Daniel McGowan released from prison!

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Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front polit­i­cal pris­on­er and Rock­away native Daniel McGowan was released from the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Man­age­ment Unit (CMU) in Terre Haute, Indi­ana this morn­ing. He was dri­ven by fed­er­al author­i­ties to Indi­anapo­lis Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, where he met up with his wife.

Though the two have been able to vis­it dur­ing Daniel’s impris­on­ment, today marked the first time in years that they could hug, hold hands, or make any phys­i­cal con­tact (save for a few month stint when Daniel was in gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion in Mar­i­on, Illi­nois– between the CMU there and the one in Terre Haute). The two flew back to New York City togeth­er, where they were met by a small group of close friends at the air­port.

From the air­port, Daniel had one hour to make it to the halfway house, where he will be liv­ing for as long as the next six months. Though he has secured employ­ment, it is unclear when he can start work (at the dis­cre­tion of the halfway house, not his new employ­er). Until he has had time to set­tle in, there are more ques­tions than answers.

After being released from the halfway house, Daniel will be under super­vised release for three years.

Regard­less, this is great news and we’re excit­ed to see our com­rade on the oth­er side of the wall.

Please remem­ber that pris­on­er sup­port doesn’t end when a com­rade is released. Through halfway hous­es, super­vised release, parole, or pro­ba­tion, there is usu­al­ly state super­vi­sion beyond the ini­tial sen­tence. Also, prison is trau­mat­ic. And of course there is the stig­ma of being a for­mer pris­on­er that effects near­ly every aspect of one’s life. All of this adds up to the less obvi­ous, but equal­ly nec­es­sary, sup­port need­ed when our loved ones come home.

 

“Green Scare” Defen­dants

The term “Green Scare,” allud­ing to the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s, refers to legal and extrale­gal actions tak­en by the U.S. gov­ern­ment against envi­ron­men­tal and ani­mal rights activists. Like the Red Scare, the Green Scare uses new laws and new arms of the state to harsh­ly pun­ish a few indi­vid­u­als in order to repress an entire move­ment.

In Decem­ber 2005, gov­ern­ment agents car­ried out a nation­wide sweep of arrests, charg­ing four­teen indi­vid­u­als with actions claimed by the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and/or Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front in the North­west­ern U.S. dat­ing back to the mid-90’s. The actions include a 1997 fire that destroyed a horse slaugh­ter­house in Ore­gon (the plant was not rebuilt), and fires that destroyed pens and chutes at Bureau of Land Man­age­ment wild horse hold­ing com­pounds in Ore­gon, Wyoming and Cal­i­for­nia (hors­es were also freed dur­ing the actions). Despite no injury caused to any liv­ing being, a judge deter­mined that some of the arsons con­sti­tut­ed “ter­ror­ism” under Fed­er­al Sen­tenc­ing Guide­lines.

In Novem­ber 2006, Nathan Block, Daniel McGowan, Jonathan Paul and Joy­an­na Zach­er entered non-coop­er­a­tion plea agree­ments in which they accept­ed respon­si­bil­i­ty for their own roles in envi­ron­men­tal­ly-moti­vat­ed prop­er­ty crimes, but did not agree to pro­vide infor­ma­tion or tes­ti­fy against any­one now or in the future.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, oth­er indi­vid­u­als admit­ted guilt after their arrests and pro­ceed­ed to pro­vide infor­ma­tion to the gov­ern­ment. In order to receive reduced sen­tences, these indi­vid­u­als agreed to coop­er­ate with the state in ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tions against the envi­ron­men­tal and ani­mal rights move­ments. Those indi­vid­u­als are not list­ed here.

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Nathan Block

Joy­an­na Zach­er

In May 2012, Joy­an­na Zach­er (“Sadie”) and Nathan Block (“Exile”) were released from prison and will com­plete their sen­tences at a halfway house.

In June 2007, Sadie and Exile were sen­tenced to 7 years and 8 months impris­on­ment each. For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact their sup­port cam­paign: solidaritywithsadieandexile@gmail.com.
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Daniel McGowan
Daniel was released from prison in Decem­ber 2012.

In June 2007, Daniel McGowan was sen­tenced to sev­en years in prison. Learn more about Daniel at the fol­low­ing web­sites: www.SupportDaniel.org, www.facebook.com/supportdanielmcgowan
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Jonathan Paul
Jonathan was released from prison in Jan­u­ary 2011 and com­plet­ed his sen­tence at a halfway house.

Jonathan Paul was sen­tenced to 51 months. He began his sen­tence in Octo­ber 2007. Jonathan said as he report­ed to prison, “This is way big­ger than us, this is for the ani­mals and the plan­et, we will nev­er suf­fer as much as they do.”
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Justin Solondz #98291–011
FCI Loret­to
Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion
P.O. Box 1000
Loret­to, PA 15940
USA

In ear­ly 2009, Justin Solondz was arrest­ed in Chi­na on local charges, more than three years after he was indict­ed on arson and con­spir­a­cy charges relat­ed to actions in the U.S. claimed by the ELF/ALF. In July 2011, Justin was tak­en into fed­er­al custody upon his expul­sion from Chi­na, after com­plet­ing a prison sen­tence. In March 2012, Justin was sen­tenced to sev­en years in prison.