Athens, Greece: 19 comrades from anarchist group Rouvikonas arrested during direct action

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)

Greece: Interview with anarchist prisoner Nikos Romanos [PDF Book]

PDF booklet of an extensive interview with anarchist prisoner Nikos Romanos put together by Act For Freedom Now website.

Nikos Romanos was a model teenager, a good student from the bourgeoisie, son of a well-known novelist, until on December 6, 2008 he was involved in a traumatic event. His best friend, the young anarchist Alexandros Grigoropoulos (15 years) falls under the bullets of the police in the streets of Athens. Shot in the heart, he dies in his arms. This event leads to some of the most intense urban riots of the early 21st century in the West, and Nikos is already there on the front line that same evening, enraged, dignified in the face of the media (total rejection), and respected by comrades despite his young age.

To the rhythm of the backlash from the Greek anarchist movement, Nikos is forever changed by this experience, immediately throwing himself headlong into the anarchist struggle, until his arrest five years later after a double armed robbery in the Kozani region. He is tortured and accused of belonging to the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire (armed anarchist-nihilist organization), which he denies, whereas he takes responsibility for the robberies (and their need in order to spread anarchy). He and his five co-accused Giannis Michailidis, Dimitris Politis, Andreas-Dimitris Bourzoukos, Argyris Dalios and Fivos Charisis, maintain a confrontational attitude towards justice throughout, but Argyris Dalios and Fivos Charisis categorically deny ALL charges in relation to the Velventos case. However, on October 1st 2014, they are all declared guilty of the robberies and each is sentenced to fifteen years’ prison. All six of them were acquitted of alleged involvement in the CCF.

Nikos Romanos has also claimed responsibility for four incendiary actions.

DOWNLOAD LINK 

Athens, Greece: Election kiosks torched & vandalized in solidarity with anarchist prisoners

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)

Greece: TEI Athens occupied in solidarity with Nikos Romanos, Evi Statiri & Athena Tsakalou

13.09.15: Today anarchists have begun an occupation of the Technological Education Institute of Athens in solidarity with Nikos Romanos, Evi Statiri and Athena Tsakalou. 

The occupiers are demanding that prison authorities grant Nikos Romanos the educational leave that he is entitled to - recall that the comrade was granted educational leave by the Greek government following his 31 day hunger strike in late 2014. Many months later and the prison authorities are still stalling and refusing to grant him the leave.

The occupiers are also demanding the immediate release of Evi Statiri who is still being held hostage by the Greek state for the 'crime' of being the life partner of Conspiracy of Cells of Fire member Gerasimos Tsakolos and for the restrictive conditions imposed against Athena Tsakalou, the mother of CCF members Gerasimos and Christos Tsakolos, to be lifted.

The occupiers released a communique explaining the reasons for their action HERE (Greek language).

Solidarity with the occupiers of TEI Athens!

Direct granting of educational leave for Nikos Romanos!

Immediate release of Evi Statiri!

Immediate lifting of the restrictions against Athena Tsakalou!

Greece: poster about the cases of Evi Statiri, Athena Tsaklou & Nikos Romanos

"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)

Greece: Incendiary attack against a SYRIZA office & a diplomatic vehicle by FAI-IRF

June, 2015

Combative Anarchy/FAI–IRF (Informal Anarchist Federation-International Revolutionary Front) takes responsibility for the incendiary attack against SYRIZA offices in Kypseli. We torched the offices of these politicians opportunists as a first response to the rejection of the educational leave of our comrade Nikos Romanos and the vindictive extension of the hostage situation of the wife of the comrade of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Gerasimos Tsakalos. The world of authority is here. In the hands of  immigrants marked with numbers, in the summits of economists, the incessant propaganda of journalists, the ministries of the “left governance”, in courts, police stations, the villas of the rich. Anarchist insurrection does not aim to reform capitalism, nor stops the action depending on the political administrator of the machines of death and exploitation. The dawn of our time will come upon the ruins of capitalist society. Until then, the only thing left to us is the continuous and uncompromising anarchist struggle.

STRENGTH TO THOSE WHO ARM THEIR NEGATIONS! STRENGTH TO ALL ANARCHISTS PRISONERS!

PS) During the hunger strike of the imprisoned comrades in Chile, we torched a diplomatic vehicle in Ano Pefki, wanting to heat their hearts with the fire of anarchist solidarity. Get well comrades.

Combative Anarchy/ FAI–IRF

(via Inter Arma)

Greece: Anarchist prisoner Nikos Romanos denied education leave yet again

On June 12th 2015, comrades in solidarity with anarchist prisoner Nikos Romanos reported that the Korydallos prison board – the prosecutor Nikolaos Poimenidis, the prison director Charalambia Koutsomichali, and the social work assistant Vassiliki Fragathoula – unanimously rejected the comrade’s request for educational leave, and instead proposed to “facilitate” distance learning examinations inside the Second Chance School of Korydallos prison. The prison board claimed to have based their decision largely on the fact that the special appellate judge Eftichis Nikopoulos recently rejected the possibility of granting Romanos educational furloughs from prison.

(via contra info)