falk texts

Some texts by Thomas Meyer Falk

Thomas Meyer-Falk, c/o JVA- Z.3117, Schonbornstr. 32, D-76646 Bruchsal, Germany

Anti-Terror Fi(gh)t in Germany

When I was held in solitary confinement in Stuttgart-Stammheim, I got to know Mohamed D, he was held in the security wing in the neighbouring cell and we talked from window to window. Since then there has been a loose correspondence between us, he suffers somewhat from isolation. For some months a trial has been running against him for supposed membership of a terrorist group. The centrepiece - if one can call it such - is a chief witness who for his various accusations received a lenient sentence and who now appears as chief witness of the federal attorney-general.

As Mohamed D is a non-German, and so receives no allowance at all, I tried to get 20 Euros and a few stamps to him; all nicely official, by post. The attempt got no further! Provincial superior court judge Fleischer informed me, greeting me 'respectfully' on the 27th May 2004, that Herr D was on a U.N. sanctions list, which by ordinances of the 27th May 2002 and 29th September 2003 had been taken over by the EU. It was forbidden to place money at the disposal of ' natural and judicial subjects, groups or organisations standing on the list. And so the Judge from Duesseldorf sent me back the 20 Euros and the stamps by return post.

One may well imagine what terrorist activities Herr D might have provoked with the 20 Euros and the stamps, the existence of Europe might be threatened! But let's leave aside sarcasm. It is cynical and revealing when judicially, or on the part of the European Union, a prisoner without means, who moreover, is staying in strict isolation, is forbidden to receive a few stamps and Euros to at least buy something to eat or some shower gel from the prison store.

In their self-declared 'war against terror' the arm of the USA and the EU reaches so far as into German jail cells!

Death in Bruchsal Jail

Stefan was serving a long jail sentence in Bruchsal detention facility (Justizvollstreckungsanstalt), with ‘security detention’ to follow as he had injured a warder in his last escape. After his arrest he sat for several years in isolation, in Luebeck among other places, and from there he was shifted to Bruchsal, where after a few months isolation he was at least chilled out enough to take part in the junior high course in the prison school.

There I got to know him, as the schoolrooms are in the cellar of the jail and they have windows facing the prison yard. As I can leave my cell daily to walk in this yard we started to talk as he stood at the window during a break in class and saw me walking alone in a circle.

He told of his interest in Latin America (he spoke Spanish too) and his hope after his release to eventually be able to live there. In the short conversations with him it occured to me that his fingers were constantly moving nervously a bit, apparently one of the possble consequences of long-term solitary confinement described in the literature: so called motor unrest.

His favourite author, he informed me, was the Columbian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, born in 1928, and one of his favourite books the writer’s novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude". Stefan died alone on the 23rd June 2004; he slashed his wrists and was found dead in his cell by the warders in the morning.

The Penal System - An Irrational Institution

The sharpest sanction that German criminal law contains, yet in the 21st century, is the withdrawal of freedom. That means that the delinquent is contained in a prison, euphemistically named a "justice application institute", a Justizvollzugsanstalt or JVA, as if in a JVA justice were implemented.

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Century, a profound change took place in the punishment system in Europe. The cruel physical punishments were replaced by the denial of freedom, to - at least theoretically - continually be able to be placed or remain where wanted: The prison sentence was born. And it has lasted to this day, only now they call it the freedom penalty [Freiheitsstrafe]!

Whoever steals from another, robs them, damages things, or in any other way offends against the criminal law, can have a Freiheitsstrafe imposed on them. What a peculiar word combination, freedom penalty, as if freedom were imposed as a penalty. Much more accurately the opposite is the case, freedom is taken away!

And from still another point of view the _expression seems quite contrary, for whoever is put in jail experiences very quickly to what further manifold restrictions (s)he is subject, apart from the withdrawal of freedom of movement; the compulsion to work , censoring of private correspondence, restrictions on possessions, restriction of visits, and much more (an insight into everyday life at JVA Berlin -Tegel can be obtained at http://www.planet-tegel.de.) What this prison routine might have to do with "freedom", why therefore "in the name of the people" the condemned should have a freedom penalty imposed on them, does not appear to be readily apprehensible.

Penal enforcement is (at least in theory) governed by considerations of resocialisation, that means the enabling of the prisoner, after serving their sentence, to live a life of social responsibility without crime. Measured by the advice of those that commit crimes again (depending on the investigation up to 80 percent recidivism rates are reported, that means that of 100 released, 80 become criminally liable again) there is only one conclusion: there is no successful implementation of resocialisation.

In the final analysis there could not be such anyway, for who thinks that people robbed of elementary rights are thereby moved to henceforth value the rights of others, esteem their worth, and respect them, deludes themselves and ultimately society. Well informed people will interject however, that within the prison walls a treatment program is carried out, including therapies. This may be true for special, so-called ‘socialtherapeutic’ divisions, but not for the bulk of the detention facilities. Even when it ever comes to treatment measures, for example, leaving the facility under supervision, to be able to consider life outside after untold years in custody, these cases are financially determined. On the 1st of January 2004 for example, the head of JVA Bruchsal collectively cut short rehabilitative leave by 50 percent, as in his opinion there were not enough personnel available. Or else they are, because of trivial incidents, immediately terminated or restricted. An inmate of JVA Dresden was refused excursions that she would have had to do alone, that is unaccompanied, because on a previous 'visit excursion', when the inmate was accompanied by a relative, she had tried to bring chewing gum into the prison.

Where are the victims in this thinking? Some may ask themselves if have they no right to payback, revenge, recompense? Here the differences between different groups of victims become important: Thus an insurance company that became victim of insurance fraud (supposedly number one national sport in Germany) will have a different relation to the offence than, for example, a woman who was sexually abused. Apart from the case of a really 'highly dangerous" individual, who willingly torments and kills people, and other similar sorts of case, by which jail takes on a safety function, that is the prisoner is simply prevented from being further active, the penal system does as good as nothing to effect a conciliation between victim and perpetrator. In the criminal trial the victim is a so-called "means of evidence" - among many others. And after the trial they disappear quickly from memory, while at least for prisoners considerable sums of money are expended. Victims as well as offenders are in the realm of justice object, not subject.

I have variously perceived in articles that dealt with the penal system the question of remaining blind to the victims - some of these had after all to suffer from it for the rest of their lives, for example being raped, or being damaged psychologically or physically. I make clear at this point, but not only because of it, that I for one have no defence speeches to make for sex offenders, that is far from my intention. Other than that, I - necessarily - report from the point of view of the imprisoned. In 1996, in order to raise funds for political activity, I raided a bank, and I can see without more to do that the bank employees were spiritually and psychologically traumatised by the threat situation. That such people and also other victims must be helped, and not only from the side of the state, but also for example by victim support groups (Der Weisse Ring to mention one) is not at all contoversial. If therefore, sorry circumstances in the penal system are found at fault, then it has nothing to do with, for example, the author of this article falling into self-pity - for no-one forced him to do what brought him into the penitentiary - but it is plainly and convincingly established that the prison institution improves no-one, or as good as no-one. Who - from the point of view of the victim - sees the penal system as primarily an instrument of revenge, reprisal, and a safety measure must come logically to the conclusion that prisons are a legitimate measure, but this is another school of thought.

A prisoner wrote two years ago in a brochure of the French prison chaplaincy service : "Instead of being a necessary step on the way to rehabilitation , prison only destroys . The humiliations generate hate.” There is nothing to add to that.

5 Years of Solitary Confinement

A year ago I took the 4th year of continuous solitary confinement as occasion to highlight myself more closely from the viewpoint of the Human Rights Convention (" 4 Jahre Isolationshaft"), and I'd also like to address this theme on the 5th anniversary.

Among other things, there is, even among the Left, a confusion of expressions: isolation custody, lone custody, single cell. So, to begin with the last, the single cell is, in principle, owed to all German prisoners (at least so far as the relevant penal institution was built after 1977.) He or she thus has a minimum amount of private space, spends the nightly cell closure alone (by which “night re-arrangements" are possible in most institutions, a prisoner lets him or herself be included in the cell of a fellow inmate), the daytime hours, however, in social community (leisure time, compulsory work, and so forth.)

Solitary confinement, in contrast, is the legal term for what is commonly referred to in Germany as Iso/Isolation custody(reference paragraph 89 of the German penal code )

and means the separation from all other prisoners without exception: No common leisure time. no common prison labour, no cell-shifting. A person sits 23 hours a day in a single cell and also spends the exercise hour alone (in which connection according to paragraph 89 of the penal code solitary confinement is still solitary confinement if, on occasion a prisoner takes their exercise hour, that is, walking in the prison yard, with other prisoners.)

I was arrested on the 12th October 1996 and found myself immediately in solitary. Thus I could have marked the 7th anniversary in isolation. However there was in 1998 a 'relaxation' of a few weeks length, from which time on the 3rd August 2003, exactly 5 years unbroken isolation stands.

Five years, 7 years !? What happens in such a span of time? A little baby grows up and goes to school for the first time; or after primary school the child matures in 7 years into a teenager, right in the middle of puberty. Whichever, it is a long time and you shouldn't be a claustrophobia sufferer here. But I am no martyr, no, that I am not! “Here I stand and cannot do else'', said Martin Luther once, and though I have nothing in common with religion, and consequently with Luther, I nevertheless understand him and what he wanted to say with this at first glance facile sounding phrase. Certainly, I theoretically have alternative courses of action, I could make 'compromises' with the justice system, and do what is referred to in prison jargon as 'sliming' - but only in theory, for I can't do anything of the sort, it would run completely against my (political) convictions .

The everyday harassment and humiliating treatments (at this time the federal constitutional court, for example, is considering a constitutional complaint of mine, whether the weekly searches of my person, combined with strip-searching, are a breach of my human rights) doesn’t at all mean that I am being broken down, however, but much rather they strengthen me in my conviction that I am on the right path. We - and I mean all of us by that - may not shrink back (like cowards) or scarcely would the wind blow stormily in our faces, but we would compromise with the State or the justice system (for example, to make statements to the police or the state prosecution, to get off more lightly.)

See website:www.freedom-for-thomas.de for more info.

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