Welcome to the Books 2 Prisoners Website!  Feel free to browse our pages to see what we are up to and if you see an event that peaks your interest or want to drop in on one of our Letter Writing Nights, don’t hesitate!  All are welcome! 

If you have any questions or want to learn more about B2P, see our Contact Us Page! 

————————————————————————————————————Important Upcoming Dates:

-Letter Writing Night: Writing to Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War
(Monday, July 28 at 7:30pm @ Daily Grind, 601 Somerset E.)

Tuesday, August 14th at 7pm McNabb Community Centre 180 Percy St. Corner of Gladstone and Percy

A panel with:

Nahla Abdo Byron Sonne Ryan Rainville

There are political prisoners in Canada and around the world.  Most recently many activists were arrested and a small number of them charged for their political activities.  There was a clear increase in the scope and level of repression that the Canadian state was willing to engage in to suppress and criminalize dissent.  Examples include Roger Clement who is serving a four year sentence for his role in the arson of a Royal Bank of Canada and mischief over $5000 to a different RBC, and Amanda Hiscocks, who is currently serving a two year sentence for her organizing against the G20 in Toronto in 2010. 

However, indigenous people in Canada and the Americas have been resisting colonization for 500+ years, and have and continue to face some of the harshest and most brutal political repression of their struggles for justice, dignity and self-determination.  Similarly indigenous palestinians have been resisting British and subsequently Jewish and Israeli colonization of their land and lives since at least the 1920s.  Palestinians in Palestine as well as the diaspora continue to endure some of the worst conditions on the planet.  And yet in spite of the vicious repression that indigenous people in Canada, Palestine and around the world experience they also continue to provide an inspiring example of resistance for everyone struggling for social justice and liberation. 

Nahla Abdo is a professor at Carleton University. 

Byron Sonne was arrested on June 22, 2010, Byron was arrested in his home in Forest Hill, Toronto in relation to the G20 Summit.  After his arrest, Byron was charged with six offenses and held without bail for a total of 330 days.  At trial, all charges were dismissed and he was found not guilty. 

Ryan Rainville was arrested on August 5th and released on strict bail conditions on November 9th.  On Monday Dec. 5th, 2011 Ryan Rainville received a conditional sentence of 4 months under house arrest, followed by 4 months curfew and then one year probation.  Ryan had plead guilty to 3 counts of Mischief over $5000 for using a red and black flag and a hammer to destroy Toronto Police cruisers during the G20 riot last year.  He also plead guilty to a Breach of Peace. 

Love and Struggle
This event will include music, speakers and is a book launch
for David Gilbert's new book, "Love and Struggle: My life in
the SDS, Weather Underground and Beyond". 
Thursday, Feb. 9
7pm - Midnight
SAW Gallery
67 Nicholas
Wheelchair Accessible
This event is a fund raiser for Books 2 Prisoners and Red Aide/Secours Rouge
Books 2 Prisoners will be collecting new and gently used soft cover books. 
$7 or pay what you can/$20 with a copy of the book
(No one turned away)
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Bands:
Faye Estrella (Spoken Word)
Police Funeral (Punk)
Justin Dea (Folk)
Jeremy Owen (Folk)
Elton (Folk)
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Speakers:
- Representative from the Revolutionary Communist Party who will be speaking about GAMMA, the newly
formed anti-anarchist and anti-communist police unit in Montreal
- Matt Morgan-Brown from Books 2 Prisoners who will be speaking about prisoner justice, as well as
the issue of political prisoners and the role of white anti-racism in struggles for social justice. 
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$7, or pay what you can.  No one will be turned away
This event is also a fundraiser for Books 2 Prisoners and Canadian Red Aide/Secours Rouge du Canada. 
Sponsored by OPIRG-Carleton
More info about David Gilbert and his new book, "Love and Struggle". 
A nice Jewish boy from suburban Boston—hell, an Eagle Scout!—David Gilbert arrived at Columbia
University just in time for the explosive Sixties.  From the early anti-Vietnam War protests to the
founding of SDS, from the Columbia Strike to the tragedy of the Townhouse, Gilbert was on the scene: as
organizer, theoretician, and above all, activist. He was among the first militants who went underground
to build the clandestine resistance to war and racism known as “Weatherman.”  And he was among the last
to emerge, in captivity, after the disaster of the1981 Brinks robbery, an attempted expropriation that
resulted in four deaths and long prison terms.  In this extraordinary memoir, written from the
maximum-security prison where he has lived for almost thirty years, David Gilbert tells the intensely
personal story of his own Long March from liberal to radical to revolutionary. 
Today a beloved and admired mentor to a new generation of activists,he assesses with rare humor, with
an understanding stripped of illusions, and with uncommon candor the errors and advances, terrors and
triumphs of the Sixties and beyond.  It’s a battle that was far from won, but is still not lost: the
struggle to build a new world,and the love that drives that effort.  A cautionary tale and a how-to as
well, Love and Struggle is a book as candid, as uncompromising, and as humane as its author. 
Praise:
"Gilbert adds heart and bone to the stuff of history." — Mumia Abu Jamal
"Required reading for anyone interested in the history of radical movements in this country.  An honest,
vivid portrait of a life spent passionately fighting for justice.  In telling his story, Gilbert also
reveals the history of left struggles in the 1960s and 70s, and imparts important lessons for today's
activists." — Jordan Flaherty,author of Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena
Six
“David’s is a unique and necessary voice forged in the growing American gulag, the underbelly of the
'land of the free,' offering a focused and unassailable critique as well as a vision of a world that
could be but is not yet—a place of peace and love, joy and justice. ”—Bill Ayers, author of Fugitive
Days and Teaching Toward Freedom
“Like many of his contemporaries, David Gilbert gambled his life on a vision of a more just and
generous world.  His particular bet cost him the last three decades in prison, and whether or not you
agree with his youthful decision, you can be the beneficiary of his years of deep thought, reflection,
and analysis on the reality we all share.  If there is any benefit to prison, what some refer to as
‘the involuntary monastery,’ it may well look like this book.  I urge you to read it. ”—Peter Coyote,
actor, author of Sleeping Where I Fall
"This book should stimulate learning from our political prisoners, but more importantly it challenges
us to work to free them, and in doing so take the best of our history forward." — Susan Rosenberg,
author of An American Radical
About the Author:
One of America’s most celebrated political prisoners since his appearance in the Academy Award
nominated film, The Weather Underground, David Gilbert is also the author of No Surrender, a book of
essays on politics and history.  He can be reached at NY’s Auburn Correctional Facility as 83-A-6158. 
About Boots Riley (foreword):
A popular leader in the progressive struggle for radical change through culture, Boots Riley is best
known as the leader of The Coup,the seminal hip-hop group from Oakland, CA.  Billboard Magazine declared
the group "the best hip-hop act of the past decade."  Riley recently teamed with Tom Morello (of Rage
Against the Machine) to form the revolutionary new group, Street Sweeper Social Club. 
https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=370

Books to Prisoners Ottawa is a collective at OPIRG
Carleton.  We collect book donations that are then sent
into jails and prisons for prisoners. 

We are in need of good quality (gently used or new),
soft-cover books to send into the Ottawa Carleton
Detention Centre (aka the Ottawa jail).  The jail recently
re-opened their library and they are in need of books
to distribute to prisoners.