifascists suffering from repressions and from hard tortures.

Now we have concentrated our power- our activities on solidarity, on getting people out from prisons, getting people out from Russia, helping them to deal with torture, trauma and so on. Like, when the FSB is now using this case, this terrorist case, against everyone, to say like, “Either you say to us what we want, or we will include you in this terrorist case.” So then it means that we start to censor ourselves, and like- do less, and a lot of people left Russia just because they were threatened…uh…yeah. I would say that it’s kind of killing the movement, right now.

Rebel Girl: What can anarchists outside of Russia do to help?

Tanya: Of course we really need to spread information in any case like if people want to write some articles, like a lot of the information in English at avtonom.org. And also, we will be happy too, if you could make an actions and rabble in front of the consulate and embassies of Russia, because then definitely the Russian government would be informed that there were some actions in other countries. And we’re of course collecting money, to the ABC of Moscow to pay for lawyers, to help relatives with all their financial situations…yeah. And, also, I would say that there is a need of safe spaces, places, possibilities to legalize someone somewhere outside of Russia because some people really need to escape right now.

Rebel Girl: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Tanya: I and the people who are now in prison and their relatives and all those who were involved in this solidarity campaign just really came through for everyone who was doing actions, sending money, spreading info, yeah. It’s just super important for us and to the arrested people not to feel that we are alone.   Rebel Girl: Thanks so much for speaking with us, and we’re holding y’all in our hearts.

Stay tuned to CrimethInc.com in the next week for an in depth text and posters about the repression that anarchists in Russia are facing.   March 14 was the one-month anniversary of the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida by bigoted, MAGA and swastika-sporting Nikolas Cruz. Nearly two hundred thousand students from over three thousand schools across the country walked out of class—the largest school walkouts since the civil rights movement. While the Democratic party has been trying to co-opt youth outrage since the shooting, a roundup of the actions shows that a significant number of the student rebels were demonstrating for far more radical reasons than gun control.   In Nashville, Tennessee, students walked out of school, pulled down the American flag, and jumped on a cop car.   In Chicago, students staged sit-ins inside City Hall and issued a wide-range of demands.    While we don’t agree with all of the demands, or even the demand form per se, they certainly show that these walkouts were about far more than gun control.   Students from Ursuline Academy, New Orleans, skipped their school’s sanctioned prayer event to hit the streets with rebel youth from other high schools.   In Minneapolis, a reactionary student holding an American flag with Trump’s name on it was physically confronted and had the flag ripped from his hands by other students.   In San Francisco, marching students alternated chanting “black lives matter,” with cries to abolish the NRA.   In Brooklyn, predominantly black students from the Academy for Young Writers walked out and invoked names of people of color who were killed by police, like Philando Castile and Tamir Rice.   In many of the walkouts, police and administrator repression showed the conflict between youth self-determination and adult authority.   In Omaha, a march of over 100 teens was reportedly kettled and dispersed by police.    Walkout students in Chicago were arrested.   Black students at Booker T Washington High in Atlanta—the high school Martin Luther King Jr. attended—were threatened with disciplinary action if they followed their famous alum’s example of civil disobedience, so they took a knee in the hallway instead.   In perhaps the most metaphorical action of the day, students at Mt. Diablo High in the Bay Area literally broke through locked gates to stage their walkout.   We applaud the students who demonstrated last Wednesday for not allowing adults to control how you express yourselves, and for not limiting your desires to a single demand. One journalist in Chicago reported that at the walkout she attended, one young person even held a sign that read, "Gun control is not the answer,“ and we agree. The answer is liberated youth taking control.   For future walkouts and student protests, like the March For Our Lives on Saturday, March 24, CrimethInc has published a setof easily-printable posters, handbills, and zines detailing the anarchist argument about why the solution to mass shootings begins with youth liberation, and why gun control is a false solution. You can find the texts and the printable PDFs at Crimethinc.com.   For more coverage of youth resistance, make sure to check out the new blog Cutting Class, a counterinformation site for the ungovernable generation. It’s at cuttingclass.noblogs.org.   While rebel students walk out of high schools, the West Virginia teachers’ strike has seen reverberations rippling out. As It’s Going Down reports, ”Last Friday, teachers in New Jersey walked off the job on strike and even blocked scab teachers from coming in. They were also joined on the picket lines by students. While union ‘leaders’ sent strikers back to work on Monday, hopefully rank-n-file workers can take the struggle into their own hands.   “Teachers in Puerto Rico went on strike for one day across the island against attempts by disaster capitalists to privatize the school system and switch students over to a system of vouchers. We are hearing reports of awesome things, like teachers running free schools in squatted buildings, and hope to have more to report soon!”   For background on the years-long struggle against educational austerity in Puerto Rico, check out episode 9 of sub.media’s show Trouble, entitled “Learning to Resist.”   

REPRESSION ROUNDUP

  Rebel Girl: In this week’s repression roundup…   Ten years after being rounded up, trial began last week for defendants from the Tarnac 9 case of conspiracy and rail sabotage in France. One of the defendants, Julien Coupat, who authorities accuse of authoring the best-selling manifesto The Coming Insurrection, refused to plead neither guilty nor innocent on the first day of the trial.   The Bloc Party column from It’s Going Down reports, “On March 7 Alejandra Pablos was picked up by ICE and taken to detention in Eloy, Arizona. Ale was released on an immigration bond four years ago after having been in detention for two years. In the four years since then she has been an active member of the Tucson community and the national efforts for both reproductive justice and justice for undocumented people. Her detention by ICE came very shortly after she was arrested… at an anti-ICE demonstration where people on the ground reported the arresting officer commented that she was targeted for arrest because she was ‘chanting the loudest.’”   In our shownotes, we have links for ways to support Ale and donate to her legal defense.   Last Tuesday, three of the Black Pride 4 received fines, community service, and two years probation for their arrests at a 2017 Columbus, Ohio pride march, where they were protesting police violence, violence against trans women, and marginalization of people of color within the LGBTQ community. Ahead of the sentencing, solidarity actins took place around the country. In Columbus, folks rallied in front of City Hall. In DC, Stop Police Terror and No Justice, No Pride rallied outside the Department of Justice and raised their middle fingers in defiance. In Brooklyn, New York, folks gathered and read the names of trans folks who have died, followed by “trans lives matter” and “free the black pride 4.” One more person is awaiting sentencing, so let’s keep the solidarity up!   Valve turner Michael Foster has been transferred to a new prison, so please write him and/or send a book! Foster is serving a one-year sentence for taking part in coordinated actions to to stop the flow of tar sands oil coming from Canada.

We’re happy to report that after the parole efforts we announced in Hotwire 16, long time Black Liberation Army political prisoner Herman Bell was granted parole last week. (In the recording, we incorrectly announced that he had been released, which is not yet the case.) However, we are furious to report that this just action has been met with backlash from the Police Benevolent Association, other cop unions, New York City Mayor De Blasio, and New York Governor Cuomo. Supporters are calling on folks to call Governor Cuomo at 518–474–8390 and express support for the parole board’s decision, or tweet at him at @NYGovCuomo on Twitter. We have a sample script in our shownotes at Crimethinc.com   In Santiago, Chile, anarchist Juan Flores was sentenced to 23 years in prison in the conspiracy case Caso Bombas 2. The first bombs case in 2010 was a major conspiracy case that the state assembled to pin a string of anti-capitalist and anti-police incendiary actions on anarchists and anti-authoritarians throughout Santiago. The police used it as an excuse to raid and shut down the majority of the squatted social centers there. In the end, however, the defendants were acquitted and the case was an embarrassment for the Chilean government. In the current bombs case, two of the three defendants were acquitted of all charges, but Juan Flores was not only found guilty, but guilty of the anti-terrorism law. It’s the first time that a court in Chile has successfully used the anti-terrorism law to gain a conviction against anarchists, which is a serious advance in the state’s repressive apparatus there. Check out episode 30 of The Ex-Worker to listen to an interview with Tortuga, an anarchist in Chile who openly admits to attempting to bomb a closed bank and who faced anti-terrorism charges for it.   The campaign to free anarchist Luis Fernando Sotelo, who has been imprisoned in Mexico since 2014, recently made a call for support in the efforts to free Luis. You can demand Luis’ release, and make clear the unconstitutionality of Article 362, by tweeting the Mexican supreme court at @SCJN on Twitter, or e-mailing them at contacto@scjn.gob.mx.   Last Wednesday, police clashed with migrants and refugees at the Moria detention center on the island of Lesbos, Greece. The clashes occurred as trial was set for April 20 for the 35 migrants accused of participating in a July 2017 revolt at the same detention center. You can find out more about how to support the migrants about to go to trial at @freethemoria35 on Twitter.  

NEXT WEEK’S NEWS

  We’ll close out our episode with political prisoner birthdays and next week’s news.    Today, March 21, is political prisoner Jaan Laaman’s birthday. Jaan’s group, the United Freedom Front, carried out a number of bombings of unoccupied military and corporate offices in the 1970s and 80s as “armed propaganda” against US imperialism and the apartheid regime in South Africa.   Writing Jaan a letter will only take you a few minutes, but it could be the highlight of his week. We have his mailing address in this episode’s shownotes at Crimethinc.com/podcast, as well as a link to a beginner’s guide to writing prisoners from New York City Anarchist Black Cross.   And now, next week’s news, our list of events that you can plug into in real life.   This Saturday is the March For Our Lives, with a big march in DC and over 700 local rallies around the US. While liberals are sure to flock to these rallies, the walkouts last week showed that many of the students going have critiques that go well beyond gun control. We recommend anarchists engaging in the rallies and trying to put the focus back on white supremacy, toxic masculinity, militarism, and the state. Go to CrimethInc.com for easily printable zines, handbills, and posters that you can distribute at a March For Our Lives near you.   Saturday is also the international day of solidarity with Rojava and in defense of Afrin. Solidarity is needed now more than ever as the Turkish army has surrounded the city and launched a ground assault, including cutting off water supplies. Solidarity actions with Afrin have continued to rage across Europe this week, with arsons against military contractors in Turin, Italy and Soltau, Germany. Hey, here’s an idea, let’s take all the guns from the angry sexist white men and give them to the women’s army of the YPJ. To find an Afrin solidarity action near you, or list one that you organize yourself, go to TheNAKA.org.   Mark Bray continues his book tour for Antifa this week. You can catch him on… Thursday, March 22 at The Civic Theatre in Nelson, British Columbia, Monday, March 26 at the Brooklyn Historical Society in New York, Tuesday, March 27 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, and on Thursday, March 29 at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.   Mutual Aid Disaster Relief continue their speaking tour on Communities in Resistance to Disaster Capitalism and Community Organizing as Disaster Preparedness.   This week, you can find their tour in… Charlottesville, Virginia at the Friends Meeting House at 3 PM on March 21, at The Base anarchist community center in Brooklyn, New York at 7 PM on March 23 and 12 noon on March 24, and at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Storrs, Connecticut at 5:30 PM on March 27 and 1 PM on March 28.   Go to MutualAidDisasterRelief.org to find details on all the tour dates from now through May.   On March 24, listeners in New York City can celebrate two decades of political prisoner support at the 20th anniversary celebration for the National Jericho Movement. The Jericho Movement does some great work to support and connect political prisoners across struggles. We here at The Hotwire often use their website as a resource to learn more about political prisoners’ history. The celebration will take place at Holyrood Episcopal Church on 179th street, with dinner at 5 PM and the full program at 6:30.   March 24 to the 27 is the international offensive to free political prisoner and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal. Supporters are calling on folks to take local actions to free Mumia, and for March 27 to pack the courthouse in Philadelphia. They are also calling on folks to call the DA at 215–586–8000 and tell him to release all police files on Mumia to the public. You can find out more at FreeMumia.com   From April 6 to April 8, the fourteenth Zagreb Anarchist Bookfair will take place in Croatia. For more info in Croatian and English, go to ask-zagreb.org.   There’s another Anarchist Bookfair that weekend on April 7 in Liverpool, England. You can find out more at Liverpool Anarchist Bookfair on Facebook.   The Montreal anarchist bookfair, which boasts to be the largest such gathering in North America, has announced its dates for this spring: Saturday May 26 and Sunday May 27. They’re currently accepting proposals for workshops and activities. Go to AnarchistBookfair.ca to find out more.   The North American Anarchist Studies Network conference is also taking place in Montreal, from June 1st through the 3rd. And then the G7 summit is taking place June 8 and 9 outside Quebec City. Damn, it looks like it just might be a summer of anarchy in Quebec this year.   The ACAB Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair, happening June 22 through the 24, is also looking for workshop submissions. Find out more at ACAB2018.noblogs.org.   The second annual Institute for Advanced Troublemaking will take place from July 21 to the 29 in Worcester, Massachusetts. The Institute for Advanced Troublemaking is a weeklong anarchist summer school offering classes on Anarcha-Feminism, Prefigurative Politics, and Communities of Care; Decolonizing Anarchism; Direct Action Praxis; Reframing Animal Liberation as an Exercise in Antiracism; Social Anarchism and Radical Ecology; Trying Anarchism for Life; and Understanding Repression and Building Resilience. You can sign up and find out more at advancedtroublemaking.wordpress.com.  

OUTRO

  And that’s it for this episode of The Hotwire. As always thanks to Underground Reverie for the music, and thanks to our correspondents from Russia and Brazil. Don’t forget to check out all the links, mailing addresses, and useful shownotes we customized for this episode at CrimethInc.com. Every Hotwire is radio-ready, so if you want to replay part or all of this show, just go for it! We can edit episodes down to specific time constraints if you e-mail us at podcast[AT]CrimethInc[DOT]com. You can also send us news or announcements to include in the future. 

Stay informed. Stay rebel. Plug into The Hotwire.