Ann Hansen
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Ann Hansen is a Canadian anarchist and former member of Direct Action, a guerrilla organization known for the 1982 bombing of a Litton Industries plant, which made components for American cruise missiles. After her arrest she was sentenced to life in prison and was released on parole after seven years. Hansen wrote of her experiences in her 2002 book, Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerrilla. She is a prison rights activist and released her book Taking the Rap: Women Doing Time for Society's Crimes in 2018.
Direct ActionEdit
By the late 1970s, Hansen was living in Toronto, where she met Brent Taylor. She then moved to Vancouver and began a relationship with Taylor.<ref name="Beadle">Template:Cite journal</ref> They decided to form a guerrilla organization named Direct Action, with the addition of Doug Stewart, Julie Belmas and Gerry Hannah, local fixtures of Vancouver's punk scene. The group carried out militant actions which included an attack on a BC Hydro substation on Vancouver Island and the Litton Industries bombing in Toronto.<ref name="Beadle" /> The Litton Industries site was preparing to build components for US cruise missiles and the explosion played a part in Litton losing the contract.<ref name="Shantz">Template:Cite journal</ref> Hansen, as a member of a separate group known as the Wimmin’s Fire Brigade, later fire-bombed several Red Hot Video stores in Vancouver which sold hardcore porn.<ref name="Reimer">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Hansen and other members of Direct Action were arrested in 1983 and she was remanded to Oakalla Prison in British Columbia. After being sentenced to life imprisonment, she was moved to Kingston Prison for Women and later the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener.<ref name="QQ">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> She was struck by the number of prisoners who were indigenous or black.<ref name="CBC-screams" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Hansen was released on parole after seven years.<ref name="QQ" /> Hansen released a memoir entitled Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerrilla in 2001.<ref name="Beadle" />
ActivismEdit
In August 2012, Hansen was arrested and imprisoned for alleged parole violations after she had organised a film screening at public library in Kingston, Ontario at which a lawyer gave a direct action workshop.<ref name="MC" /> She was held again at the Grand Valley Institution for Women.<ref name="CC" /> She was released with stricter parole conditions in October.<ref name="MC">Template:Cite news</ref>
After writing the book Taking the Rap: Women Doing Time for Society's Crimes about her experiences of incarceration, Hansen made a speaking tour of Canada, talking at the University of British Columbia, Capilano University, Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU), the University of Winnipeg and the Magnus Eliason Recreation Centre in Winnipeg, amongst other places.<ref name="CC">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="CBC-screams">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="UW">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Hansen is part of the P4W Memorial Collective, which campaigns for the preservation of the former Kingston Prison for Women, where she was previously incarcerated.<ref name="GM">Template:Cite news</ref> When the building was redeveloped, the group requested a memorial garden be built to remember those women who were imprisoned there.<ref name="CBC-garden">Template:Cite news</ref> Hansen participated in 2020 as a speaker in the event Untold stories on Kingston Penitentiary Tours: An online panel discussion.<ref name="Panel">Template:Cite news</ref>
Hansen donated her personal papers to the University of Victoria Libraries' Special Collections & University Archives' Anarchist Archives in 2011.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Selected worksEdit
- Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerrilla. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2001. (Template:ISBN).
- (with Julie Belmas) "This Is Not A Love Story: Armed Struggle Against The Institutions Of Patriarchy" in Disorderly Conduct 5, 2002.
- "Armed Struggle, Guerilla Warfare, and the Social Movement Influences on 'Direct Action'" in (eds) Nocella, A. and Best, S. Igniting a revolution: Voices in defense of earth, AK Press. 2006. (Template:ISBN)
- Taking the Rap: Women Doing Time for Society's Crimes. 2018. (Template:ISBN).
- Foreword to Remembering the Armed Struggle: My Time with the Red Army Faction by Margrit Schiller. 2021 (Template:ISBN).
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
- This Is Not A Love Story: Armed Struggle Against The Institutions Of Patriarchy at The Anarchist Library (co-written by Julie Belmas & Ann Hansen)
- in German: Reece Sonable: Anarchismus in Kanada. Indigener Widerstand, G8-Gipfel und Ann Hansen. Ein Interview. In Graswurzelrevolution, 337, 2009, p 3