Late but not forgotten: This year, too, we are traveling together to the Chemnitz Women’s Prison to set an example against patriarchy, capitalism, fascism, nation states and their prisons. We want the prisoners to feel that they are not alone.
Sunday, 05.05.24 | 4-6 p.m. | Chemnitz Prison
We are going together from Dresden!
Meeting point: 13:30 at Wiener Platz Main Station to coordinate us and the tickets (train goes 13:52)
No prison visit without a good performance! Prepare for dancing!!! Video to learn! And how it will look at the end. 😀
From childhood we learn what a prison is and what it is needed for, but hardly anyone knows what prison really means. Because only a few people have ever seen a prison for themselves, know people who have had to experience it from the inside or have heard testimonials from prisoners. We learn that only the “bad people” go to prison, those who pose a danger to society. But prison is mainly for those who make the faults of our society visible: poor and discriminated people – especially if they are affected by racism -, people who cannot or do not want to adapt and people who rebel against social conditions. They are to be disciplined behind closed doors. As soon as they pass through the prison gates, they lose their humanity. From this point on, they are just prisoners with a number. An undefined group who are denied individuality and emotions and who can be forced into prison labor. They disappear from society and are isolated. Nobody is interested in the people behind the walls anymore, nobody listens to them. They are prisoners.
We grow up with this spectre of horror as the ultimate punishment. The state and its justice system need prisons to maintain order and secure their own power. They need them to control disagreeable people. What and when they eat, what clothes they wear, where and how they move, who has contact with them, when they sleep, what pain is treated and how, how they love and desire, what sex they are, when they wash, how much fresh air they have, how much sky they can see out of their window, how much paper they write on and with which pens, how they arrange their room, what they watch or listen to, whether they have to be alone or together, etc. All this under constant surveillance.
All this under constant surveillance. At the same time, the state needs its prisons to control people on the outside. As a deterrent to ensure that they obey its rules. We refuse to support this system. We want to try to break through the isolation in prison. We want to show that these walls cannot take away humanity.
FLINTA* in particular are usually forgotten in the discussion about prisons, when one thinks of prison, one thinks above all of men’s prisons. Just like outside the walls, FLINTA* and their work are forgotten. The demonstrations in front of the women’s prison in Chemnitz on March 8th in recent years were intended to combine general criticism of prisons with a feminist perspective. The creation of prisons is closely linked to the historical and systematic oppression of FLINTA*. The first prisons were women’s prisons, in which mainly prostitutes/sex workers, beggars and service workers who did not (properly) fulfill their work were imprisoned. The explicit aim of these prisons was deterrence, both externally and internally. Anyone who did not conform to the social norm was sent to prison. This also reinforced the binary and patriarchal system inside and outside the prison. Assignments were and still are made according to a strict binary order, depending on what is written on the prison record. This was and is particularly dangerous for TINA* people.
Even today, the reasons why FLINTA* end up in prison are often linked to the patriarchal system. The isolating function of prisons hits FLINTA* even harder, because when FLINTA* are in prison, there is usually hardly any support from cis male relatives. Whereas the emotional work and support of cis men who are in prison is mainly done by partners.
This gives us even more reason to want to break through this isolation.
The annual trip to the women’s prison in Chemnitz is therefore an important concern for us. Our solidarity should at least sporadically and symbolically overcome these walls. So come with us to Chemnitz on 05.05.24 at 4 p.m. and say hello. For all the people they have put in prisons and driven underground and the emptiness and fear that their absence leaves behind, we want to scream our anger against the walls of Chemnitz Prison.
P.S.: We are organizing the rally primarily for the prisoners. Please leave flags of organizations, parties or nations at home and bring banners instead.
Do you have words of greeting in or from prison? Send us an email to: noprisons@systemli.org (PGP key on request).