An Innocent Man Held Prisoner in France, the injustice that holds him....     |     home Free Barry Info   |   Latest Newsletter   |   Report from Lars   |   Contact Us   |   Our Objective   |   Write to Barry   |   Crisis in The French Gulag   |   Pictures   |   In Memory of Sydney Latest Newsletter BARRY'S NEWSLETTER, 12 January 2003 Today, with the holidays over, and after a week of bitter cold - the Clairvaux hotelkeeper told us it was -15* centigrade Friday night, and this morning the thermometer in our car read -10* centigrade - there were very few visitors. On Saturday afternoon there were only two people besides ourselves, and they had to leave early. The guard on duty was a strict rule observer. He made Barry leave while the other visitors left even though the three of us were the only ones in the visiting room, and four guards arrived for this early departure. We decided that it was those Evleth typical criminal faces that did it, too much for those four poor guards. In fact, it was a banner day for the rules. The no smoking rule, posted in red letters in the visiting room, was obeyed for the first time we have seen since the sign went up. None of the three of us smokes. We talked a bit about TV in prison, cable TV in particular, which has drawn a lot of complaint in the US as coddling prisoners at taxpayer expense. Barry laughs over this. Here in France the prisoners have cable TV, but the taxpayers have nothing to do with it. The prisoners rent the TVs from a "prisoner welfare association" run by the guards. The TVs rent for 32 euros a month, which quickly amortizes the price of the TVs, which themselves last for years. Profits from the TV rentals are supposed to be used to provide things for the prisoners, but Barry says they don't see much. A few soccer balls, that's all. On the other hand, the TV provides some programs which offer the prisoners intellectual stimulation. Barry gave an example. A lifer at Clairvaux became interested in birds and insects through watching Planete, an educational channel. He got so interested that he took the trouble to learn a lot more about them, and now, when he is out in the prison yard, he "talks" to them. A lot of the prisoners who hear him doing this think he is crazy, but Barry, who has talked to him, knows better. When this guy imitates the bird or insect sounds, they actually answer back, Barry says. Barry really enjoyed the lamb roast we brought him for New Year's. He got it Tuesday evening, and made it stretch until Friday, because it was so good. Only one problem: Barry also wrote to Lars raving about how good the lamb was, and now I must do one for him the next time he comes to Paris. The cold weather has kept Barry indoors a lot, but he has kept busy. With the encouragement of his guitar teacher, the prisoner from La Reunion, he has written two songs, and they have recorded them, using the recording device that came with Barry's Spanish lessons and the other man's tape recorder. The tape recorder was disabled by the prison authorities so it would not record, but the man from La Reunion has tinkered with it, and with some creative use of wire, has gotten it to work again. As Barry says, "There's no use forbidding such things, they will always find a way around it." These two are eventually hoping to fill a whole cassette with Barry's songs. ************************ Earl & Donna Evleth