PUBLIC LETTER FROM PRISON BY ENRIC DURAN

To defend my liberty is to defend the free and serious debate about what model of society we want.

The prosecutor, representing 19 of the 39 banks and financial institutions which I expropriated, has taken me to preventive prison arguing that "the facts are serious" and that "there is risk of escape".

The banks dare to classify my action as serious when it is their creation of money without a real base, and their thoughtless financial speculation what has produced:

• That they have needed loans from public money for an amount 100.000 times larger than the sum they are claiming from me.
• That, as a result of this financial system, the last years have been the most destructive for ecosystems, and the greater exhaustion of fossil resources and minerals. A growing destruction to which we are condemned by a system that needs to keep growing in order to function, to plunder nature more and more in order to support itself.
• That unemployment has reached 17% of the population and goes on rising.
• That millions of people are loosing their homes and businesses since they cannot afford their debts, remaining condemned debtors for life.

What I have done together with the thousands of people and groups who have collaborated with the publications CRISIS of 17-S (*) and WE CAN LIVE WITHOUT CAPITALISM of 17-M (**) has been to generate the necessary social debate about the model of society that we want, in a moment of structural crisis which is the best opportunity that we all have in order to change the course before it is too late.

Serious is then the situation to which we have been taken by the bank as spearhead of an outdated system sailing towards the precipice. My action has only been a way to place the matter over the table, an action, let's remember, that the same banks who are accusing me now played down its importance or denied in September when we made it known publicly and they believed it was possible to put us quiet.

On the other hand, concerning the supposed risk of escape, we must remember:

How did they get to know about my action?
Because I made it known publicly.

How could they arrest me?
Because I appeared in public for a press conference at the UB (***); in the same place where I was taken to the following day, hours after they got a detention order.

Consequently, I did not escape from justice, since it passed only a few hours between the order and the detention act.

Risk of escape? It is so for the banks, those that want to escape from analysis, in order to evade our fingers pointing to them as the problem.

The real reason for my preventive imprisonment is no other than the danger to the financial and political power represented by my public presence, with a strong, clear and convincing speech is more than what they can assume. It is the same speech as on the publication WE CAN LIVE WITHOUT CAPITALISM that is producing these days a big social debate.

Mine is a voice as many voices, but symbolizes right now the disobedience to the banks, to the growth, and the ensemble of the present system in crisis. It is a disobedience that places in evidence the submissive attitude of the political class. That is why I have been put in jail, which is why to defend my liberty is to defend freedom of speech and the free debate concerning the model of society that we want, that gives an answer to the actual systemic crisis.

For, more and more people and more diverse, think that we can live better without capitalism, and that we can be here and now the change that we want!

ENRIC DURAN

20/03/09

Translator Note:
(*) September 17th
(**) March 17th
(***) University of Barcelona