Letter from Isa from the Prison of Lille-Séquedin

Finally I’ve decided to write, four and a half months after my arrest and
imprisonment, because I’ve become incredibly sick of this giant, yet
suffocating cage that haunts us, outside and inside. How can we not think
about the hunts organized against us by police on the outside, like a poison
that spreads, determined to choke revolt and suffocate solidarity? How can
we forget our friends that are being followed and spied upon, arrested and
controlled? How can we ignore a politics of power that seeks the survival of
its own rottenness and mediocrity, that builds the legitimacy of its
governance on the feeling of fear and separation amongst its subjects?

The fear of macabre crime and hordes of barbarians, sometimes spontaneous
sometimes organized, is indispensable for the State to justify a repressive
strategy of security and policing that perpetuates its complete power.
Citizens can sleep soundly, knowing that the State watches and condemns
the criminal pedophiles, the murdering terrorists, the bloodthirsty bandits
that nest in our neighborhoods… The threat is everywhere. And words are
powerful for creating a danger.

The reality is that the economy of fear is a fertile and blooming market.
Surveillance cameras are sprouting around, as are private security
companies. New technologies excel when it comes to security and snitching.
And the police swarm our streets and our transit stations, justice is
mechanical and brisk, the prison of all kinds are flourishing and
overpopulated.

It is clear that the world is divided between honest people on the one side,
and then on the other side the poor, unemployed, documented and
undocumented immigrants, youth, strikers, people without permits, cons of
social welfare, frauds, small traders of the black market, petty thieves,
agitated people who offend and rebel, unruly people who refuse identification
and data profiling, alcoholics, drug users, partisans of fireworks and smokebombs,
prostitutes, depressed people, bruisers, casseurs (hooligans),
saboteurs, lazy people, people interested in subversive readings,
vagabonds... In a world that is governed in favor of honest people, different
and guilty behaviour is not acceptable, and the struggle to be part of the
honest class is admirable and worthy of merit. Work hard, denounce your
neighbors, raise your children to the grandeur of the national identity and be
obedient to the rules of the “party†.

Does such a servile and narrow consciousness of the world really exist? Is
that the sad order that governs us? We’re not dupes and do not play along
with that game. We will not embody these horrors. We will not be
scapegoats nor martyrs. In a society where it’s good to remain silent and
stay in one’s place, revolt can be fought with beatings, walls and barbwire,
and irradiated with the dominant and false discourse, but will not be stopped.
Ideas and critical thought know neither masters nor boundaries and free
spirits will always remain outraged over having to live under the eternal
constraint of the exploiting oppressors and oppressed exploited.

In four months, I’ve explored the female penitentiary of Fleury-Mérogis and
the women’s section of Lille-Séquedin. In a month, I’ll enter the prison of
Rouen... What to say about this unexpected dislocation that jerks our feet off
the ground and our heads out of the clouds to compartmentalize us, to divide
us, to reduce us to a thousand times and spaces, to a thousand places and
realities, in a jumble of “self†, of self image, of multiple misshaped and
amnesic faces?... How to define my uncertain paths between police, justice
and prison?... Every step is a step forward in a jungle of cages that interlock
like Russian dolls, silent and censored. Every step has to be a return to
yourself in order to bring back together the dispersed pieces of your mind,
and to destroy the bars that slowly take shape inside your body. It would be
ridiculous if my prison situation was getting under my skin! To deny our own
consciousness for a paranoia of the State is an act of suicide!

I don’t know exactly how to articulate the power and responsibilities between
judicial and penitentiary authorities. The fact is that my transfer to Séquedin
was “officially†motivated by the drawings I made of my cell and the yard,
with the possibility of damaging the safety of the institution (as a pretext)...
So, a dream of escape is probably the most just reason to keep a prisoner
awake (but anyway, going from there to actually taking that step is a
complicated reality...!) Apparently my immediate transfer to the Parisian
region would be disturbed by this kind of complication: the delicate question
of specially surveilled prisoners (DPS)... Well, if I’m not free by then, there’s
a transfer scheduled to Fresnes in September... In the meanwhile, Rouen is
the only temporary solution that is proposed to me on the way to Paris,
which I’ve accepted because that penitentiary is more accessible to my
relatives. But I won’t forget the precariousness and the illusion of my rights
as a defendant presumed innocent, which until now seem to be concordant
with imprisonment, an investigation on accusations and then my supposed
dangerousness. This implies a reinforced control and justifies my removal
and isolation from my relatives and from my defense.

To illustrate the insignificance of this condition I could for example recount
how I spent two and a half hours in a cage in a police truck, with my hands
cuffed, a few air holes, hardly any daylight, without food or water, until my
arrival at the court in Paris. There I spoke for a few minutes with the lawyer
whom I had not seen since my last transfer and then with an unbearable
headache I was finally interrogated by the judge, knowing I had to look
forward to the same thing on the way back again. That is a thorough and
precise representation of our rights. And that is well known.

To go back a little, arriving in the prison was an terrible shock. After a
nightmare of five days under pressure, under arrest and observation, with
heavy accusations and in proportions which I could not have suspected, the
never ending waiting has started... Until when? After two months I found a
certain balance, linking experiences... But they preferred to break me a bit
more, in a logic of punishment and revenge, and I’ve ended up in Lille-
Séquedin, a modern prison that arose from the earth five years ago.

Once again, I lost my bearings. I ended up in an environment with more
apparent security, smooth, clean, but icy. Long lit-up hallways filled by
cameras behind protective covers, a small soulless yard under video
surveillance, covered in tar and surrounded by a double row of fences and barbwire, a cell with a shower, a television from the State and five electric
power boxes! And to populate this bleak place with ghosts, a rationalization
and discipline of movement, meant to repress life to every extent. The spirit
of this place has strongly combined comfort and cleanliness in the service of
order. The flux and numbers are brought down to a minimum and are strictly
regulated (three walks in the yard for 150 prisoners, limited activities in
small groups). The time in the yard does not exceed the obligatory maximum
per day (one hour and fifteen minutes per half a day). Exchange and
solidarity between prisoners (besides the trade in stamps) are particularly
complicated to develop in an atmosphere where repression is widespread
(even pen and paper are not allowed during yard time)... And not to be
confused, when laundry service is offered it is to avoid disorder and
confusion with clothes hanging from the windows; to avoid the possibility
that prisoners could “re-appropriate†and reshape the place within which
they’re trying to survive...

Elsewhere in this new prison, that is partly managed by a private company
(SIGES - a branch of SODEXHO) that organizes prison labor, the laundry
shift is an essential activity for the women. I think that 1.5 tons of laundry is
washed per day, coming from different prisons in the region. The men have
to work in the kitchen. According to the same principle, Séquedin delivers
meals in trays to all prisons in this zone. The wages are less than 200 Euros
for the women (for a full time job) and 100 Euros more for the men.
Since the opening of a juvenile prison in Quiévrechain, the juvenile wing of
Séquedin has been closed. Now they are working to make it an ultra-secure
wing. The security network progresses blindly: a new row of barbwire was
recently added to the outside wall, the underground piping for the sewer was
equipped with bars, etc… I compare this pacified banality with the
penitentiary institution for women in Fleury, which has its history, its
struggles, its evolutions, its accomplishments... And what characterizes the
old prisons, like “collective†showers or the distribution of warm water in the
morning… Sunday afternoon the yard time is extended to three hours with
the authorization of a “picnic†. And never will a guard set foot in the yard…
In fact, the façade is more apparent in the absolute.

At Séquedin, it’s like separation and erasure work on their own. Seldom do
you hear prisoners banging in unison on the doors. But I hope that the
women’s wing will be shaken in the future by the refusal of resignation,
conquering new “rights†and freedoms, here and elsewhere. And finally, that
these institutions of imprisonment everywhere are torn down. At this
moment I am still waiting, but with more confidence and a progressive
understanding of the mechanisms used to try to control us…
The struggle
continues!

Isa, May 2008.

* After Isa was transferred from Lille-Séquedin to the prison of Rouen, she
spent 10 days in total isolation in mid July of 2008 as a result of being
pointed out by the prison administration as being the “leader†of a yard
occupation in response to the brutal beating of a prisoner.