Nineteen members of the anarchist group Rouvikonas were arrested on Monday following the occupation of the building housing the political office of Independent Greeks, a far-right political party that's part of the current coalition government. According to witnesses, nearby streets were blocked by police vans while riot police guarded all entrances into the building. The arrestees are indicted on misdemeanor charges for disturbing the peace and illegal space occupation, while their reluctance to have their photographs taken could result in charges of disobedience.
Excerpts of the announcement made by the anarchist group follow below:
''The majority, the weak, those who are always paying the price are called once again to contribute to the exit from a crisis created by the segregation of wealth in the hands of a minority. Since 2010 people have endured an unprecedented violation of basic rights won through struggles and sacrifices. The government policies leading to unemployment, starvation salaries, extreme taxation and impoverishment, aim to enforce regulations that will benefit the capital and increase the earnings of a domestic and foreign elite. The government presented these policies as inevitable, necessary and a duty.
We already went through the first memorandum imposed by the PASOK government, by politicians who had publicly stated that ''there is enough money''. Then followed the second memorandum of the coalition government PASOK-New Democracy who had promised a hard negotiation with the loan sharks. Finally, the third memorandum was introduced by the Syriza-Independent Greeks coalition government, despite their promise to ''tear the memorandum''. The president of the Independent Greeks had specifically and emphatically said that he will not tolerate the imposition of new taxes but he obviously changed his mind after the elections.
(...)
The capitalist system will always find new tricks when the old ones are no longer effective for the promotion of its own interests. We witnessed the management of the state authority by different political parties in succession, parties that initially appeared as the saviours of the people but essentially served the interests of the capital. The latest trick is the Syriza-Independent Greeks coalition government that's been branded as pro-grassroots. But its role was always the same: to mitigate social struggles, which could not be done by authority-worn political parties. When the current government fails, the tactic of universal management is to be deployed next. The first signs of universal management are revealed in the votes in favour of the third memorandum by the entire political system and the ongoing pleas of New Democracy towards Syriza to form a coalition government (before the elections).
The hypocrisy is apparent in the position of Independent Greeks as well as Syriza, which for years seemed to be having irreconcilable differences only to forget everything overnight in the prospect of gaining and sharing power.
The role of Independent Greeks in this government is on the one hand to reassure the most conservative segments of society through various communicational absurdities such as the prevention of building a mosque in Eleonas area, the dropping of a flower wreath above Imia and the tragicomic ceremony in Salamis. On the other hand, on the level of geopolitics, Independent Greeks are to reassure the U.S., the E.U. and the N.A.T.O. with positive remarks on the creation of a new N.A.T.O. base in the Aegean and the provision of support to the Ukrainian state via the healthcare treatment of Ukrainian nazi paramilitaries in Greek military hospitals.
At the same time, as the lives of workers are becoming more difficult, so the lives of imprisoned fighters are worsening through the implementation of unprecedented harsh measures that even the military jounta did not implement.
Specifically, the mothers, sisters and wives of fighters are put in jail and even after release they are ostracized in islands -Athena Tsakalou is forced to remain within the limits of Salamina island- or are forced to live within the confines of an imaginary barbed-wire 1km away from their homes- such as the case of Evi Statiri's conditional release.
It's obvious that these decisions are political in their nature and judicial in their position, which is why we DEMAND the cancellation of the restrictive conditions imposed upon Athena Tsakalou and Evi Statiri and the release of Maria Theofilou, wife of G.Petrakakos. We also DEMAND the immediate release of polytrauma patient Savvas Xiros and the immediate granting of educational furloughs to the student Nikos Romanos.
In today's political circumstances speaking about solutions and finding ways out seems difficult. Whatever course of action is chosen if this deviates from the one determined by the centres of power of the ruling classs, we are to face a ruthless war. We think that in this stage, people and society in general, must fulfill their part in the context of class war, which must be intensified.
On the financial level, refusing to pay and opposing unfair taxes and measures such as the property tax ENFIA, the ''solidarity'' contribution and the house auctions of citizens' first home, is a weapon whose co-ordinated use by large segments of society can destabilize the state and its mechanisms.''
NO NEGOTIATION WITH THE DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL
RESIST THE NEW MEASURES
GET OUT ON THE STREETS
(via BlackCat)
"…modern totalitarianism can be defined as the establishment, by means of the state of exception, of a legal civil war that allows for the physical elimination not only of political adversaries but of entire categories of citizens who for some reason cannot be integrated into the political system. … Since then, the voluntary creation of a permanent state of emergency (though perhaps not declared in the technical sense) has become one of the essential practices of contemporary states, including so-called democratic ones."
- Giorgio Agamben (State of Exception: The State of Exception as a Paradigm of Government)
After the discovery of the anarchist organization’s Conspiracy of Cells of Fire escape plan, from Koridallos Prison, at the beginning of the year, the “benevolent” institution of Alexandras avenue and the, several times, corrupted Counter Terrorism Unit (Special Violent Crime Squad) coordinated an unprecedented attack against the organization’s relatives and friendly environment, which was attended by the equivalent propaganda, during the election period. Two months later, after detentions, arrests and calls for interrogation to family and friends, on March 2nd, the crescendo of this media dissonance reached its highest point when the Counter Terrorism Unit puppets landed to Salamina island and arrested the wanted comrade Aggeliki Spiropoulou, who sought refuge to the home of Athena Tsakalou, mother of Christos and Gerasimos Tsakalos, imprisoned C.C.F. members, while, during Aggeliki’s arrest, Gerasimos’ wife, Evi Statiri, was also at home, and was also arrested on charges of harboring a criminal, that was later upgraded to accession and participation in the organization. The two women are transferred like cop’s trophies to GADA, among cameras and crime reporters and are pre-trial detained, under a fast-track procedure. The 60-year-old mother of the Tsakalos brothers, who – unasked – came along to the prosecutor in charge, was also pre-trial detained. The imprisoned members of the organization and A. Spiropoulou declared the beginning of a hunger strike, demanding only the immediate release of their relatives. After 32 days of a hard hunger strike, the comrades’ and the solidarity movement’s struggle is victorious, since a specific amendment is passed in the Parliament, concerning the release of detainees’ relatives. However, despite the release of Ath. Tsakalou under the most serious restrictive conditions, Evi Statiri remains imprisoned, as her successive requests for release, are emotively rejected by the special appellate magistrate Eftihis Nikopoulos and the judicial councils under the presidency of Isidora Poga (she also rejected the request for lifting of the restrictive conditions of A. Tsakalou, on the grounds that there’s no reason for her to visit her children in prison as well as going to the Nikaia General Hospital, to do a necessary medical examination) and Erieta Halevidou.
From the above, we come to the conclusion that the passing of the amendment was a gross persiflage of the hunger strikers – for which the first-time-left SYRIZA government’s Minister of Justice, Nikos Paraskevopoulos, bears personal responsibility – and that the organization members’ relatives’ hostage situation is an insidious emotional blackmail by the law enforcement authorities – whose prestige had been damaged by the discovery of the escape plan – against the imprisoned comrades, who, all these years, remain uncompromising in the cells of Democracy. For those who are aware of the CCF case, it is clear that the prosecution of the organization members’ relatives, was the peak of an escalating treaty, formed in the recent years by the police-judicial complex of the Greek state, which uses the specific case as a tank of prosecutions against anarchist comrades from the whole spectrum of the anarchist milieu and seek to isolate the imprisoned urban guerrillas, establish fear within the insurrectional circles, through making the detainees an example and through their persistent hostage situation of the restrictive conditions imposed, and prevent new comrades from the choices of the anarchist fight and the urban guerrilla warfare, creating this way a permanent state of emergency, in which everyone can be imprisoned, just because they are related to C.C.F. as comrades – friends – relatives.
So, after 6 months of pre-trial detention, on September 14th, 2015, Evi Statiri begins a hunger strike, in order to put an end to her continuing captivity… Within the frame of Evi’s struggle, early morning of Friday, October 2nd, we chose to attack the office of the Member of Parliament and former Minister of Justice, Charalabos Athanasiou, in the center of Mytilene.
Our attack was an act of solidarity, rage and memory. It was a solidarity signal to Evi who, during those days, with her body as a weapon, asserted her freedom, against the criminalization of the family and friendly relationships of the political prisoners. Evi stood up towards the fear of the Authority’s shadow, that wished to wreak its revenge on her companion, Gerasimos Tsakalos, and punish her for the years she has stood by him. Her victorious hunger strike and her release proved that if you choose to face the fear straight in the eyes, fear will be scared and will retreat…
It was an act of rage for the days and the work of Ch. Athanasiou. Athanasiou, as a modern inquisitor, is the head of a judicial clique (among which also is the Advocate of the Supreme Court E. Goutzamani, who from the same place as Athanasiou) that, through scheming and machinations “set” judicial cases, do favors to their own people, extort in the interests of the conservative oligarchy of the mobsters of Mount Athos (Efraim case) and the loathsome priesthood… In spite of the leaks of the ND (New Democracy) Press Office on his forthcoming dismissal from the ministerial chair, during the government reshuffle of that period, due to his “inexpedient” handling of the Golden Dawn case, the former president of the Union of Magistrates and Prosecutors remained in place as political supervisor of the Greek Justice, in some mysterious way, pertained to the godparenthood of Antonis Samaras’ kinfolk with a local lobby of magnates and personal friends. After covering the accounting scandal in which he played a leading part, through the concealment of his assets, Athanasiou purports to be the chastiser of the dissidents and the political prisoners. He was the Minister of Justice who inaugurated the high-security prisons (type C), in Domokos, for urban guerrillas and “dangerous” convicts serving long sentences. Even after his retirement from the ministry, he attended to let his foster children in the appropriate posts of power, in order for them to complete his work. King of the castle, the special appellate magistrate E. Nikopoulos (planted in this position by Athanasiou and his uncle Vasilis Nikopoulos, former president of the Supreme Court, who is involved in a pedophilia case in Northern Greece, defending an Archimandrite and threatening witnesses). E. Nikopoulos, strictly following the instructions of his mentor Ch. Athanasiou, launches a fierce counter-terrorism campaign. He is responsible for the shut-off of anarchist Nikos Romanos’ educational leaves, as well as initiator of the most fascist persecution of relatives of political prisoners, with the pre-trial detaining of A. Tsakalou and E. Statiri.
It was an act of memory, as the persecution of political prisoners’ relatives, the new places of exile and the murdering restrictive orders (ban on leaving the Salamina island for A. Tsakalou, ban on distancing over 1km away from her home and ban on the communication with her companion G. Tsakalos for E. Statiri) bring back in mind other iron-clad periods. Periods during which thousands of people were transferred to Makronisos island, to Ai Stratis and other places of oblivion, for the regime fear to win. Periods during which the family of Athanasiou worked with the Germans snitching on guerrillas. In fact his father, who was a well-known traitor, when captivated by guerrillas, was spared… It seems that spying was the legacy left by the father to his son, who’s today, in turn, chasing anarchists.
Moreover, we’re sending another message, through our attack: The responsibilities of those who serve the power are neither forgotten nor are retired… Those who play with our comrades’ lives, who built walls and raise bars in order to keep us apart, those who have blood on their gown, should not feel secure, never and nowhere… Our enemy always has a name and an address!
Evi’s victorious struggle is just a snapshot of the overall fight that we want to give… From Mytilene to Agrinio, from Komotini to Crete, messengers of the insurrection and anarchy sabotage the regularity of a life going by so confidently and so painfully, like a well-tuned clock… From the attacks against courts and pre-election political parties’ kiosks to the squat of the TEI of Athens, from the open assemblies to the vandalism of election centers, from the street and squares interventions to the gatherings, from the comrade’s G. Tsakalos hunger strike in solidarity to the attempt of squat of governing party offices (ANEL) in the center of Athens, from the banners, the posters, to the gathering outside the hospital where Evi was hospitalized, this is our world against theirs, against the laws, the judges and their uniforms… We are the provocateurs of their peaceful sleeping, we are the practical theory of the insurrection, we are the first waves before the tsunami that will drown out the authoritarian culture!
"So the bet remains to us, every anarchist cell and individuality that promotes continuous attack and rebellion, to prove that there will be no truce with the enemy neither now nor ever. Particularly in times of repressive operations one does not step back, but instead reignites the attack outbreaks in order to become truly dangerous. To remain a threat as an internal enemy at the heart of the system. Because everything that rolls downhill, stops only when it finds an obstacle in front of it, otherwise it will continue to do so indefinitely by continuously increasing speed, carrying away anything of inferior proportions. It is a live bet, without end, but with continuity, evolution and one direction only… liberation, anarchy."
- Olga Ekonomidou, imprisoned member of C.C.F. – F.A.I.
WHOEVER FORGETS THE PRISONERS OF THE ANARCHIST – REVOLUTIONARY WAR, WILL SOON FORGET THE WAR ITSELF
SOLIDARITY AND STRENGTH TO THE ANARCHISTS OF PRAXIS ALL OVER THE WORLD
FREEDOM TO THE POLITICAL PRISONERS
HONOUR FOR EVER TO SPIROS DRAVILAS
Insurrectionals from the Frontier
PS.1. The rumors that human lives were put in danger are totally untrue, as the only inhabited apartment is on the 5th floor and has immediate access to neighboring rooftop. We suggest your sending the cost of the damage suffered by the communal area of the building and the dentist, to the Charity Shops of the Metropolis of Mytilene, guild of which Athanasiou and Gkoutzamani are founding members. We think that the Metropolitan Jacob and all together with him, will be glad to launder “black” money from their funny businesses, with a donation…
2. Given that, lately, after the transition of dozens of riot police officers, the island has turned into a vast pigsty, which is common knowledge, the local decision makers along with the local lobotomized citizens – who are sometimes being emotively disinterested, sometimes express their xenophobic gregarious instincts and sometimes benefit, through a vulgar toutism, from the refugee crisis, should keep in mind that their disgraces do not go unnoticed, their moves are being noted and, sooner or later, they will face the cost of their choices…
(via Inter Arma)
On Saturday 19/9 at dawn, we tried to disrupt even temporarily the conformism of the petty masses. As the crowd was sharpening its passivity, ready once again to show its complicity by supporting the authoritarian structure, we tried to actively declare our complicity with the anarchist prisoners, who carry out their own fight against the isolation and alienation their are subjected to in the condition of imprisonment.
Evi Statiri, partner of Gerasimos Tsakalos, is on a hunger strike since 14/9 demanding only the termination of her unjustified detention. Evi Satiri, victim of the authority’s generalized power expansion strategy is imprisoned in the cells of democracy since 2/3 when she was arrested together with Angeliki Spyropoulou and Athena Tsakalou in Salamina and is accused of being member of a terrorist organization without any evidence whatsoever . It is certain that Evi is not held hostage by the state by accident. Authority, beyond the psychological test to which it wishes to put the comrades of CCF in order to avenge them for their consistent and uncompromising aggressive attitude, has a much more dangerous target in its plans. The democratic totalitarianism of order, legality, safety, quietness, commodities, and economic domination wants to eliminate everything that questions the choices which the masses are allowed to consume from its one-dimensional reality of the spectacle.
The total expansion of a reality with predefined movement limits doesn’t allow its questioning, much more the transfer from the abstract space of ideas to the physical armed confrontation with the materializations of institutional power. Those who negate the existent, should firstly be punished and eliminated and secondly, since no punishment can erase events, have their choices isolated, marginalized, ridiculed and communicated in the rational control tanks and their bearers. Anarchists urban guerrillas who attempt a radical deconstruction of modern life, should literally disappear from the social terrain in order for the smooth operation of the system and it is a natural consequence by which no one should be surprised that family members and friends are prosecuted, following their choice to have relationships with people whose history should be deleted from the social memory.
Under these conditions we wanted to disrupt the daily flow of news, information and events of an election campaign, we placed incendiary devices at two election kiosks, one of the Communist Party and one of SYRIZA in Ano Patissia, and vandalized one kiosk of ND (New Democracy) in Kifissia. Although there are many reasons to attack these political parties, the choice was essentially arbitrary, so we will bother explaining any special reasons for these attacks since as anarcho-nihilists we are hostile towards every political structure. The time frame of the attack however was not arbitrary at all. Our choice to attack a day before the elections was aimed to disrupt the democratic spectacular relations where domination demonstrates its ideological omnipotence. Elections also are fully adapted to the existence of the modern slave who was asked to give away a life whose rights have already been taken, to the hands of a specialist. The votes deposited in the ballot box bear the imprints of an abandoned life and a rented consciousness whose every desire is the product of social imperatives, independent only to the extend that it confirms the one-dimensional civilization of the authoritarian world.
It is obvious that the choices and issues of anarchist prisoners have no place within the borders of domination and that is why we as anarchists take up the task of establishing the flow of our own world against those who in the face of the fear of a chaotic life chose to seek refuge in the smoothness of authoritarian realism. In contrast with the procedures for managing the masses, the issues concerning anarchist comrades are directly linked to us and we are prepared to assist them when necessary. Far from reproducing nihilistic intellectualism and the commodified notion of violence for violence, expressed by discontented crowds, let us go on the offensive always according to our desire for action. Let us put an end to the graphic reproduction of phrases spoken too many times and harmless slogans and let us begin to live the war for which so much ink has been spilled.
Immediate release of the hunger striker Evi Statiri, not because her imprisonment is “illegal” or “unjust” but because we demand it.
Immediate granting of educational prison leaves to Nikos Romanos
WAR ON DEMOCRACY
DEATH TO LAW
DEATH TO SOCIETY
Nihilists for the total attack against the existent
(via Inter Arma)
At dawn on Monday 14.09.15 we attacked with paint the freshly painted Volos courthouse as a minimum gesture of solidarity with Evi Statiri who was commencing a hunger strike to demand her release. Evi is the life partner of a member of the Revolutionary Organization Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Gerasimos Tsakolos and was detained without any evidence of involvement in the organization in an attempt to criminalize the relatives and personal relationships of political prisoners.
For the same case, exile status was imposed on Athena Tsakalou, mother of Christos and Gerasimos Tsakalos (she has been banned from leaving Salamis).
Freedom to Evi Statiri!
Immediate removal of the restrictive conditions against Athena Tsakalou!
Solidarity Initiative "Echoes of Prison"
At dawn on September 2, 2015 we torched:
- 2 National Bank ATMs in the neighborhood of Galatsi
- 1 ATM of Alpha Bank in Patisia district
- 1 Piraeus Bank ATM in the suburb of Peristeria
- as well as smashing a Piraeus Bank ATM in the district of Galatsi
Our only motivation was our desire to attack. Attacking a prison-society that tries to mold, discriminate and classify our needs, desires and relationships and adapt them to serve it's objectives: the perpetuation of a system of repression and the strategic manipulation of subjectivity and diversity.
The commitment we have to succeed as anarchists is the following one: ensuring that we impose the flow of our world that runs on the rhythms that determine our anarchistic wills away from the lights of the machines of Power; against the social reality of economic, scientific and ideological domination, the morality of commerce and of a world that is classified and commodified to produce questions with ready-made answers.
Against this framework of domination we choose to continue insurrectionist action in the here and now. It is clear that the apparatus of power will do all that it can to repress anything that is opposed to the economizing of life. This has the consequence of it being socially acceptable for power to be applied to the greatest extent in prisons. In the dungeons of democracy there are those who choose to act on the basis of their desires for freedom instead of accepting servitude and nonexistence. The anarchist prisoners are our comrades in the war against the existent and we are not going to abandon them to their fates between the jaws of the judicial complex of shit. We must not forget our imprisoned comrades but we do not have to idolize them. We would like to make it clear that we do not fear the consequences of our actions nor any questions or doubts about their value.
The prisoner's positions have remained consistent and unaltered despite the conditions of their confinement. This is why the authorities uses the dirtiest methods to try and break them. The organs of Power with their characteristic vendetta do not hesitate to criminalize solidarity as well as family and personal relationships making it's vindictive mania even more obvious - as in the case of Athena Tsakalou, mother of Gerasimos and Christos Tsakalos and of the life partner of Gerasimos, Evi Statiri.
This first wave of attacks is a response to the vindictive blows of the State, as well as a signal of solidarity with anarchist prisoners worldwide.
FREEDOM FOR THOSE WHO ARE IN THE CELLS
IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF EVI STATIRI
LIFT THE RESTRICTIVE MEASURES AGAINST ATHENA TSAKALOU
- Burning Horizons
(via Contra Info, translated into English by Insurrection News)
"Reach what you cannot" - N. Kazantsakis
For four months the state has held Evi Statiri, the life companion of comrade G. Tsakalos in prison and has kept Athena Tsakalou, the mother of G. and C. Tsakalos isolated on the island of Salamina depriving her of the ability to have contact with her children.
These persecutions serve as the state's revenge for the war initiated by the members of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, a war that they continue to fight even from within prison walls where they still seek their freedom, preparing themselves for the destruction of their prison.
The comrades Aggeliki Spyropoulou and Christos Rodopoulous are in custody for the same case.
Meanwhile, the prison authorities have denied the educational leave that anarchist prisoner Nikos Romanos won with his hunger strike.
Several thousand kilometers away in Chile the comrades Nataly, Juan and Guillermo began a hunger strike to demand, among other things, the release of their comrade Enrique Guzman. They ended their hunger strike after the release of Enrique. But then four days later, the bastard prison authorities overturned their decision and returned the comrade to Santiago prison.
We for our part know that we cannot expect anything from our persecutors. Our solidarity with the unrepentant anarchists is continuous and aggressive and smashes down all forms of deprivation of liberty.
Until they are free we stand in complicity alongside the armed anarchist guerrillas.
Revenge or nothing.
(via Machorka, translated by Insurrection News)
