Kite Line

Our focus for this episode is writing to prisoners. After some prison-related news, we speak with Lukah Revolt, who explains how she went from writing a few political prisoners to writing more than 30 people on the inside. Lukah explains the basics of sending a letter inside, and why it is important to communicate with …

This episode is a conversation with Steve Garrett, who during his time in Ohio's prison system, used the legal loopholes and statutes he learned to challenge the State on its own terms. He shares stories with us about how he used the law to his advantage.

This episode is a conversation with Steve Garrett, who during his time in Ohio’s prison system, used the legal loopholes and statutes he learned to challenge the State on its own terms. He shares stories with us about how he used the law to his advantage.

In this episode, we speak to people with experience with both homelessness and incarceration. Often, there is a cyclical relationship between these two situations. We speak with Forest Gilmore, the director of the Shalom Center here in Bloomington. Forest talks about various barriers that both people who experience homelessness and those who have been incarcerated face. We have conversations with Mike Feltner and Billy Young, both local to Bloomington and both having experienced first hand how incarceration and homelessness can go hand in hand.

In this episode, we speak to people with experience with both homelessness and incarceration. Often, there is a cyclical relationship between these two situations. We speak with Forest Gilmore, the director of the Shalom Center here in Bloomington. Forest talks about various barriers that both people who experience homelessness and those who have been incarcerated …

This week concludes our series on the mass escape from the Woomera immigrant detention center in 2002. Aren Aizura, who helped organize the solidarity camp outside the prison over Easter weekend of that year, tells us more about the aftermath: follow-up organizing with captive refugees, and the Australian government's push to move the prisons to remote, unreachable islands. Despite these new barriers, Aren describes how both refugees and outside supporters continue to build links of communication and solidarity, and shares useful strategies for putting pressure on the companies maintaining these prisons.

In the news section, we pay particular attention to the hunger strike launched last month by Siddique Hasan and Jason Robb, two of the Lucasville 5 who appear in the new Netflix documentary about the revolt and who are now being punished for speaking out.

This week concludes our series on the mass escape from the Woomera immigrant detention center in 2002. Aren Aizura, who helped organize the solidarity camp outside the prison over Easter weekend of that year, tells us more about the aftermath: follow-up organizing with captive refugees, and the Australian government’s push to move the prisons to …

In the second episode of our series on the mass escape from the Woomera refugee detention center in Australia, Aren Aizura parses out the stakes of the protest camp, its participants, and the escalation to the breakout.  From there, Aren moves to the escape itself, the emotional meeting between refugees and outside supporters, and the complicated choices they each faced afterwards.  Although describing a distant experience, his reflections on the importance of prisoners' own agency and the need to go beyond a politics of representation and symbolic protest resonate deeply with the current moment across America.

In the second episode of our series on the mass escape from the Woomera refugee detention center in Australia, Aren Aizura parses out the stakes of the protest camp, its participants, and the escalation to the breakout.  From there, Aren moves to the escape itself, the emotional meeting between refugees and outside supporters, and the …

In 2002, imprisoned refugees inside Australia’s Woomera immigration

prison coordinated with 2500 outside supporters who had pitched camp

outside the facility.  Their coordination allowed them to stage a mass

breakout.  This is the first of three episodes dedicated to telling this

story, from an interview with a participant in the solidarity camp.

It's a vital reminder than in an age of escalating American nationalism

and xenophobia, fences can be torn down and connections can be forged

across walls. Please tune in next week for more of the story.