In political prison news,…

Will Potter reports:

An inmate in Illinois has been in solitary confinement since July for possessing "copious amounts of Anarchist publications" and "handwritten Anarchist related essays," according to prison documents.

Mark "Migs" Neiweem is a prisoner at the maximum security Pontiac Correctional Center who, in addition to the publications and his writings about the prison industrial complex, was also found in possession of anarchist symbols including a "Circle A" and "Circle E" (the latter, which stands for equality, is described in prison reports as representing "class warfare, the 99%").

"I've been doing this work since 1979 and I can't think of another case where someone has gotten a disciplinary report for something so obviously political as this," said Alan Mills, who is Neiweem's lawyer and a professor at Northwestern University....

The treatment of Neiweem (and of Jerry Koch and others) is of a piece with ongoing government efforts to pathologize and criminalize anarchism and more generally to go after radical leftwing movements while minimizing or ignoring the real violence perpetrated by groups on the Right.

Meanwhile, in Russia,* Nadezhda “Nadya” Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot, following in the proud tradition of Kropotkin, is starting an NGO for prisoners’ rights in the region where she’s imprisoned.

*Where the political abuse of psychiatry appears to be making a comeback.