The Union for the Rights of Prisoners (UfRP) was founded in 2022 inside the prison and is the only association of criminal prisoners in Austria. All regular members are currently incarcerated; they are supported by extraordinary members on the outside who work as volunteers.
The Union advocates for the collective and individual rights of prisoners and raises public awareness about their situation. By doing this the Union challenges the incarceration system and questions how systemic violence and inequality are part and parcel of how the punitive justice system affects social groups differently. Ergo, they connect the dots between social, racial and economical systemic positioning with criminalisation, namely linking classism and racism with unlawful imprisonments, the overwhelming power and brutality of institutions and the systems of control and violence that they uphold.
In their day-to-day work UfRP support prisoners in accessing their legally guaranteed rights, critiquing laws restricting prisoners’ human rights, and responding to direct quests arising from specific clusterfucks of the prison system. They anchor their narrative on abolitionism in the pursuit of imagining alternatives to the current punitive model. Additionally, the Union supports the families of prisoners, who are indirectly punished by the prison system. It works closely with the radio show “Café LG – Greetings and Information for Prisoners”, the only program in Austria where relatives and friends can send messages to prisoners.
The Union and Café LG’s work can be seen as a collective effort to break the loop of isolation and invisibility of prisoners. How? by establishing channels where information, stories, situations and contexts are shared from/to inside and outside the prison.
Particularly their activities include:
- Short information blocks for prisoners in the radio show “Café LG” (weekly, mostly at least bilingual)
- Organization of meetings to write letters to prison(er)s (monthly)
- Answering requests of prisoners and their relatives, drafting requests and complaints
- Collecting information on legal and practical developments of the prison system
- Publishing information and positions on their website, Instagram, and Facebook
- Communication with journalists and other opinion leaders
- Organizing public events (discussions, movie screenings, manifestations)
- Networking with other organizations in the field
The Guerrilla Grant
With the grant, this crew will begin a cooperation with a lawyer or student with legal knowledge about the Austrian penal system to gather, consolidate or review information that they have already collected around the workings of the penal system. They will use that knowledge to support prisoners’ particular situations and disseminate their findings to the wider public, namely by:
- Translating the consolidated information into the most relevant languages for prisoners in Austria (Serb-croatian, Arabic, English, Turkish, Romanian);
- Spreading it via a periodical newspaper distributed in prison (Menschen&Rechte), at the radio show “Café LG”, in UfRP’s social media (which will be particularly useful to relatives since prisoners in Austria do not have access to the Internet) as well as a newsletter they plan to create.
- Cooperating with prison libraries to display their newsletter in such places.
Additionally they want to create and join transnational and international networks that support prisoners working equally with systemic and daily, practical support and dissemination of the penal system. While they are well connected with these organizations in Austria, up to now, they don’t have the financial means to hold up contacts with outer national organizations. They are currently beginning a cooperation with a program of the Central European University placing interns at civil society initiatives for this activity. For spring 2026, it is planned that a student will collect data on international initiatives and with that list the Union will then use part of the funding for invitations or visits.
In line with building community with values and goal-aligned groups, UfRP wants to organize a networking event in Vienna as part of a bigger thematic event to increase public awareness for the situation of prisoners and challenge the penal system. As they are in close contact with Mansoor Adayfi, Ex-Guantánamo prisoner and coordinator of the Guantánamo project of Cage as well as with collaborators at Cage Austria, one idea for this event is to organize an exhibition of artworks from Guantánamo, possibly combined with artworks from Austrian prisons.
With the diversification and general increase of activities they expect that this will not only create buzz that will support their cause but also that it will lead to more donations and membership fees for their organization, making it a more sustainable activity.
