In the USA 2.2 million people in detention

In comparison with other countries, there are relatively few prison inmates in Germany. For every 100,000 inhabitants there are 94 prisoners, according to a study released on Wednesday by German Economy Institute in Cologne based on numbers compiled by the University of London. The average number of prisoners for all the member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is 276 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants.

Among the countries having fewer prisoners than Germany are, according to the study, Greece with 90 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, France (85), Sweden (82), Denmark (77) and Finland (75). The lowest ratio was in Japan with 62 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. The unquestioned front runner in the number of prisoners is the USA, where numerous private businesses are paid by the state for locking up and exploiting people: out of 100,000 inhabitants, the investigation revealed, there are 737 incarcerated, 500 more than in Poland, the country with the second highest prisoner ratio. Altogether therefore in the USA 2.2 million people sit in detention.

Also, internationally, the extent of utilization of the prisons differs sharply according to the Cologne scientists’ report. German penal institutions have a utilization ratio of 97 per cent. The critical need is dramatic in Greece. There the overcapacity rate of prisons is 179 per cent. Likewise Hungary clearly has more prisoners than detention places with a utilization rate of 140 per cent, Italy* (139 per cent) and Spain (134 per cent). Prisons in the USA are also overcrowded with a 108 per cent utilization rate. The overloading of institutes for detention is also, in the opinion of experts, a cause for outbreaks of violence among the prisoners. Besides, it worsens the conditions for re-socialization of the prisoners.

AWTW/ The Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement learned with anger and outrage of the arrest in the Netherlands of Jose-Maria Sison by the Dutch authorities. Comrade Sison was the founding Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1968 and has remained a life-long opponent of imperialism and reaction and leader of the Filipino people’s struggles. It is for these reasons and no other that comrade Sison has been hounded by successive reactionary governments in the Philippines. US imperialism and the European Union have also tried to stick the “terrorist” label on comrade Sison, despite the fact that the struggle he has been associated with in the Philippines is widely known, even by the reactionary news media, to have the support of millions of Filipinos from all walks of life.

The arrest of comrade Sison is not only a major blow to the struggle of the Filipino people, it is also an attack on the thousands of revolutionaries and other political activists from around the world who have settled in Europe because of severe political persecution in their home countries. If the Dutch authorities succeed in bringing comrade Sison to trial, it will have ominous, more widespread implications.

The CoRIM, on behalf of the entire Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, calls upon all communist, revolutionary and progressive forces and individuals to raise their voices in protest to demand that the Dutch authorities release Jose-Maria Sison, drop all charges, and cease their political persecution of him.

Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement
30 August 2007

Indian Maoist ambush on policemen in the forests of Dantewada in which at least 12 security personnel were killed shows how Naxalites, despite the heavy security dragnet in the area, are able to quickly cobble together attack squads of more than 100 combatants.

The security team was on its way to secure an area at Tarmekla village in Jagargunda, where the Naxals had blocked construction of a road. “The team comprising Chhattisgarh Armed Force, SPOs and cops was divided into two groups. The Maoists hiding in the area ambushed the rear party and opened fire on them,” DGP Vishwaranjan said. There was heavy exchange of fire during which the police party got fragmented and scattered in the forests. When the cops regrouped, 15 of their men were missing and were presumed dead. Later in the day, three policemen returned to the camp.

“Though 25 securitymen returned to the Jagargunda police station by evening, 12 of them, including Jagargunda SHO Hemant Kumar, were killed in the attack,” the DGP said. Three policemen were wounded in the gunbattle. The guerrillas also looted sophisticated weapons like AK-47s, SLRs and .303 rifles, police sources said.
In another incident, Naxalites set a Chhattisgarh State Electricity Board’s truck on fire in Nukanpal village under the Avapalli police station in Bijapur district.

Naxalites have targeted security personnel venturing into the forests, essentially to prevent them from setting up strongholds inside their areas. But the Red guerrillas also regularly hit development works to prevent interior villages from getting connectivity to the outside world. (more…)

At least 41 security personnel, including 17 CRPF men, were missing and nine injured in a fierce gunbattle with naxals in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. “Twenty-two Special Police Force personnel, 17 CRPF men and two personnel of the district police are missing after the last night gunbattle with naxals in Elampatti-Regadgatta jungle, about 550 km from here,” a top police official said by phone from Dantewada on Tuesday.

“115 personnel had gone for the joint anti-Naxal operation in the area. While 71 personnel came back in the night and three returned this morning, 41 are still missing,” the official said. Among the returned, nine are injured, officials said adding the condition of three of them is stated to be serious and have been shifted to a hospital in Jagdalpur, divisional headquarters of Bastar district.

Officials at the police headquarters here said some of the personnel, who had not returned back so far, had received bullet injuries on their legs. Chattisgarh’s Special Task Force and Andhra Police’s ‘Greyhound’ assisted by Union Home Ministry’s air wing have launched a search operation in the jungle bordering Andhra, a CRPF spokesman told said in New Delhi.

Among the missing was an Assistant Commandant of the CRPF, who was leading the police party, sources said. “As radio communication is yet to be established, the condition of the missing force is not known,” they said.

The gunbattle erupted after a 115-member strong security force launched the operation in the jungle and were fired upon by Maoists from LMG and mortar fire last evening.

TOI

The Measure of a Life, in Dollars and Cents. For the U.S. military in Iraq, it may be roughly the same.

A report released late last month by the Government Accountability Office examines the practices and rules guiding condolence payments that the U.S. military can distribute to families of Iraqi civilians killed “as a result of U.S. and coalition forces’ actions during combat.” These voluntary payments — known as “solatia” payments — can also cover injuries and loss or damage to property. They constitute “expressions of sympathy or remorse based on local culture and customs, but not an admission of legal liability or fault,” according to the report. The Pentagon has set $2,500 as the highest individual sum that can be paid. Most death payments remain at that level, with a rough sliding scale of $1,000 for serious injury and $500 for property damage. Beginning in April of last year, payments of up to $10,000 were possible for “extraordinary cases” but only with a division commander’s authorization. (more…)

From June 6th to 8th the “representatives” of eight of the most powerful states from the global north are planning to meet in Heiligendamm near Rostock in Germany. Without any legitimacy to decide about global politics they will coordinate their decisions and therefore stand for the continuation of the state the world which for the majority means hunger, misery, war, and exlusion. Despite police repression and political propaganda, the summit will face one of the biggest mobilisations ever to shut down the G8.
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Reports from Russian Military Analysts are describing what they term as a ‘rapidly declining will-to-fight” among American Soldiers fighting in Iraq , with the greatest concern being placed upon US Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division who reportedly this past week refused orders to ‘take to field’ against their Iraqi insurgent enemies. (more…)

Six men including two CISF personnel were killed when the extremists attacked a CISF barrack on Saturday, April 6 at Bermo. But the six CISF men, who finally survived, owe their lives to a young woman Maoist, who had pleaded, argued and finally persuaded fellow comrades to let the injured CISF men go injured but alive.
Additional Director General of Police (Special Branch) Gauri Shankar Rath confirmed that this particular woman extremist actually saved these lives.
(more…)