Black anarchist jailed in switzerland after publishing book of translations
At the beginning of this year, swiss police captured two anarchists & threw them into jail cells. One of them was released before the end of January. The other, Elany, is still held captive; she’s been denied visits, letters, phone calls, medication, & food in line with her vegan diet. More details (in german & english) can be found in these two posts:
Elany is an anti-civ Black anarchist. At the end of 2021, she compiled & published Schwarze Saat — Gesammelte Schriften zum Schwarzen und Indigenen Anarchismus, a 560-page collection of texts by Black & nonblack indigenous anarchists. Elany translated most of the book’s texts from english into german herself. (The PDF is freely available here; physical copies can be purchased here.)
There are two important contexts of Elany’s continued detention which seem to have rarely been mentioned so far. One of them is the generally reactionary & repressive character of the swiss state: built on centuries of profiteering from slavery & colonialism, it has also been closely aligned with the u.s. empire for decades (see the history of crypto ag, swiss surveillance state institutions, & last year’s raid & arrest of an anarchist hacker at the u.s. government’s request). The other is the global counterinsurgency against all efforts for Black autonomy & liberation, especially those which create transnational links enabling coordinated opposition to a global system of oppression — for example, by increasing the accessibility of anti-oppression theory via translation.
