Indonesia's corrupt prison system provides inadequate food rations and forces prisoners to pay for it themselves
The Prisoners Union (Serikat Tahanan) was officially assembled on July 17 2023, started by the initiatives of six inmates from six correctional institutions in Indonesia. Now, Serikat Tahanan represents eleven detainees ranging from arsoning cases, vandalism for incitement to riots, and marijuana and other types of drug use.
We have been writing, or at least learning to write, our own experiences and thoughts inside the prison. We want to publish these writings but, of course, we don’t have money. Indonesia's corrupt prison system provides inadequate food rations and forces prisoners to pay for it themselves. All these time we have been living off solidarity from comrades outside prison as it's almost impossible for us to work. Lack of funds and bribe-ridden prison conditions worsen our lives and hamper our writing project. We will use the proceeds from book sales to run the program that has been determined and run by the prisoners themselves.
Therefore we ask the international anti-authoritarian activists, anarchists, anti-fascists and abolitionist networks to stand in solidarity in our efforts to publish our writings.