27/07/2010 - According to "eleutherotypia" newspaper : "For a ninth day prisoners in Trikala prisons are continuing their hunger strike, they are protesting the denial of a large majority of prisoner applications for days out by the prison authorities and the bad behaviour of the prison guards.
Today, as well the number of prisoners on hunger strike rose from 200 to 500" solidarity to the all prisoners!
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Hunger strike of Nikos Maziotis and prisoners in solidarity ends after Panagiota Roupa gives birth to a son without presence of cops.
from :actforfreedomnow!
25/07/2010, 17.42 - A couple of hours ago today, 25 July the hunger strike of comrades Nikos Maziotis and Kostas Gournas and the abstinence from prison food of about 90 prisoners across the country in solidarity with Nikos Maziotis to see his newborn child, all ended.
Nikos was transferred this morning to Alexandra hospital to see his partner Panagiota Roupa who gave birth to their son yesterday with PROPER CARE from their doctors and WITHOUT THE PRESENCE OF ANTI-TERRORISM COPS AT ANY STAGE.
Almost certainly the second request, to visit Pola at Korydallos women's prison, is being considered.
The mobilization succeeded. The hunger strike and abstension from prison food has ended.
Our best wishes to the baby!!
Solidarity to all the comrades!
25/07/2010, 17.42 - A couple of hours ago today, 25 July the hunger strike of comrades Nikos Maziotis and Kostas Gournas and the abstinence from prison food of about 90 prisoners across the country in solidarity with Nikos Maziotis to see his newborn child, all ended.
Nikos was transferred this morning to Alexandra hospital to see his partner Panagiota Roupa who gave birth to their son yesterday with PROPER CARE from their doctors and WITHOUT THE PRESENCE OF ANTI-TERRORISM COPS AT ANY STAGE.
Almost certainly the second request, to visit Pola at Korydallos women's prison, is being considered.
The mobilization succeeded. The hunger strike and abstension from prison food has ended.
Our best wishes to the baby!!
Solidarity to all the comrades!
Friday, 23 July 2010
Athens - Letter of comrade Pola Roupa of 9 July
I am in prison for involvement in Revolutionary Struggle, for which I assume political responsibility. I said in a joint letter with my comrades Nikos Maziotis and Kostas Gourna and I still say we will not stop struggling against the economic and political State even within the prison. I know that my political choice to join Revolutionary Struggle and my attitude from inside jail classifies me as a registered political enemy of the system, a fact which not only I don't deny but is my choice and honours me.
As it is known to my political opponents that no "special treatment" or form of pressure is going to bend me, the revenge is directed against the life of my unborn child, who suffers the consequences of this "special treatment" from the repressive mechanisms and is now treated as a political prisoner.
Let me explain:
From the first moment of my arrest I was not given the slightest careful treatment because of my pregnancy by the "anti-terrorists" and the E.K.A.M. (special forces) that held me and were in charge of my transport. I was subjected to the “special treatment” of total isolation in one of the airless cells 1 × 2,5 m on the 12th floor, (meaning G.A.D.A.'s 12th floor of the "antiterrorist" police) with the light on 24 hours (actually it is a method of psychological torture) for five days, transported to the prosecutor and investigator with my hands cuffed behind my back for hours, transported to jail in Thebes with my hands tied in the same way (no pregnant woman wears handcuffs when transported, let alone in the way they were put on me), and to violent treatment during my transport to the office of the investigating prosecutor, which ultimately resulted in my injury. After my insistence and after they feared I was going to lose the baby in the "anti-terrorist" office, they eventually took me to the hospital for tests.
During the two months I was held in the prison in Thebes, and while there was evidence from previous medical examinations that I might be suffering from severe complications of pregnancy which, if not treated immediately, could create very serious problems, my examination to confirm this complication was completed one and a half months late after I reacted strongly to the criminal indifference of the prison and bureaucracy concerning my health, and thus the health and life of my child.
It is, of course, a given that prisoners who need medical care are most often treated as prisoners first and as patients second. A characteristic phrase is that of the obstetrician in Thebes who said I cannot expect to do all the tests and with the frequency that I would if I was not in prison, a phrase that reveals the racist treatment that the prisoners-patients get in certain medical services of at least some prisons, which often puts their very lives at risk.
"Special security measures"
In my case, the "medical care" of the prison led to my staying for one and a half months with a health problem, not undergoing the necessary tests, which the doctor in charge considered to be of minor importance, constantly creating problems so I couldn't do them, although I myself asked for them several times. After finally being taken to the hospital in Livadia where this complication was confirmed, I still did not to have the opportunity to face the problem, waiting for minister of justice Kastanidis and Chrisochoïdis to decide when to transfer me to Korydallos prison where I could face the problems more effectively.
The first image of "special security measures" that would be imposed by the 'ministry to protect the regime'[*](former public order ministry) for each of my transfers to the hospital was in Livadia, which "took" several dozen uniformed and non-uniformed cops from various regions of Central Greece and Athens, involving of course the "antiterrorists" and the E.K.A.M., who were escorting me and were stationed everywhere at the hospital. Please note that during my transport to this hospital I was also handcuffed.
And if the delay in transferring me to the hospital in Livadia for the necessary tests was due to the indifference of the prison medical staff of Thebes and the bureaucracy, the delay in transferring me to Athens was merely the brutal revenge of Chrisochoïdis, which was covered up behind the "special security measures" which he imposed on every one of my transfers and transports. This finding is not merely an estimate, since from the moment it became known to the authorities of Thebes prison that
I face a serious complication in my pregnancy, which was by now threatened, they began to put pressure not only on the Ministry of Justice and Public Order but also on Kastanidis and Chrisochoïdis personally for my immediate transfer to Athens. Nevertheless, they delayed my transfer for one and a half weeks, without in the meanwhile providing any medical care for the problem that I faced, a delay thanks to the "special security measures".
Delays due to the measures ordered by Chrisochoïdis for me did not stop here. The day after my arrival in Korydallos, an emergency situation demanded my immediate transfer to the hospital. While in any other case, the transfer would be very fast, I had to wait hours for the "special forces" and E.K.A.M. to gather. Of course at Tzaneio hospital where they took me, I was constantly surrounded by armed E.K.A.M. who, naturally, caused panic in the corridors of the emergency rooms. The same image prevailed at Alexandra clinic, which I was referred to by the doctors of Tzaneio due to the jurisdiction of the hospital.
A key issue for me is that, because of these "special security measures" that are taken for each of my transfers to hospital, the danger for the health and life of my child is increasing.
"In Alexandra hospital"
But these pressures and the vindictiveness of my political opponents, did not stop here. This peculiar war continued with the conditions during my 5day stay at Alexandra Hospital. There I was in a stifling ring of cops and in a state of isolation. The guards outside the room-cell in which I was held constantly harassed me with continuous monitoring, - even at very private moments in which I was forced to yell and make gestures to make them leave.
This practice can only be described as brutal psychological warfare. Please note that I was alone and constantly locked in a small room on the 1st floor, with bars and without any contact with other people other than medical and nursing staff. This perverse practice that they were preforming, on the orders of their superiors, male and female cops, constantly watching me from the window of the locked door, stopped largely after my intense intervention and after adding additional forces outside the window of the room-cell where I was.
All the days I was hospitalized in Alexandra they forbade me to have relatives visit - other than one a week for about half an hour - and phone calls - but one phone call a day for a minute and just one person (relative or lawyer) -, minimized the time spent with lawyers, of whom they kept all personal belongings (bags, phones, etc.) and imposed the constant presence of the guard in any medical and hospital visit.
The consequence of this is that all medical and hospital visiting and examination was always under police supervision and was circumventing any notion of medical confidentiality as all the details of my medical history were known to any cop who happened to be there.
The continuous monitoring of each review, any discussion with doctors and nurses was no longer just about me but it was a blatant intrusion in the work of the doctors, which they treated as another "possible threat to security".
The presentation of the patient-doctor relationship in a regime of continuous monitoring by the repressive mechanisms and their political bosses, who are informed in detail about any medical development, undermines the special relationship and inevitably harrasses the smooth operation and medical treatment.
Eventually the whole process of treatment is converted into a perversion of control by organized power, which alienates it.
These "special conditions of detention", applied to me during my stay in hospital are not legalized by any law. The treatment of each patient-prisoner depends on the "risk" that he is for "security" and the "chances he has to escape". Therefore, every security measure (presence of cops during examinations, surgeries, etc.) is determined either by the political leaders of the cops or from the operationals and sometimes left to the discretion of those who form the prisoner's guard. Thus, we have cases where police attend a birth on the grounds that the prisoner can escape.
I have never called for and never will call for humanitarianism from my political opponent. I do not believe that any kind of authoritarian is interested in the survival or health of my child, let alone mine. Instead, I think if they could, without taking into account the political cost, I would be left in total abandonment and it's likely that I would - based on many factors and my high risk, according to the opinion of the doctors, pregnancy - not be able to make it and my child would not survive. It is no exaggeration to say that this would be the wish of my persecutors and would be the best revenge for them.
It is also true that whatever proper medical care I receive at this moment is due to the doctors of Alexandra Hospital, which because of the emergency that happened to me took the situation into their own hands, completed a full medical diagnosis and put in proper order the way my problems will be treated from now on.
"Natural right"
I do not believe in any de facto respect of human and political rights by the regime, since both are covered and defined by the conditions and intensity of the social and class war which in each historical period it is conducted.
For those who make up the economic and political elite, humanity and value of human life is not for anyone other than class peers and their families.
It does not concern the proletarians, the poor, those who have nothing, who get sick and die in the increasingly squalid and inhuman living conditions that apply to the low social and class backgrounds.
The poor are undernourished and have to eat poison, do not have basic medical care, have to die on the stretchers of the decaying public hospitals.
Concerning the above facts, over the last few decades the social conditions are becoming more brutal because of the deep economic crisis that the system has plunged into, resulting in a growing number of social groups going into the category of the excluded, being condemned to a slow death, while the -for years now- substandard public hospitals are collapsing under the weight of public spending cuts imposed by the government and the Troika (Eur.Committee, International Monetary Fund, European Social Fund) which completely controls the business operation of the country and public funds.
The natural right of every single human to nutrition, housing, health, life, is already being abused in increasingly large parts of the population, while the regime steals wages, pensions and public money in order to preserve the economic and political elite and to ensure the perpetuation of power.
Their humanitarianism does not concern the prisoners stacked in prison-soul warehouse, who are treated as third-class people by the regime and the value of their lives is priced according to the space their death will fill in a newspaper column.
Their humanitarianism does not concern the enemies of the system, which, in reality and despite the ridiculous assertions by the Government to respect human rights, wants their physical extermination. If anything prevents it, as I said, it is only the political cost.
The fighter Simos Seisidis, who the regime has classified, using a range of police scenarios and assumptions, in their list of enemies, is an example. Seisidis, after being seriously injured by a cop’s bullet and risked losing his life, faced throughout the duration of hospitalization all available means of psychological torture and revenge by his persecutors, and wannabe killers: isolation, presence of cops in the ICU, continuous harassment, obstruction of medical and nursing staff - which reached the point of police surveillance being imposed even during the amputation of his leg.
This brutal behavior of the mechanisms of repression against Simos Seisidis ended with the decision to remand him in custody while his health is in this very bad situation.
"They Seek revenge"
The invocation of any human and civil rights is an outdated practice and refers to the remains of an era in which a series of social and class compromises coordinate the balance between oppressor and oppressed, allowing the maintenance of the regimes normalcy and peace. These balances are of the past, the class and social compromises have been invalidated by the system itself, which is attacking society more and more viciously, while the regime's peace hangs by a thread.
Within the current historical period it is known that the system, political and economic power and those who compose it, are creating public outcry continuously at all levels. On the other hand, rebel forces, such as Revolutionary Struggle, are finding a wider and wider social base.
Despite the regime’s efforts to discredit us as political figures and discredit the activities of Revolutionary Struggle, our organization receives the political acceptance of a large segment of society, which will eventually turn into options and practices of rupture and violent conflict with the system of representative democracy, capitalism and market economy.
In this historical context, where the rulers are expressing extreme vindictive fury against those who are fighting the dilapidated system, the attitude of law enforcement mechanisms can be interpreted in political terms, and that of Chrisochoïdis personally, towards me, since after seeking revenge for Revolutionary Struggle and for my political stance they are constantly threatening the health and life of my child with every available means.
Because for all the time that I've been in prison nothing has been given to me and any medical care was granted by a struggle on my part, I declare I will continue to pursue the necessary medical and pharmaceutical care and I will fight for his life and health.
To do so, I demand:
-No repeat of delay in transferring me to hospital, whether for scheduled appointments for medical examinations or in an emergency, with the justification of the maintenance of "special security measures". Particularly in the latter case, any delay can in fact be crucial for the survival of my child.
I'd like to emphasize that I do not care how many and what kind of armed ones accompany me in my transport or my stay in hospital. What interests me is that the time that these forces take to assemble works against the life of my son which is continually compromised.
-There shall not be any interference by government entities and repressive mechanisms on where to nurse me again, for reasons of "security." It would be another brutal act of revenge.
-Not to repeat the petty status of isolation and continuous control that is imposed on me in Alexandra Hospital, which can only cause problems to the successful completion of my hospitalization, and can affect the birth in the most negative way as well.
-No guard shall attend my examinations, visits of doctors, the nurses' care and, of course, no cop - including a female cop - should be in the room where I deliver, a practice which is the greatest insult to the dignity of female prisoners. Also, not only will I not tolerate my medical history, my personal information associated with it and my body being under the perverse control of the repressive mechanisms, but I consider this whole process to be a practice of war, punishment and revenge by my political opponents imposing it on me.
-To also stop the vindictive regime of isolation, allow me to get visits and be able to communicate by telephone. Also, to have the 24-hour care of my relatives, which is absolutely necessary.
Because until now, since I've been taken over by the ministry of the regime and the anti-terrorists, I have constantly faced problems that have threatened the health and life of my son, i declare that, if they do not respect the above basic requirements to have a safe delivery, this would mean that not only my political opponents have no intention to stop targeting my child, but want to persist and intensify the war.
Any bad course of my pregnancy under these hostile and vengeful conditions, any new threat to the life of my son would be a blatant attempt to politically murder my unborn child, who of course is not a prisoner even if he is treated as a hostage of war. I charge this attempted assassination in advance to Chrisochoïdis personally.
But to blame will also be his political and operational officers, Papandreou and the entire government.
Pola Roupa
Koridallos Prisons
[*]it's actually now called 'the ministry for the protection of the citizen'
...boubourAs translations... actforfreedomnow...
As it is known to my political opponents that no "special treatment" or form of pressure is going to bend me, the revenge is directed against the life of my unborn child, who suffers the consequences of this "special treatment" from the repressive mechanisms and is now treated as a political prisoner.
Let me explain:
From the first moment of my arrest I was not given the slightest careful treatment because of my pregnancy by the "anti-terrorists" and the E.K.A.M. (special forces) that held me and were in charge of my transport. I was subjected to the “special treatment” of total isolation in one of the airless cells 1 × 2,5 m on the 12th floor, (meaning G.A.D.A.'s 12th floor of the "antiterrorist" police) with the light on 24 hours (actually it is a method of psychological torture) for five days, transported to the prosecutor and investigator with my hands cuffed behind my back for hours, transported to jail in Thebes with my hands tied in the same way (no pregnant woman wears handcuffs when transported, let alone in the way they were put on me), and to violent treatment during my transport to the office of the investigating prosecutor, which ultimately resulted in my injury. After my insistence and after they feared I was going to lose the baby in the "anti-terrorist" office, they eventually took me to the hospital for tests.
During the two months I was held in the prison in Thebes, and while there was evidence from previous medical examinations that I might be suffering from severe complications of pregnancy which, if not treated immediately, could create very serious problems, my examination to confirm this complication was completed one and a half months late after I reacted strongly to the criminal indifference of the prison and bureaucracy concerning my health, and thus the health and life of my child.
It is, of course, a given that prisoners who need medical care are most often treated as prisoners first and as patients second. A characteristic phrase is that of the obstetrician in Thebes who said I cannot expect to do all the tests and with the frequency that I would if I was not in prison, a phrase that reveals the racist treatment that the prisoners-patients get in certain medical services of at least some prisons, which often puts their very lives at risk.
"Special security measures"
In my case, the "medical care" of the prison led to my staying for one and a half months with a health problem, not undergoing the necessary tests, which the doctor in charge considered to be of minor importance, constantly creating problems so I couldn't do them, although I myself asked for them several times. After finally being taken to the hospital in Livadia where this complication was confirmed, I still did not to have the opportunity to face the problem, waiting for minister of justice Kastanidis and Chrisochoïdis to decide when to transfer me to Korydallos prison where I could face the problems more effectively.
The first image of "special security measures" that would be imposed by the 'ministry to protect the regime'[*](former public order ministry) for each of my transfers to the hospital was in Livadia, which "took" several dozen uniformed and non-uniformed cops from various regions of Central Greece and Athens, involving of course the "antiterrorists" and the E.K.A.M., who were escorting me and were stationed everywhere at the hospital. Please note that during my transport to this hospital I was also handcuffed.
And if the delay in transferring me to the hospital in Livadia for the necessary tests was due to the indifference of the prison medical staff of Thebes and the bureaucracy, the delay in transferring me to Athens was merely the brutal revenge of Chrisochoïdis, which was covered up behind the "special security measures" which he imposed on every one of my transfers and transports. This finding is not merely an estimate, since from the moment it became known to the authorities of Thebes prison that
I face a serious complication in my pregnancy, which was by now threatened, they began to put pressure not only on the Ministry of Justice and Public Order but also on Kastanidis and Chrisochoïdis personally for my immediate transfer to Athens. Nevertheless, they delayed my transfer for one and a half weeks, without in the meanwhile providing any medical care for the problem that I faced, a delay thanks to the "special security measures".
Delays due to the measures ordered by Chrisochoïdis for me did not stop here. The day after my arrival in Korydallos, an emergency situation demanded my immediate transfer to the hospital. While in any other case, the transfer would be very fast, I had to wait hours for the "special forces" and E.K.A.M. to gather. Of course at Tzaneio hospital where they took me, I was constantly surrounded by armed E.K.A.M. who, naturally, caused panic in the corridors of the emergency rooms. The same image prevailed at Alexandra clinic, which I was referred to by the doctors of Tzaneio due to the jurisdiction of the hospital.
A key issue for me is that, because of these "special security measures" that are taken for each of my transfers to hospital, the danger for the health and life of my child is increasing.
"In Alexandra hospital"
But these pressures and the vindictiveness of my political opponents, did not stop here. This peculiar war continued with the conditions during my 5day stay at Alexandra Hospital. There I was in a stifling ring of cops and in a state of isolation. The guards outside the room-cell in which I was held constantly harassed me with continuous monitoring, - even at very private moments in which I was forced to yell and make gestures to make them leave.
This practice can only be described as brutal psychological warfare. Please note that I was alone and constantly locked in a small room on the 1st floor, with bars and without any contact with other people other than medical and nursing staff. This perverse practice that they were preforming, on the orders of their superiors, male and female cops, constantly watching me from the window of the locked door, stopped largely after my intense intervention and after adding additional forces outside the window of the room-cell where I was.
All the days I was hospitalized in Alexandra they forbade me to have relatives visit - other than one a week for about half an hour - and phone calls - but one phone call a day for a minute and just one person (relative or lawyer) -, minimized the time spent with lawyers, of whom they kept all personal belongings (bags, phones, etc.) and imposed the constant presence of the guard in any medical and hospital visit.
The consequence of this is that all medical and hospital visiting and examination was always under police supervision and was circumventing any notion of medical confidentiality as all the details of my medical history were known to any cop who happened to be there.
The continuous monitoring of each review, any discussion with doctors and nurses was no longer just about me but it was a blatant intrusion in the work of the doctors, which they treated as another "possible threat to security".
The presentation of the patient-doctor relationship in a regime of continuous monitoring by the repressive mechanisms and their political bosses, who are informed in detail about any medical development, undermines the special relationship and inevitably harrasses the smooth operation and medical treatment.
Eventually the whole process of treatment is converted into a perversion of control by organized power, which alienates it.
These "special conditions of detention", applied to me during my stay in hospital are not legalized by any law. The treatment of each patient-prisoner depends on the "risk" that he is for "security" and the "chances he has to escape". Therefore, every security measure (presence of cops during examinations, surgeries, etc.) is determined either by the political leaders of the cops or from the operationals and sometimes left to the discretion of those who form the prisoner's guard. Thus, we have cases where police attend a birth on the grounds that the prisoner can escape.
I have never called for and never will call for humanitarianism from my political opponent. I do not believe that any kind of authoritarian is interested in the survival or health of my child, let alone mine. Instead, I think if they could, without taking into account the political cost, I would be left in total abandonment and it's likely that I would - based on many factors and my high risk, according to the opinion of the doctors, pregnancy - not be able to make it and my child would not survive. It is no exaggeration to say that this would be the wish of my persecutors and would be the best revenge for them.
It is also true that whatever proper medical care I receive at this moment is due to the doctors of Alexandra Hospital, which because of the emergency that happened to me took the situation into their own hands, completed a full medical diagnosis and put in proper order the way my problems will be treated from now on.
"Natural right"
I do not believe in any de facto respect of human and political rights by the regime, since both are covered and defined by the conditions and intensity of the social and class war which in each historical period it is conducted.
For those who make up the economic and political elite, humanity and value of human life is not for anyone other than class peers and their families.
It does not concern the proletarians, the poor, those who have nothing, who get sick and die in the increasingly squalid and inhuman living conditions that apply to the low social and class backgrounds.
The poor are undernourished and have to eat poison, do not have basic medical care, have to die on the stretchers of the decaying public hospitals.
Concerning the above facts, over the last few decades the social conditions are becoming more brutal because of the deep economic crisis that the system has plunged into, resulting in a growing number of social groups going into the category of the excluded, being condemned to a slow death, while the -for years now- substandard public hospitals are collapsing under the weight of public spending cuts imposed by the government and the Troika (Eur.Committee, International Monetary Fund, European Social Fund) which completely controls the business operation of the country and public funds.
The natural right of every single human to nutrition, housing, health, life, is already being abused in increasingly large parts of the population, while the regime steals wages, pensions and public money in order to preserve the economic and political elite and to ensure the perpetuation of power.
Their humanitarianism does not concern the prisoners stacked in prison-soul warehouse, who are treated as third-class people by the regime and the value of their lives is priced according to the space their death will fill in a newspaper column.
Their humanitarianism does not concern the enemies of the system, which, in reality and despite the ridiculous assertions by the Government to respect human rights, wants their physical extermination. If anything prevents it, as I said, it is only the political cost.
The fighter Simos Seisidis, who the regime has classified, using a range of police scenarios and assumptions, in their list of enemies, is an example. Seisidis, after being seriously injured by a cop’s bullet and risked losing his life, faced throughout the duration of hospitalization all available means of psychological torture and revenge by his persecutors, and wannabe killers: isolation, presence of cops in the ICU, continuous harassment, obstruction of medical and nursing staff - which reached the point of police surveillance being imposed even during the amputation of his leg.
This brutal behavior of the mechanisms of repression against Simos Seisidis ended with the decision to remand him in custody while his health is in this very bad situation.
"They Seek revenge"
The invocation of any human and civil rights is an outdated practice and refers to the remains of an era in which a series of social and class compromises coordinate the balance between oppressor and oppressed, allowing the maintenance of the regimes normalcy and peace. These balances are of the past, the class and social compromises have been invalidated by the system itself, which is attacking society more and more viciously, while the regime's peace hangs by a thread.
Within the current historical period it is known that the system, political and economic power and those who compose it, are creating public outcry continuously at all levels. On the other hand, rebel forces, such as Revolutionary Struggle, are finding a wider and wider social base.
Despite the regime’s efforts to discredit us as political figures and discredit the activities of Revolutionary Struggle, our organization receives the political acceptance of a large segment of society, which will eventually turn into options and practices of rupture and violent conflict with the system of representative democracy, capitalism and market economy.
In this historical context, where the rulers are expressing extreme vindictive fury against those who are fighting the dilapidated system, the attitude of law enforcement mechanisms can be interpreted in political terms, and that of Chrisochoïdis personally, towards me, since after seeking revenge for Revolutionary Struggle and for my political stance they are constantly threatening the health and life of my child with every available means.
Because for all the time that I've been in prison nothing has been given to me and any medical care was granted by a struggle on my part, I declare I will continue to pursue the necessary medical and pharmaceutical care and I will fight for his life and health.
To do so, I demand:
-No repeat of delay in transferring me to hospital, whether for scheduled appointments for medical examinations or in an emergency, with the justification of the maintenance of "special security measures". Particularly in the latter case, any delay can in fact be crucial for the survival of my child.
I'd like to emphasize that I do not care how many and what kind of armed ones accompany me in my transport or my stay in hospital. What interests me is that the time that these forces take to assemble works against the life of my son which is continually compromised.
-There shall not be any interference by government entities and repressive mechanisms on where to nurse me again, for reasons of "security." It would be another brutal act of revenge.
-Not to repeat the petty status of isolation and continuous control that is imposed on me in Alexandra Hospital, which can only cause problems to the successful completion of my hospitalization, and can affect the birth in the most negative way as well.
-No guard shall attend my examinations, visits of doctors, the nurses' care and, of course, no cop - including a female cop - should be in the room where I deliver, a practice which is the greatest insult to the dignity of female prisoners. Also, not only will I not tolerate my medical history, my personal information associated with it and my body being under the perverse control of the repressive mechanisms, but I consider this whole process to be a practice of war, punishment and revenge by my political opponents imposing it on me.
-To also stop the vindictive regime of isolation, allow me to get visits and be able to communicate by telephone. Also, to have the 24-hour care of my relatives, which is absolutely necessary.
Because until now, since I've been taken over by the ministry of the regime and the anti-terrorists, I have constantly faced problems that have threatened the health and life of my son, i declare that, if they do not respect the above basic requirements to have a safe delivery, this would mean that not only my political opponents have no intention to stop targeting my child, but want to persist and intensify the war.
Any bad course of my pregnancy under these hostile and vengeful conditions, any new threat to the life of my son would be a blatant attempt to politically murder my unborn child, who of course is not a prisoner even if he is treated as a hostage of war. I charge this attempted assassination in advance to Chrisochoïdis personally.
But to blame will also be his political and operational officers, Papandreou and the entire government.
Pola Roupa
Koridallos Prisons
[*]it's actually now called 'the ministry for the protection of the citizen'
...boubourAs translations... actforfreedomnow...
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Hamilton, Ontario: Demonstration in Solidarity with Hunger Strike
Infoshop News
July 19th, 2010 -- A noise demonstration took place outside of the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre (Barton Jail) in downtown Hamilton, Ontario. Around 25 people marched around the prison, chanting slogans (the passion for freedom is stronger than all prisons; no prisons, no borders, fuck law and order; they might take our lives away but not our dignity, our hearts will pound against their walls until we all are free; smash the borders, fuck the state, all these walls are going to break; no justice, no peace, fuck the police; etc), shooting off fireworks, and making speeches.
This demonstration was held to continue creating a visible presence and tension against prisons and the world that needs them, as well as to take direct action in solidarity with the insurgent spirit: with everyone who chooses the dignity of struggle above the servility of obedience.
The 19th of July marked the beginning of a hunger strike in Saint Paul’s Hospital (the infirmary ward of Korydallos prison near Athens, Greece). Below is a translation of a communication about this hunger strike. Solidarity with prisoners in revolt, inside and outside the jails of this prison-world!
“On Monday, July 19th, prisoners will start refusing food with a demand to address and solve the problem of prolonged detention of people with chronic and incurable diseases, who (due to their state of health) should have their sentences reduced.
The human ''dump", as the prisoners of this institution call it themselves, is simply tragic, as we have also heard from comrade Simos Seisidis presently being held there. People with disabilities, strokes, and fatal diseases are thrown into this vile, dirty environment full of shortcomings.
The Secretary for prison policy visited some time ago, and stated that a legislative bill would resolve the matter in February or March. Naturally, he was telling lies.
The prisoners themselves, in their statement to the Minister and the media say:
‘Powerless to react differently, and anyway lacking our health, we are offering what is left of our lives to sacrifice them to your inhuman indifference, not because we hope you will change, but because we refuse to live like beasts, like waste from a system and society without humanity, ethics, or honour.
So, from Monday, July 19th, all those who are able to will abstain from food and all medication and treatment, as a last sign of dignity and self-respect...’
Our comrade Simos Seisidis will participate in this mobilization.”
Until we are all free!
Destroy all prisons!
July 19th, 2010 -- A noise demonstration took place outside of the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre (Barton Jail) in downtown Hamilton, Ontario. Around 25 people marched around the prison, chanting slogans (the passion for freedom is stronger than all prisons; no prisons, no borders, fuck law and order; they might take our lives away but not our dignity, our hearts will pound against their walls until we all are free; smash the borders, fuck the state, all these walls are going to break; no justice, no peace, fuck the police; etc), shooting off fireworks, and making speeches.
This demonstration was held to continue creating a visible presence and tension against prisons and the world that needs them, as well as to take direct action in solidarity with the insurgent spirit: with everyone who chooses the dignity of struggle above the servility of obedience.
The 19th of July marked the beginning of a hunger strike in Saint Paul’s Hospital (the infirmary ward of Korydallos prison near Athens, Greece). Below is a translation of a communication about this hunger strike. Solidarity with prisoners in revolt, inside and outside the jails of this prison-world!
“On Monday, July 19th, prisoners will start refusing food with a demand to address and solve the problem of prolonged detention of people with chronic and incurable diseases, who (due to their state of health) should have their sentences reduced.
The human ''dump", as the prisoners of this institution call it themselves, is simply tragic, as we have also heard from comrade Simos Seisidis presently being held there. People with disabilities, strokes, and fatal diseases are thrown into this vile, dirty environment full of shortcomings.
The Secretary for prison policy visited some time ago, and stated that a legislative bill would resolve the matter in February or March. Naturally, he was telling lies.
The prisoners themselves, in their statement to the Minister and the media say:
‘Powerless to react differently, and anyway lacking our health, we are offering what is left of our lives to sacrifice them to your inhuman indifference, not because we hope you will change, but because we refuse to live like beasts, like waste from a system and society without humanity, ethics, or honour.
So, from Monday, July 19th, all those who are able to will abstain from food and all medication and treatment, as a last sign of dignity and self-respect...’
Our comrade Simos Seisidis will participate in this mobilization.”
Until we are all free!
Destroy all prisons!
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Athens - Korydallos prisoners abstain from prison food against conditions and in solidarity with Simos Seisidis, Nikos Maziotis and Pola Roupa
actforfreedomnow!
UPDATE FROM KORYDALLOS HOSPITAL ST PAULS PRISON 20/7
8th day of abstaining from prison food Korydallos prisoners with chronic illness*
From yesterday prisoners with chronic diseases began to abstain from prison food in protest against the continued torture of the comrade Simos Seisidis, the delays of the 'antiterrorism' for accompanying him to have an artificial leg fitted...
Also 60 prisoners of Korydallos prison are abstaining from prison food from yesterday for the above reasons and in solidarity with the demands of Nikos Maziotis and Panagiota Roupa
UPDATE FROM KORYDALLOS HOSPITAL ST PAULS PRISON 20/7
8th day of abstaining from prison food Korydallos prisoners with chronic illness*
From yesterday prisoners with chronic diseases began to abstain from prison food in protest against the continued torture of the comrade Simos Seisidis, the delays of the 'antiterrorism' for accompanying him to have an artificial leg fitted...
Also 60 prisoners of Korydallos prison are abstaining from prison food from yesterday for the above reasons and in solidarity with the demands of Nikos Maziotis and Panagiota Roupa
Trikala, Greece - prisoners on hungerstrike from today
actforfreedomnow!
Today, Tuesday, 20 July, about 200 prisoners of Trikala prison
have begun a hunger strike after 2 weeks of abstaining from prison food. The Members of the Initiative for Prisoners' Rights have made it known that “they are going on hunger strike for three particular demands:
That applications for authorisation for days out be granted, at the moment 97% are rejected. When granted, to be done without probation, or prison social workers because although their role is to defend the prisoners, they “have passed into the enemy camp”, that of repression. And concerning the serious conditions inside the prison.
Today, Tuesday, 20 July, about 200 prisoners of Trikala prison
have begun a hunger strike after 2 weeks of abstaining from prison food. The Members of the Initiative for Prisoners' Rights have made it known that “they are going on hunger strike for three particular demands:
That applications for authorisation for days out be granted, at the moment 97% are rejected. When granted, to be done without probation, or prison social workers because although their role is to defend the prisoners, they “have passed into the enemy camp”, that of repression. And concerning the serious conditions inside the prison.
Saturday, 17 July 2010
From Monday, July 19, prisoners in Saint Paul's hospital, Korydallos prison, will abstain from prison food
actforfreedomnow!
On Monday, July 19, prisoners will start refusing food with a demand to address and solve the problem of prolonged detention of people with chronic and incurable diseases who, due to their state of health, should have their sentences reduced.
The human ''dump", as the prisoners of this institution call it themselves, is simply tragic, as we have also heard from comrade Simos Seisidis presently being held there. People with disabilities, strokes, fatal diseases are thrown into this vile, dirty environment full of shortcomings.
The Secretary for prison policy visited some time ago, and stated that the matter would be resolved by a legislative bill in February or March. Naturally, he was telling lies.
The prisoners themselves, in their statement to the Minister and the media say:''powerless to react differently, anyway lacking our health, we are offering what is left of our lives to sacrifice them to your inhuman indifference, not because we hope you will change, but because we refuse to live like beasts, like waste from a system and society without humanity, ethics or honour.
So, from Monday, July 19, all those who are able to will abstain from food and all medication and treatment, as a last sign of dignity and self-respect. ..''
Our comrade Simos Seisidis will participate in this mobilization.
On Monday, July 19, prisoners will start refusing food with a demand to address and solve the problem of prolonged detention of people with chronic and incurable diseases who, due to their state of health, should have their sentences reduced.
The human ''dump", as the prisoners of this institution call it themselves, is simply tragic, as we have also heard from comrade Simos Seisidis presently being held there. People with disabilities, strokes, fatal diseases are thrown into this vile, dirty environment full of shortcomings.
The Secretary for prison policy visited some time ago, and stated that the matter would be resolved by a legislative bill in February or March. Naturally, he was telling lies.
The prisoners themselves, in their statement to the Minister and the media say:''powerless to react differently, anyway lacking our health, we are offering what is left of our lives to sacrifice them to your inhuman indifference, not because we hope you will change, but because we refuse to live like beasts, like waste from a system and society without humanity, ethics or honour.
So, from Monday, July 19, all those who are able to will abstain from food and all medication and treatment, as a last sign of dignity and self-respect. ..''
Our comrade Simos Seisidis will participate in this mobilization.
Letter from the comrade Pola Roupa of July 9, 2010
In a letter published on blognonserviam.wordpress.com, the comrade Pola Roupa (Πόλα Ρούπα) describes her treatment as a prisoner while heavily pregnant.
Both her conditions of arrest and her transferral from one prison to another have been excessively severe, often resulting in her remaining handcuffed behind her back for hours. Both in jail and in hospital, police are constantly present for 'security reasons' even during medical examinations.
She is currently confined in Korydallos prison.
The letter is under translation.
Both her conditions of arrest and her transferral from one prison to another have been excessively severe, often resulting in her remaining handcuffed behind her back for hours. Both in jail and in hospital, police are constantly present for 'security reasons' even during medical examinations.
She is currently confined in Korydallos prison.
The letter is under translation.
Athens, Koridallos prison - comrade Nikos Maziotis' declaration of hunger strike in the face of the revenge of the State against his unborn child
actforfreedomnow! / From the Greek Streets
July 19, 2010 -
Hunger strike against vengeance.
The treatment that the state reserves for imprisoned revolutionaries and its political enemies is a given. Vengeance, sadism, physical and psychological violence, disrespect for human dignity, indifference about their health, their physical wellbeing, for human life itself.
For the security of the state and power, the denial of freedom is above everything, above life itself and "human rights".
For state officials, the political and financial elite and the rich, "human rights" only concern themselves and those of the same class.
They do not concern the people, the poor, the workers, the unemployed, the veterans of work, the immigrants, those who search in the garbage of the local markets to eat.
Neither do they concern prisoners - social prisoners, of which the overwhelming majority come from the poor social strata and whose life is worth absolutely nothing for the system.
And they do not concern, of course, revolutionaries and political prisoners, for which the system has always pursued their physical and ethical annihilation.
In this framework, my partner, comrade and co-fighter Panagiota Roupa and myself, who are members of Revolutionary Struggle, are denied the right of prison visits thanks to the attorney of Koridallos prison, who has rejected for "reasons of security" my transfer to the maternity clinic "Alexandra" in order to visit my partner, who will bring our son into the world, the youngest political prisoner of Greek "democracy".
She has also rejected, for the same "security reasons", my application to visit the female section of Koridallos because, due to her condition, my comrade is unable to visit the male prison as would normally happen.
Demanding, therefore, the "obvious" as a partner and as a father to visit my partner-cofighter and our son, I am going on hunger strike from the 15th of July in order for my two following demands to be met:
1. To be transferred for a visit to the maternity clinic "Alexandra" on July 25th in order to visit my partner Panagiota Roupa and our son, since the birth has been planned by Caesarean section for July 24th and she will remain in the clinic for a few days and
2. That I be transferred for visits to the female prison for the first period after the birth because my partner and our son will inevitably be too weak to be moved.
If the repressive mechanisms believe that by imprisoning us they’ll get done with us, they are wrong.
Either outside or inside the prisons the struggle for us is a question of honour and dignity; it will continue.
Revolutionary struggle continues.
NIKOS MAZIOTIS
July 19, 2010 -
Hunger strike against vengeance.
The treatment that the state reserves for imprisoned revolutionaries and its political enemies is a given. Vengeance, sadism, physical and psychological violence, disrespect for human dignity, indifference about their health, their physical wellbeing, for human life itself.
For the security of the state and power, the denial of freedom is above everything, above life itself and "human rights".
For state officials, the political and financial elite and the rich, "human rights" only concern themselves and those of the same class.
They do not concern the people, the poor, the workers, the unemployed, the veterans of work, the immigrants, those who search in the garbage of the local markets to eat.
Neither do they concern prisoners - social prisoners, of which the overwhelming majority come from the poor social strata and whose life is worth absolutely nothing for the system.
And they do not concern, of course, revolutionaries and political prisoners, for which the system has always pursued their physical and ethical annihilation.
In this framework, my partner, comrade and co-fighter Panagiota Roupa and myself, who are members of Revolutionary Struggle, are denied the right of prison visits thanks to the attorney of Koridallos prison, who has rejected for "reasons of security" my transfer to the maternity clinic "Alexandra" in order to visit my partner, who will bring our son into the world, the youngest political prisoner of Greek "democracy".
She has also rejected, for the same "security reasons", my application to visit the female section of Koridallos because, due to her condition, my comrade is unable to visit the male prison as would normally happen.
Demanding, therefore, the "obvious" as a partner and as a father to visit my partner-cofighter and our son, I am going on hunger strike from the 15th of July in order for my two following demands to be met:
1. To be transferred for a visit to the maternity clinic "Alexandra" on July 25th in order to visit my partner Panagiota Roupa and our son, since the birth has been planned by Caesarean section for July 24th and she will remain in the clinic for a few days and
2. That I be transferred for visits to the female prison for the first period after the birth because my partner and our son will inevitably be too weak to be moved.
If the repressive mechanisms believe that by imprisoning us they’ll get done with us, they are wrong.
Either outside or inside the prisons the struggle for us is a question of honour and dignity; it will continue.
Revolutionary struggle continues.
NIKOS MAZIOTIS
Sunday, 11 July 2010
Letter from Vaggelis Stathopoulos
Since the 10-04-2010 I find myself accused, together with comrades I know through my journey in social struggles, by the infamous anti-terrorist squad under a regime of terror and psychological warfare. My arrest took place in a cinematic fashion in the area of Victoria square by 10 to 15 persons with guns aimed while in fear of my any reaction EKAM (Special Antiterrorist Unit) forces from around the area were also mobilized. Armed to the teeth against one unarmed. Of course it wasn’t hard for me to immediately be aware of their presence due to the experience I have amassed over the years from the usual surveillance and harassment I had at my parents’ house in Nikaia as well as at the house I lived in, in Peukakia.
As a consequence I didn’t give much notice considering the event as one of the usual intimidation tactics used by the authorities with the aim of deterring the anti-establishment actions of people in struggle. A tactic used always by the repressive mechanisms of the dominant class, especially in times of social upheaval. Of course I didn’t know what the authorities had yet again cooked up in order to frame me. I have found myself on numerous occasions, as many other comrades have as well, in the dock of ridiculous courts by the humanoids of power without any evidence against me or with fabricated and orchestrated accusations. In all these cases I have been acquitted since even the cops couldn’t support their own tales. I remained accused pending trial and under constant control from the authorities for seven whole years. Seven years of continuous surveillance in an attempt to target my action criminalizing my personal relationships, my ideas and my political viewpoint which at times I have expressed loud and clear. And here it is one more time!
I am an anarchist and I struggle with all my powers for the social revolution.
Continuing with the events around my arrest, soon after my acquaintance with the “tough” guys of the anti-terrorist squad I was taken to the “stupidity kitchen” the 12th floor of Police Headquarters, there were you enter one office for an ID verification and you leave from the other one next door with fabricated serious charges. So these “tough” guys, having been taught obviously by their colleagues, torturers during the dictatorship, started beating me and the other comrades while we were handcuffed with their swearing and threatening keeping the beat. Following this I experienced a simple processing from the inquisitors and prosecutors of the orchestrations set up by the cops and that’s how my life got wrapped up in a piece of official paper, how my case got tied up tight and I now find myself in prison awaiting trial at Trikala. Of course the choice of Wing E’ for my “stay” here is not at all coincidental, as it is the most controlled wing. I don’t think I even need to mention with precision the hideous living conditions in these “modern” hellholes of democracy. It is enough to say that water cuts are a more than usual occurrence (compliments to Themis Construction [Construction company belonging to the Ministry of Justice and in charge of building prisons])!!!
Power with the mass media as an ally uses the standard tactic of slander and criminalization of social struggles and of personal relations of people in struggle. It is not the first time something like this has happened but it is the first time I had to personally deal with this incredible brutality which has as an aim to defame my life, throwing piles of mud on myself and my acts as well as on my comrades, my friends and my family and the wider subversive movement in which I actively take part. In this attempt my home is characterized and named as a safe-house and a wattle fence, which by the way I found there when I rented the house, was enough to transform my personal space into a dangerous base of operations. That nothing was found in this house is probably of no importance! The continuous false leaks and the vulgar disinformation came to be added to the whole cannibalism taking place, revealing yet again the mechanisms’ and journalists’ vindictive craze against any one who resists. And this is only one version of the organized violence carried out by the mechanisms of power and of the legal crimes perpetrated by the state and the bosses against our lives.
Of course the criminalization of struggles and of those who negate the status quo is not something new or unusual. Those who struggle know this well by now. Besides, even if someone is arrested for postering they are prosecuted for littering rather than their ideas and subversive words which in reality constitute the essence of their prosecution. Against the fable of legality and the false boundaries of innocence or guilt, I declare myself an enemy of the regime and an unrepentant adversary of the state and capital.
Besides, my statement to the inquisitor that “I don’t denounce any form of struggle against the state and power” is the only reason I am in prison and not their unfounded bill of indictment. If they expected statements of conformity to the law and of repentance from me they did not calculate well. In my life I have not learned to grovel left and right as a denouncer, a snitch and a collaborator, I have not learned to betray friends and comrades, to abandon them, to accuse and denounce them in front of my prosecutors in order to save myself. In my life I have learned to hold my head up high, to live with pride and dignity and to not grovel even if there’s a price to pay. If there are some people that have learned to live groveling, I am truly ashamed on their behalf.
At this time, when the bankrupt Greek state under the umbrella of the IMF is attempting to terrorize and repress every subversive project in fear of the Decembers’ coming it is our duty to fight in order to overthrow it in its totality.
I will continue to fight against the policing and control over our lives and for the destruction of prisons. For social revolution and for freedom.
Because in this world freedom is not handed out to you, you have to claim her through battles and win her.
STATE AND CAPITAL ARE THE TERRORISTS, CRIMINALS AND THIEVES
HONOUR TO THE URBAN GUERILLA LAMBROS FOUNDAS
FREEDOM TO ALL THE COMRADES IN PRISON FOR THEIR SUBVERSIVE ACTIONS
Vaggelis Stathopoulos
Trikala Prisons
10-5-2010
As a consequence I didn’t give much notice considering the event as one of the usual intimidation tactics used by the authorities with the aim of deterring the anti-establishment actions of people in struggle. A tactic used always by the repressive mechanisms of the dominant class, especially in times of social upheaval. Of course I didn’t know what the authorities had yet again cooked up in order to frame me. I have found myself on numerous occasions, as many other comrades have as well, in the dock of ridiculous courts by the humanoids of power without any evidence against me or with fabricated and orchestrated accusations. In all these cases I have been acquitted since even the cops couldn’t support their own tales. I remained accused pending trial and under constant control from the authorities for seven whole years. Seven years of continuous surveillance in an attempt to target my action criminalizing my personal relationships, my ideas and my political viewpoint which at times I have expressed loud and clear. And here it is one more time!
I am an anarchist and I struggle with all my powers for the social revolution.
Continuing with the events around my arrest, soon after my acquaintance with the “tough” guys of the anti-terrorist squad I was taken to the “stupidity kitchen” the 12th floor of Police Headquarters, there were you enter one office for an ID verification and you leave from the other one next door with fabricated serious charges. So these “tough” guys, having been taught obviously by their colleagues, torturers during the dictatorship, started beating me and the other comrades while we were handcuffed with their swearing and threatening keeping the beat. Following this I experienced a simple processing from the inquisitors and prosecutors of the orchestrations set up by the cops and that’s how my life got wrapped up in a piece of official paper, how my case got tied up tight and I now find myself in prison awaiting trial at Trikala. Of course the choice of Wing E’ for my “stay” here is not at all coincidental, as it is the most controlled wing. I don’t think I even need to mention with precision the hideous living conditions in these “modern” hellholes of democracy. It is enough to say that water cuts are a more than usual occurrence (compliments to Themis Construction [Construction company belonging to the Ministry of Justice and in charge of building prisons])!!!
Power with the mass media as an ally uses the standard tactic of slander and criminalization of social struggles and of personal relations of people in struggle. It is not the first time something like this has happened but it is the first time I had to personally deal with this incredible brutality which has as an aim to defame my life, throwing piles of mud on myself and my acts as well as on my comrades, my friends and my family and the wider subversive movement in which I actively take part. In this attempt my home is characterized and named as a safe-house and a wattle fence, which by the way I found there when I rented the house, was enough to transform my personal space into a dangerous base of operations. That nothing was found in this house is probably of no importance! The continuous false leaks and the vulgar disinformation came to be added to the whole cannibalism taking place, revealing yet again the mechanisms’ and journalists’ vindictive craze against any one who resists. And this is only one version of the organized violence carried out by the mechanisms of power and of the legal crimes perpetrated by the state and the bosses against our lives.
Of course the criminalization of struggles and of those who negate the status quo is not something new or unusual. Those who struggle know this well by now. Besides, even if someone is arrested for postering they are prosecuted for littering rather than their ideas and subversive words which in reality constitute the essence of their prosecution. Against the fable of legality and the false boundaries of innocence or guilt, I declare myself an enemy of the regime and an unrepentant adversary of the state and capital.
Besides, my statement to the inquisitor that “I don’t denounce any form of struggle against the state and power” is the only reason I am in prison and not their unfounded bill of indictment. If they expected statements of conformity to the law and of repentance from me they did not calculate well. In my life I have not learned to grovel left and right as a denouncer, a snitch and a collaborator, I have not learned to betray friends and comrades, to abandon them, to accuse and denounce them in front of my prosecutors in order to save myself. In my life I have learned to hold my head up high, to live with pride and dignity and to not grovel even if there’s a price to pay. If there are some people that have learned to live groveling, I am truly ashamed on their behalf.
At this time, when the bankrupt Greek state under the umbrella of the IMF is attempting to terrorize and repress every subversive project in fear of the Decembers’ coming it is our duty to fight in order to overthrow it in its totality.
I will continue to fight against the policing and control over our lives and for the destruction of prisons. For social revolution and for freedom.
Because in this world freedom is not handed out to you, you have to claim her through battles and win her.
STATE AND CAPITAL ARE THE TERRORISTS, CRIMINALS AND THIEVES
HONOUR TO THE URBAN GUERILLA LAMBROS FOUNDAS
FREEDOM TO ALL THE COMRADES IN PRISON FOR THEIR SUBVERSIVE ACTIONS
Vaggelis Stathopoulos
Trikala Prisons
10-5-2010
Gathering for Simos Seisidis 24/6
Yesterday 24/6 morning on Tzanakaki street outside "Papadopetrou" building, a gathering was set up against the State's attempt to destroy comrade Simos Seisidis physically and psychologically. For the duration of the gathering flyers with information about the comrade's case were given out.
NOT ONE HOSTAGE IN THE HANDS OF THE STATE
SOLIDARITY IS OUR WEAPON
No comrade stays alone
Immediate release of Simos Seisidis
assembly of anarchists/antiauthoritarians "saltathoroi"
NOT ONE HOSTAGE IN THE HANDS OF THE STATE
SOLIDARITY IS OUR WEAPON
No comrade stays alone
Immediate release of Simos Seisidis
assembly of anarchists/antiauthoritarians "saltathoroi"
Update on comrade Simos Seisidis. 24/6
actforfreedom
Yesterday, the doctors of "Euaggelismos" hospital (orthopeadic department) discharged comrade Simos, assuming that he is now fine and can be transferred to
prison!!! The fact that his recovery is not completed, and ofcourse that the prosthetic leg needs a long time to be fit and even longer for someone to learn how
to use, doesnt seem to intimidate these worhty agents and slaves of the "anti-terrorist" police.
They gave no attention to the continious pressures from the family, his lawyer, and also their colleagues that were stressing how important it is, and obvious, that he must stay in the hospital. For now he remains in "euaggelismos" thanks to a few good doctors of the hospital (from another department), who went and kicked up a fuss, but its very possible they might move him one of these days.
As for the cops and the justice ministry, to solve the problem as they think, have booked him for Koridallos prison hospital, from ...Malandrinou (new high security prisons) that they wanted to send him originally, believing that this way the demand to be hospitalised is being satisfied. Saint pauls hospital... good joke but we know better ones..
On thursday, his lawyer will apply for his release, while monday he will appear before the persecutor regarding the case of snatching the weapon of the guard Kedikoglou, an accusation that is solely based on a supposed identification with an ilegally taken d.n.a. sample (a stray hair)...
Yesterday, the doctors of "Euaggelismos" hospital (orthopeadic department) discharged comrade Simos, assuming that he is now fine and can be transferred to
prison!!! The fact that his recovery is not completed, and ofcourse that the prosthetic leg needs a long time to be fit and even longer for someone to learn how
to use, doesnt seem to intimidate these worhty agents and slaves of the "anti-terrorist" police.
They gave no attention to the continious pressures from the family, his lawyer, and also their colleagues that were stressing how important it is, and obvious, that he must stay in the hospital. For now he remains in "euaggelismos" thanks to a few good doctors of the hospital (from another department), who went and kicked up a fuss, but its very possible they might move him one of these days.
As for the cops and the justice ministry, to solve the problem as they think, have booked him for Koridallos prison hospital, from ...Malandrinou (new high security prisons) that they wanted to send him originally, believing that this way the demand to be hospitalised is being satisfied. Saint pauls hospital... good joke but we know better ones..
On thursday, his lawyer will apply for his release, while monday he will appear before the persecutor regarding the case of snatching the weapon of the guard Kedikoglou, an accusation that is solely based on a supposed identification with an ilegally taken d.n.a. sample (a stray hair)...
It will allow the slow..elimination of Simos Seisidis?
from actforfreedomnow
In the communication about the conditions of detention and treatment of the prisoner Simos Seisidi eleven people (academics, doctors, lawyers, journalists, editors) denounce conditions which "are characterized by arbitrary government, police brutality and unethical medical practice".
The following text refers to a prisoner who was wanted for robbery, Simos Seisidis, his arrest, detention and treatment.
We believe that medical organizations, democratic movements and human rights, political organizations and collectives should now take a position on the issue, because the case of Simos Seisidi (prisoner and patient with no rights whatsoever) condenses the most odious forms of state repression and subjugation of medical function on its purpose.
First question: Can a suspect be shot in cold blood?
Simos Seisidis on May 3, 2010, has been seen by police in the area of Petralona. When reasonably he tried to flee, he was shot in cold blood by police on foot, so that the incoming bullet pierced the leg from the back of the foot, leaving by the front and destroying the main artery. It is significant that the testimony of the police that made the arrest in no way warned Seisidis but implemented the command to shoot (on foot!) who is suspected of escaping arrest.
The questions: Where and in which circumstances can an escape suspect be shot? By what criterion targeting the arrest of the suspect outweighs the protection of life of every able-bodied man? It is possible (albeit theoretically) for the legal system in this country not to have presumption of innocence and for a suspect to be awarded capital punishment, sentence of death or permanent disability? What else were the police are waiting to understand after relentlessly beating up the blood-staine, faint Seisidi, which caused multiple fractures to his ribs , and then threatened his life?
Problem 2: In what could bring the police arbitrariness?
The police, therefore, unnecessarily shoot Simo Seisidis and then batter him. But that does not stop them. A fully armed invasion of the ICU of KAT hospital and then hospitalized in special cell, family visits prohibited and exclusively hospital nurses to provide the necessary care; any correspondence or telephone calls refused, and even the existence of television or radio in the hospitalized cell.· They harass the patient, screaming on the bed, up and photographing him with mobile phones when he is being washed by the nursing staff:
Friday, May 28, when foot of Simos Seisidis amputated, police were inside the operating theatre!
The questions: What reasons require all these measures other than the quite obvious one that aims to humiliate and kill Simos Seisidis psychologically and emotionally ? There is no institutional body in this country that is willing to review police cannibalism? Finally, the fact that Seisidis was wanted for the robbery may be an inhibitory factor for any institution, organization or party to deal with the case?
Question 3: Can police be doctors?
Eventually, Simos Seisidis suffered amputation of the leg, because, according to the attending doctors, he ran imminent risk of his life. Attaching omission or negligence to the personnel of the First Orthopaedic Clinic of CAT, particularly against the Director of Clinical of unethical behavior in terms of tolerance of the massive police presence, which may burden the healing progress of the patient and necessarily incurred (now the responsibility of the ICU of Evangelismos) further full recovery.
The questions: Can doctors not accept a private nurse (like all prisoner patients); doctors is it not unreasonable to accept the presence of police within the ICU, even in the operating room? It is ridiculous the doctor in the ICU of Evangelismos stating "we are not responsible for the presence of police officers in the Unit? Finally, is medicine simply the execution and administration of drugs or organization of the full recovery of the patient's health? Is the doctor who respects his degree and oath , who believes that isolation, ... and the presence of armed police literally on the patient leave treatment ineffective? Finally, is there a "medical humanism" or do we all the time obey the rules of the free market and freedom of repression?
Demand: to withdraw immediately the police from inside the ICU of the Annunciation; to abolish isolation Seisidi Simos, have regular visiting hours, a special nurse, correspondence, and when returning to the room have radio, television and telephone communication, uninterrupted recovery of the patient and the time in hospital not interrupted by transfer to prison. Furthermore, health status and the whole situation until now by the authorities not to impose his detention and, if obtained evidence against the referral to trial.
We call upon: scientific and medical associations, each sensitive social and political body to denounce this shameful situation that not only is killing Simos Seisidi but degrades any sense of democracy and humanity.
Dimitris Kekos (University, National) * Periklis Korovesis (writer, Pr. MP) * Nikos Manios (doctor, hospital Pentelis) * Yannis Banias (pr. Member, State Secretariat SYRIZA) * Romina Xydas (journalist, "Proto Thema") * John prosper (doctor, General State Nice) * Michael Cantor (editor, Alkis Rigos Vivliopelagos * (University of Panteion) * George Roussis (University Panteion) * Dimitri Sarafianos (lawyer) * George Stamatopoulos (reporter, 'BBC') *
In the communication about the conditions of detention and treatment of the prisoner Simos Seisidi eleven people (academics, doctors, lawyers, journalists, editors) denounce conditions which "are characterized by arbitrary government, police brutality and unethical medical practice".
The following text refers to a prisoner who was wanted for robbery, Simos Seisidis, his arrest, detention and treatment.
We believe that medical organizations, democratic movements and human rights, political organizations and collectives should now take a position on the issue, because the case of Simos Seisidi (prisoner and patient with no rights whatsoever) condenses the most odious forms of state repression and subjugation of medical function on its purpose.
First question: Can a suspect be shot in cold blood?
Simos Seisidis on May 3, 2010, has been seen by police in the area of Petralona. When reasonably he tried to flee, he was shot in cold blood by police on foot, so that the incoming bullet pierced the leg from the back of the foot, leaving by the front and destroying the main artery. It is significant that the testimony of the police that made the arrest in no way warned Seisidis but implemented the command to shoot (on foot!) who is suspected of escaping arrest.
The questions: Where and in which circumstances can an escape suspect be shot? By what criterion targeting the arrest of the suspect outweighs the protection of life of every able-bodied man? It is possible (albeit theoretically) for the legal system in this country not to have presumption of innocence and for a suspect to be awarded capital punishment, sentence of death or permanent disability? What else were the police are waiting to understand after relentlessly beating up the blood-staine, faint Seisidi, which caused multiple fractures to his ribs , and then threatened his life?
Problem 2: In what could bring the police arbitrariness?
The police, therefore, unnecessarily shoot Simo Seisidis and then batter him. But that does not stop them. A fully armed invasion of the ICU of KAT hospital and then hospitalized in special cell, family visits prohibited and exclusively hospital nurses to provide the necessary care; any correspondence or telephone calls refused, and even the existence of television or radio in the hospitalized cell.· They harass the patient, screaming on the bed, up and photographing him with mobile phones when he is being washed by the nursing staff:
Friday, May 28, when foot of Simos Seisidis amputated, police were inside the operating theatre!
The questions: What reasons require all these measures other than the quite obvious one that aims to humiliate and kill Simos Seisidis psychologically and emotionally ? There is no institutional body in this country that is willing to review police cannibalism? Finally, the fact that Seisidis was wanted for the robbery may be an inhibitory factor for any institution, organization or party to deal with the case?
Question 3: Can police be doctors?
Eventually, Simos Seisidis suffered amputation of the leg, because, according to the attending doctors, he ran imminent risk of his life. Attaching omission or negligence to the personnel of the First Orthopaedic Clinic of CAT, particularly against the Director of Clinical of unethical behavior in terms of tolerance of the massive police presence, which may burden the healing progress of the patient and necessarily incurred (now the responsibility of the ICU of Evangelismos) further full recovery.
The questions: Can doctors not accept a private nurse (like all prisoner patients); doctors is it not unreasonable to accept the presence of police within the ICU, even in the operating room? It is ridiculous the doctor in the ICU of Evangelismos stating "we are not responsible for the presence of police officers in the Unit? Finally, is medicine simply the execution and administration of drugs or organization of the full recovery of the patient's health? Is the doctor who respects his degree and oath , who believes that isolation, ... and the presence of armed police literally on the patient leave treatment ineffective? Finally, is there a "medical humanism" or do we all the time obey the rules of the free market and freedom of repression?
Demand: to withdraw immediately the police from inside the ICU of the Annunciation; to abolish isolation Seisidi Simos, have regular visiting hours, a special nurse, correspondence, and when returning to the room have radio, television and telephone communication, uninterrupted recovery of the patient and the time in hospital not interrupted by transfer to prison. Furthermore, health status and the whole situation until now by the authorities not to impose his detention and, if obtained evidence against the referral to trial.
We call upon: scientific and medical associations, each sensitive social and political body to denounce this shameful situation that not only is killing Simos Seisidi but degrades any sense of democracy and humanity.
Dimitris Kekos (University, National) * Periklis Korovesis (writer, Pr. MP) * Nikos Manios (doctor, hospital Pentelis) * Yannis Banias (pr. Member, State Secretariat SYRIZA) * Romina Xydas (journalist, "Proto Thema") * John prosper (doctor, General State Nice) * Michael Cantor (editor, Alkis Rigos Vivliopelagos * (University of Panteion) * George Roussis (University Panteion) * Dimitri Sarafianos (lawyer) * George Stamatopoulos (reporter, 'BBC') *
Letter from Aris Seirinidis
from this is our job
In a period of intensification of class conflict, the state—through a methodically conducted police, judicial, and media operation beginning directly after my arrest on the afternoon of May 3, 2010—has managed to turn me into a hostage. Alternately comical and scientific, the set-up as well as the handling of my “case” makes this criminal prosecution feel twice as exemplary.
On the one hand, exemplary in the very sense of “making an example,” because of the attempt to make an example of me due to my firm, unwavering choice—now for 17 years running—to be on the other side of the barricade, where my class position and my conscience have positioned me: against capitalist domination and state terrorism.
On the other hand, exemplary because all this is happening during a new period of repression: an era of the IMF and total war waged on society by capital and the state. Alongside the structural weaknesses of the capitalist system, the current economic crisis is revealing the artificial, unpredictable nature of bourgeois democracy itself. While the IMF, the EU, and their local representatives are trying to impose a regime of capitalist economic totalitarianism, the mask of democracy has fallen. Simultaneously, via a most amateurish set-up worthy of the post-civil war police, matters are “settled” with “indisputable DNA analysis” in the laboratories of police headquarters.
I won’t go on and on making excuses about all the blatant legal and other violations regarding the handling of my case. After all, my imprisonment was approved on one of the floors of the National Intelligence Service building. I grant no legitimacy to this system of exploitation and oppression, no matter what happens. Nevertheless, to those whose objective is to make an example of me through imprisonment, I say this: For me, prison is a new battlefield, a challenge in the struggle against “the absolute power of law and order,” a chance to turn the most barbaric institution of control into a laboratory for my political and ideological maturation. Despite everything, the new repressive dogma—with its remarkable mania for vengeance—can’t hide the indebted Greek state’s panic in the face of the eventuality that generalized social rage becomes social insurrection.
From A wing at Korydallos Prison, I raise my fist to my comrades and to all who struggle, filled with the certainty that we’ll meet again on the battlefield of the social and class war—even more determined, even more combative, and even more potent.
—Aris Seirinidis; Korydallos; June 9, 2010
In a period of intensification of class conflict, the state—through a methodically conducted police, judicial, and media operation beginning directly after my arrest on the afternoon of May 3, 2010—has managed to turn me into a hostage. Alternately comical and scientific, the set-up as well as the handling of my “case” makes this criminal prosecution feel twice as exemplary.
On the one hand, exemplary in the very sense of “making an example,” because of the attempt to make an example of me due to my firm, unwavering choice—now for 17 years running—to be on the other side of the barricade, where my class position and my conscience have positioned me: against capitalist domination and state terrorism.
On the other hand, exemplary because all this is happening during a new period of repression: an era of the IMF and total war waged on society by capital and the state. Alongside the structural weaknesses of the capitalist system, the current economic crisis is revealing the artificial, unpredictable nature of bourgeois democracy itself. While the IMF, the EU, and their local representatives are trying to impose a regime of capitalist economic totalitarianism, the mask of democracy has fallen. Simultaneously, via a most amateurish set-up worthy of the post-civil war police, matters are “settled” with “indisputable DNA analysis” in the laboratories of police headquarters.
I won’t go on and on making excuses about all the blatant legal and other violations regarding the handling of my case. After all, my imprisonment was approved on one of the floors of the National Intelligence Service building. I grant no legitimacy to this system of exploitation and oppression, no matter what happens. Nevertheless, to those whose objective is to make an example of me through imprisonment, I say this: For me, prison is a new battlefield, a challenge in the struggle against “the absolute power of law and order,” a chance to turn the most barbaric institution of control into a laboratory for my political and ideological maturation. Despite everything, the new repressive dogma—with its remarkable mania for vengeance—can’t hide the indebted Greek state’s panic in the face of the eventuality that generalized social rage becomes social insurrection.
From A wing at Korydallos Prison, I raise my fist to my comrades and to all who struggle, filled with the certainty that we’ll meet again on the battlefield of the social and class war—even more determined, even more combative, and even more potent.
—Aris Seirinidis; Korydallos; June 9, 2010
Athens - The Federation of Hospital Doctors on Simos Seisidis
from From the Greek Streets
Monday, May 31, 2010
Resolution by the Federation of Hospital Doctors in Greece (OENGE)
on the conditions under which Simos Seisidis is hospitalized
The Federation of Hospital Doctors in Greece (OENGE) denounces the unrestrained violation of ethics –both medical and judicial – that is taking place during Simos Seisides’ hospitalization in a special ward at KAT hospital [in Athens]. It is unacceptable to provide medical treatment to the detainee under the constant supervision of police guards and, thus, to force doctors and nurses to violate openly the code of medical ethics. Moreover, the complaints that have been made are appalling and bring shame on our civilization – complaints which state that police guards take photographs of the detainee while his bullet wound is treated and his excrements are cleaned up, while they forbid he be treated by a hospital-appointed private nurse.
The Federation of Hospital Doctors in Greece (OENGE) calls the Ministers of Health, Justice and “Citizen Protection” to guarantee the self-evident rights of Seisidis, which should be respected regardless of the alleged charges against him – this should apply to all detainees whether they are hospitalized or not. We remind all interested parties that the Code of Medical Ethics – which is ratified by Greek law –, the Hippocratic Oath and the honor and dignity of both doctor and patient prevail against administrative or police orders. We invite attendant doctors to demand police forces respect the code of medical ethics fully and not to cooperate in its violation under any circumstances; in contrary, to immediately report relative incidents.
Athens, 28 May 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Resolution by the Federation of Hospital Doctors in Greece (OENGE)
on the conditions under which Simos Seisidis is hospitalized
The Federation of Hospital Doctors in Greece (OENGE) denounces the unrestrained violation of ethics –both medical and judicial – that is taking place during Simos Seisides’ hospitalization in a special ward at KAT hospital [in Athens]. It is unacceptable to provide medical treatment to the detainee under the constant supervision of police guards and, thus, to force doctors and nurses to violate openly the code of medical ethics. Moreover, the complaints that have been made are appalling and bring shame on our civilization – complaints which state that police guards take photographs of the detainee while his bullet wound is treated and his excrements are cleaned up, while they forbid he be treated by a hospital-appointed private nurse.
The Federation of Hospital Doctors in Greece (OENGE) calls the Ministers of Health, Justice and “Citizen Protection” to guarantee the self-evident rights of Seisidis, which should be respected regardless of the alleged charges against him – this should apply to all detainees whether they are hospitalized or not. We remind all interested parties that the Code of Medical Ethics – which is ratified by Greek law –, the Hippocratic Oath and the honor and dignity of both doctor and patient prevail against administrative or police orders. We invite attendant doctors to demand police forces respect the code of medical ethics fully and not to cooperate in its violation under any circumstances; in contrary, to immediately report relative incidents.
Athens, 28 May 2010
Simos Seisidis loses his leg
from actforfreedomnow
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Simos Seisidis is an anarchist arrested on May 3d by police in Athens. Simos has had a price on his head for a long time, accused of being a member of the so-called “robbers in black” (oi listes me ta maura) who were, allegedly, a group to which imprisoned anarchist Yiannis Dimitrakis also belonged.
During his arrest on May 4th, Simos was shot in the leg by police and injured heavily; he was also beaten badly on the spot. Since that day Simos has been detained in a room-converted-cell in the KAT hospital in Athens. His conditions of detention are horrific – as described by his family, comrades and groups such as the Network for Social and Political Rights (which has issued a statement, see here, in Greek): there is a complete ban on TV, radio and phone communication for him; the only person allowed to visit him in his room is his mother; police are constantly guarding his room, abusing him, photographing him with their mobile phones while he is bathed by the nursing staff; the list is endless.
On Friday, May 28th it was announced that his health condition had worsened rapidly and that Simos had an emergency operation and had his leg amputated. He is now in a stable and relatively good (that is, non-life threatening condition); his horrific conditions of detention remain. BROTHER SIMOS YOU ARE NOT ALONE! THEY ARE GOING TO PAY FOR THAT!!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Simos Seisidis is an anarchist arrested on May 3d by police in Athens. Simos has had a price on his head for a long time, accused of being a member of the so-called “robbers in black” (oi listes me ta maura) who were, allegedly, a group to which imprisoned anarchist Yiannis Dimitrakis also belonged.
During his arrest on May 4th, Simos was shot in the leg by police and injured heavily; he was also beaten badly on the spot. Since that day Simos has been detained in a room-converted-cell in the KAT hospital in Athens. His conditions of detention are horrific – as described by his family, comrades and groups such as the Network for Social and Political Rights (which has issued a statement, see here, in Greek): there is a complete ban on TV, radio and phone communication for him; the only person allowed to visit him in his room is his mother; police are constantly guarding his room, abusing him, photographing him with their mobile phones while he is bathed by the nursing staff; the list is endless.
On Friday, May 28th it was announced that his health condition had worsened rapidly and that Simos had an emergency operation and had his leg amputated. He is now in a stable and relatively good (that is, non-life threatening condition); his horrific conditions of detention remain. BROTHER SIMOS YOU ARE NOT ALONE! THEY ARE GOING TO PAY FOR THAT!!
Update on Simos and situation inside the hospital [K.A.T.]
from actforfreedomnow
Athens10/5
Uncountable cops of all kinds have been permanently installed in the hospital where Simos Seisidis is. An episode occured when two foreigners looking for a friend approached his room. Cops of the special forces flooded the hallway with their guns pointed at them... they scared the shit out of them, at the same time, the police helicopter which was flying around the top of the hospital landed on the roof of the building next to the hospital!They give his mother much less time than she's entitled to, (half hour in the morning and half in the evening while usually it's three hours each time). The head doctor, acting as a genuine police snitch, is doing all he can to crush the psychology of our comrade [i.e. telling him that their going to cut off his leg...], while others of the hospital staff are showing an obvious indifference [i.e. not changing his sheets and leaving him to lie for hours in his blood that is coming out of the open wound]. Fortunately there are some exceptions, doctors and nurses that are doing whatever they can under these circumstances. The public briefings on this subject are so that all the people involved will understand that WHATEVER THEY SAY and WHATEVER THEY DO will be recorded. SO WILL THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES. There's still a BIG NEED FOR BLOOD. The comrade needs 2 bottles of blood a day. You can give blood in any hospital, regardless of bloodgroup. All you need is the name and the name of the hospital. Many comrades in prison offered and gave blood as well and we thank them.
Simos is not alone!
Athens10/5
Uncountable cops of all kinds have been permanently installed in the hospital where Simos Seisidis is. An episode occured when two foreigners looking for a friend approached his room. Cops of the special forces flooded the hallway with their guns pointed at them... they scared the shit out of them, at the same time, the police helicopter which was flying around the top of the hospital landed on the roof of the building next to the hospital!They give his mother much less time than she's entitled to, (half hour in the morning and half in the evening while usually it's three hours each time). The head doctor, acting as a genuine police snitch, is doing all he can to crush the psychology of our comrade [i.e. telling him that their going to cut off his leg...], while others of the hospital staff are showing an obvious indifference [i.e. not changing his sheets and leaving him to lie for hours in his blood that is coming out of the open wound]. Fortunately there are some exceptions, doctors and nurses that are doing whatever they can under these circumstances. The public briefings on this subject are so that all the people involved will understand that WHATEVER THEY SAY and WHATEVER THEY DO will be recorded. SO WILL THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES. There's still a BIG NEED FOR BLOOD. The comrade needs 2 bottles of blood a day. You can give blood in any hospital, regardless of bloodgroup. All you need is the name and the name of the hospital. Many comrades in prison offered and gave blood as well and we thank them.
Simos is not alone!
Simos Seisidis fights for his life in hospital cage
from actforfreedomnow
A climate of terror reigns in KAT hospital where comrade Simos Seisidis has been transported and hospitalized. At noon they did a second operation, while doctors are afraid not only about whether they can revert his foot that suffered serious injuries, but also for his life.That is because at the Hippocratic hospital was he was transferred from he was clinically dead and brought back to life, and because he is still at risk.
The situation is deemed very serious, in the words of doctors. He is not hospitalized in intensive care, but in a specially designed room/cage, which gets very hot and there is only one old-fashioned air conditioner that does not actually do anything.In the room, as throughout the hospital, police are on permanent guard. The lawyer was prevented from seeing him, and up until yesterday afternoon, his family were also prevented from entering.
The assisting doctor, at the strong protests of the mother said "Well don't you worry, I'll take care of him"! Fortunately, with the help of another doctor and head nurse, who honor their functions, they succeeded in doing so.
The police presence is massive, and during yesterday's demonstration, EKAM special cops with guns and balaclavas are patrolling the hospital! While current security measures are even greater, with body checks on the family and his companion locked inside the walk-in cage!The comrade will remain for a long time in hospital and will undergo surgery again.
For four years a myth has been formed around his name, and since the situation there is now explosive with ever greater repression, and with memories fresh from the "treatment" of Savvas Xiros [imprisoned 17 November member who was severely wounded and 'visited' by the CIA while semi-conscious due to special drug administration], we intend to monitor closely.
SIMOS IS NOT ALONE.
A climate of terror reigns in KAT hospital where comrade Simos Seisidis has been transported and hospitalized. At noon they did a second operation, while doctors are afraid not only about whether they can revert his foot that suffered serious injuries, but also for his life.That is because at the Hippocratic hospital was he was transferred from he was clinically dead and brought back to life, and because he is still at risk.
The situation is deemed very serious, in the words of doctors. He is not hospitalized in intensive care, but in a specially designed room/cage, which gets very hot and there is only one old-fashioned air conditioner that does not actually do anything.In the room, as throughout the hospital, police are on permanent guard. The lawyer was prevented from seeing him, and up until yesterday afternoon, his family were also prevented from entering.
The assisting doctor, at the strong protests of the mother said "Well don't you worry, I'll take care of him"! Fortunately, with the help of another doctor and head nurse, who honor their functions, they succeeded in doing so.
The police presence is massive, and during yesterday's demonstration, EKAM special cops with guns and balaclavas are patrolling the hospital! While current security measures are even greater, with body checks on the family and his companion locked inside the walk-in cage!The comrade will remain for a long time in hospital and will undergo surgery again.
For four years a myth has been formed around his name, and since the situation there is now explosive with ever greater repression, and with memories fresh from the "treatment" of Savvas Xiros [imprisoned 17 November member who was severely wounded and 'visited' by the CIA while semi-conscious due to special drug administration], we intend to monitor closely.
SIMOS IS NOT ALONE.
Letter from Ilias Nikolau, from Amfissa prison
from 325 nostate
In the night of January 13th 2009, an incendiary device, composed of gas canisters and gasoline, exploded in the entrance of the (police) commissariat of Evomos (region of Thessalonica), and damaged the windows in the facade and the ventilation system. Shortly after, the police arrested the 26 year old anarchist Ilias Nikolau, who does not live far from there. Ilias was, together with Dimitra Sirianou and Kostakis Halazas, subject of an arrest warrant for over a year, concerning the same case as Vaggelis Botzatzis (on the accusation of several arsons). Vaggelis was released on conditions on October 13th 2008. On November 14th, during the agitations with the hunger strike in Greek prisons, the 3 others went to the commissariat of Thessalonica, accompanied by some hundred comrades. The day after, the judge decided to let them await their trial in freedom. Currently Ilias is accused for “explosion” (felony), “production” and “accomplishment” (misdemeanours). Ilias does not acknowledge the accusations, nor admits “having been caught red handed”. The police raided his parent’s house, the place where he works, and stormed the house of his grandmother out of the city. Ilias was brought to the prison of Amfissa, this is a letter he wrote:
In the morning of January 13th I was arrested in the west of Thessalonica, on the accusation of an explosion that took place at the commissariat of the municipal police. This happened a year after, an incredible accusation was created against me and three of my comrades in November 2007. That accusation put one of us in prison, and made three others escape. The witch hunt has started. We have lived through a considerably warm December and a situation that shows the lack of social peace clearly. Social peace only lives in the imagination of those that cannot understand that reality is characterized by a permanent civil war. With a revolutionary side that rebels against this democratic monstrosity. Rage replaced fear and instead of approval, negation appeared. The month of December, as a sign for times to come, made a very clear devision between those that feed the Power, maintain and defend it, and those that fight it. Now is not the time to look back in nostalgia to the ashes that the insurrection left on its path. We have to understand and express the signs of the present and the future. The signs that already exist, and those to come. The signs of a relentless social war. If we want that moments of negation, revolt and dignity are lived, we have to arm our hands and our desires, determined and organized. I resist against those who think that manifestations and pacifist protest will make a difference, because they’re already dead. They drag their corpses along the streets, in the unions and in the luxurious offices of their bosses. I take place on the side of those who are led by dignity and I join with those who feel the unchangeable will to disrupt and to destroy this enormous cemetery. The prison is an added step to a rebel. A step towards imprisonment. To all those who think that they have overcome me, that they have overcome us…
For me and my comrades it works just the other way around! Because as long as there are prisoners of war, we will continue to struggle. I send warm and rebellious greetings to my comrades and to revolutionaries everywhere.
Freedom for all prisoners of the revolt. Freedom for Yiannis Dimitrakis, Polis Georgiadis and Yiorgous Voutsi-Vogiatzis and all the hostages of democracy.
Ilias Nikolau, Amfissa prison, 19th January 2009
In the night of January 13th 2009, an incendiary device, composed of gas canisters and gasoline, exploded in the entrance of the (police) commissariat of Evomos (region of Thessalonica), and damaged the windows in the facade and the ventilation system. Shortly after, the police arrested the 26 year old anarchist Ilias Nikolau, who does not live far from there. Ilias was, together with Dimitra Sirianou and Kostakis Halazas, subject of an arrest warrant for over a year, concerning the same case as Vaggelis Botzatzis (on the accusation of several arsons). Vaggelis was released on conditions on October 13th 2008. On November 14th, during the agitations with the hunger strike in Greek prisons, the 3 others went to the commissariat of Thessalonica, accompanied by some hundred comrades. The day after, the judge decided to let them await their trial in freedom. Currently Ilias is accused for “explosion” (felony), “production” and “accomplishment” (misdemeanours). Ilias does not acknowledge the accusations, nor admits “having been caught red handed”. The police raided his parent’s house, the place where he works, and stormed the house of his grandmother out of the city. Ilias was brought to the prison of Amfissa, this is a letter he wrote:
In the morning of January 13th I was arrested in the west of Thessalonica, on the accusation of an explosion that took place at the commissariat of the municipal police. This happened a year after, an incredible accusation was created against me and three of my comrades in November 2007. That accusation put one of us in prison, and made three others escape. The witch hunt has started. We have lived through a considerably warm December and a situation that shows the lack of social peace clearly. Social peace only lives in the imagination of those that cannot understand that reality is characterized by a permanent civil war. With a revolutionary side that rebels against this democratic monstrosity. Rage replaced fear and instead of approval, negation appeared. The month of December, as a sign for times to come, made a very clear devision between those that feed the Power, maintain and defend it, and those that fight it. Now is not the time to look back in nostalgia to the ashes that the insurrection left on its path. We have to understand and express the signs of the present and the future. The signs that already exist, and those to come. The signs of a relentless social war. If we want that moments of negation, revolt and dignity are lived, we have to arm our hands and our desires, determined and organized. I resist against those who think that manifestations and pacifist protest will make a difference, because they’re already dead. They drag their corpses along the streets, in the unions and in the luxurious offices of their bosses. I take place on the side of those who are led by dignity and I join with those who feel the unchangeable will to disrupt and to destroy this enormous cemetery. The prison is an added step to a rebel. A step towards imprisonment. To all those who think that they have overcome me, that they have overcome us…
For me and my comrades it works just the other way around! Because as long as there are prisoners of war, we will continue to struggle. I send warm and rebellious greetings to my comrades and to revolutionaries everywhere.
Freedom for all prisoners of the revolt. Freedom for Yiannis Dimitrakis, Polis Georgiadis and Yiorgous Voutsi-Vogiatzis and all the hostages of democracy.
Ilias Nikolau, Amfissa prison, 19th January 2009
Letter from Giannis Dimitrakis, 3rd May 2010
In a society of deceit and hypocrisy, of backstabbing and betrayal; there where human relationships are molded on personal profit and exploitation, within the narrow limits of involuntary/obligatory choices, the scope of creating honest and sincere ties of social or political solidarity becomes constricted, suffocated. And if in many cases personal interest and vanity create a concrete mass in a common course between those in power, economic elites, political groups and other subgroups thus creating the illusion of a solid front, then in as many other cases it has been proven that when these same are confronted with pressuring and extremely negative conditions with the possibility of a total collapse approaching, the seeming powerful gluing element which created these cohesive bonds retreats in an instant, leaving behind a crowd of subhumans, each one looking to save themselves and not hesitating of handing over into the hands of the until lately common enemy their until recently political-socialeconomic partner.
For me now at my 32 years of age, with whatever experiences I have and whatever political consciousness and understanding I have developed, it is indisputable that since always one of the most precious and powerful weapons in the hands of people fighting against the world of the overlords, in expectance of a fair and free near future, was and will be solidarity. A solidarity which does not shrink in the face of repression but on the contrary unfolds decisively; which does not weep but attacks; which does not forget but honors with its memory.
And it is this solidarity I have tasted in the nearly 5 years I remain a captive of the state and that has to a great decree steeled me in all the difficult situations I have had to face and as an anarchist and as a prisoner. From the different events and demonstrations, the occupations of radio stations and the multitude of printed propaganda
material to the arsonist and bombing actions against state and economic targets. From Greece to Spain, Germany, the UK to Argentina and Mexico the common ideas, values and visions have erected a web of solidarity under which I also have the joy of being.
To all those who have stood by me through all my years of imprisonment and who continue in whatever way they can to give me the strength and courage to stand proud against all kinds of state mechanisms, I feel that I owe a part of myself.
So I salute and would like to thank all those comrades who within the context of the local and international web of solidarity that is developing and strengthening continuously in the last years and that breaks through borders and boundaries, considered and deemed it is worth for them to risk even their own freedom in order to build an
effective mound and a counterweight to the attacks and decisions taken against me by those in power.
Before the final rise of the sun that melts the darkness that embraces us all, the scattered fires emerging and shining more and more frequently from the most distant and unlikely places, illuminate the points and imperceptible routes drawn out by the universal rebellious conscience. My heart and soul cannot but be wholly with it.
NO FIGHTER A HOSTAGE IN THE HANDS OF THE POWER AND ECONOMIC ELITES
FREEDOM TO ALL IN PRISON
G. Dimitrakis
Domokos Prison 3/5/10
For me now at my 32 years of age, with whatever experiences I have and whatever political consciousness and understanding I have developed, it is indisputable that since always one of the most precious and powerful weapons in the hands of people fighting against the world of the overlords, in expectance of a fair and free near future, was and will be solidarity. A solidarity which does not shrink in the face of repression but on the contrary unfolds decisively; which does not weep but attacks; which does not forget but honors with its memory.
And it is this solidarity I have tasted in the nearly 5 years I remain a captive of the state and that has to a great decree steeled me in all the difficult situations I have had to face and as an anarchist and as a prisoner. From the different events and demonstrations, the occupations of radio stations and the multitude of printed propaganda
material to the arsonist and bombing actions against state and economic targets. From Greece to Spain, Germany, the UK to Argentina and Mexico the common ideas, values and visions have erected a web of solidarity under which I also have the joy of being.
To all those who have stood by me through all my years of imprisonment and who continue in whatever way they can to give me the strength and courage to stand proud against all kinds of state mechanisms, I feel that I owe a part of myself.
So I salute and would like to thank all those comrades who within the context of the local and international web of solidarity that is developing and strengthening continuously in the last years and that breaks through borders and boundaries, considered and deemed it is worth for them to risk even their own freedom in order to build an
effective mound and a counterweight to the attacks and decisions taken against me by those in power.
Before the final rise of the sun that melts the darkness that embraces us all, the scattered fires emerging and shining more and more frequently from the most distant and unlikely places, illuminate the points and imperceptible routes drawn out by the universal rebellious conscience. My heart and soul cannot but be wholly with it.
NO FIGHTER A HOSTAGE IN THE HANDS OF THE POWER AND ECONOMIC ELITES
FREEDOM TO ALL IN PRISON
G. Dimitrakis
Domokos Prison 3/5/10
Solidarity to Giannis Dimitrakis!
from Deranged
Giannis, who was arrested after being almost killed by cops following a bank robbery in central Athens, has been given a deadly sentence of 25 years. Representatives of the Greek government and bankers have not known tranquil sleep thanks to the solidarity of the anarchists
Anarchist comrade Giannis Dimitrakis was arrested in Athens on January 16, 2006 after being shot and seriously wounded in various parts of his body by cops following a robbery in a bank in the city centre. Three other comrades who managed to get away have been named and also charged with the robbery. 29 year old Giannis spent several months in hospital before being sent to Korydallos prison in Athens and eventually ended up in the grim maximum security prison of Malandrinos in the centre of Greece.
Ever since he was struck and arrested Giannis has been the object of hysterical media sensationalism, referred to as one of a ‘notorious gang of Robbers in Black’. As always in such cases, he was accused of seven other unsolved robberies and even murder, but these charges were later dropped. Ever since his arrest anarchists have demonstrated solidarity with every means possible, meetings, posters, attacks on banks, the media, etc. On March 21 a 2-day discussion, counter-information, video-projection and benefit gig was held in an Athens university that had been squatted for the occasion, in solidarity with Giannis and other anarchist prisoners.
On April 23 a prison revolt broke out in Malandrinos prison after Giannis was attacked by a guard. 200 prisoners armed with metal bars and stones staged a rooftop protest that they kept up for 4 days without food or water. A prison built for 260, packed with 440 prisoners in the scorching heat. There had been no water for four days preceding the mutiny. That night 100 anarchists demonstrated outside the house of the Greek president K. Papoulias in solidarity to Dimitrakis and all the prisoners in revolt that was to spread to another 10 prisons in Greece, supported by hundreds of anarchists in the streets and on demos outside some of the prisons.
The trial was set to start at the beginning of July and extra police were stationed in the centre of Athens in anticipation of passionate manifestations of solidariy to Giannis. In fact, on July 3 the Greek ministry of culture was attacked with molotov cocktails, sticks and stones while the minister Voulgarakis was inside, resulting in one ministerial vehicle being totally destroyed and serious damage to the front of the building. The minister’s bodyguards responded by shooting straight at the comrades who managed to escape unharmed. The attack was claimed in an anoymous phone call to ‘Eleftherotipia’ daily as having taken place in solidarity to G. Dimitrakis. Next day, in Leukosia, Cyprus, cash points of the Bank of Cyprus were destroyed following an attack with gas cannisters, claimed by a ‘Communist Sect’ in solidarity to G. Dimitrakis. In Athens, at 12am, the main building of the National Insurance company and an adjacent conference centre on Syngrou Avenue were attacked with sledge-hammers causing extensive damage. Windows and a cash machine were smashed and paint thrown. Leaflets were scattered and walls were sprayed saying ‘Freedom to Giannis Dimitrakis on trial July 6 for the National Bank robbery’, just after 10am in the centre of Athens, on July 4. At 5pm, a group of anarchists occupied Sport fm radio station and played a pre-recorded 15 minute counter-information cd in solidarity to G. Dimitrakis and other imprisoned anarchists and social fighters. On leaving the radio station 17 comrades were arrested and taken to the Athens police headquarters but were later released without charge. July 5, Athens, 10.05am, in spite of a massive presence of various types of policemen in the area, the bank robbed by Giannis and other comrades was attacked with rocks, heavy sticks, iron bars and red paint by comrades wearing masks and motorcycle helmets. Leaflets in solidarity to Giannis, whose trial was due to begin next day, were scattered. 9 people were held and later released. At the same time the Bank of Cyprus, the Commercial Bank and Piraius Bank were attacked in another part of the city.
On July 9, a branch of the National Bank in Crete was attacked and messages of solidarity to Giannis scattered in leaflets and sprayed on walls.
On July 16, just before midnight, the National Bank in Neo Psychico, north Athens had windows smashed and the building was set on fire.
On July 19, after Giannis Dimitrakis had been sentenced to 25 YEARS, a group of about 15 anarchists wearing masks and helmets attacked branches of Eurobank and National Bank using iron bars, rocks and sticks. During the attacks the comrades scattered leaflets calling for his release.
Just after 11.30pm on Saturday 21 July, an improvised petrol bomb exploded in a parking lot belonging to Piraeus Bank on the eastern outskirts of Athens, damaging around 80 cars. No one was injured in the attack. Police said they were investigating the possibility of the attack being carried out by anarchists in solidarity with Giannis Dimitrakis.
Early in the morning of Monday 30th July damage was done simultaneously to more than ten cash point machines in the town of Hania, Crete. Polyurethane foam was used to block the card slots putting them out of order till the next day. A statement was made that the actions had been done in solidarity with the anarchist Yannis Dimitrakis who had just been sentenced to 25 years for bank robbery. The comrades claimed responsibility by email to the local newspaper in Hania.
Meanwhile the real robbers: the stock exchange, the government, the banks in Greece and all over the world, manned by millions of unquestioning employees and protected by the hired hitmen of the State, carry on robbing and reducing the lives of whole peoples to nothing more than toil and misery.
Freedom to Giannis Dimitrakis!
Giannis, who was arrested after being almost killed by cops following a bank robbery in central Athens, has been given a deadly sentence of 25 years. Representatives of the Greek government and bankers have not known tranquil sleep thanks to the solidarity of the anarchists
Anarchist comrade Giannis Dimitrakis was arrested in Athens on January 16, 2006 after being shot and seriously wounded in various parts of his body by cops following a robbery in a bank in the city centre. Three other comrades who managed to get away have been named and also charged with the robbery. 29 year old Giannis spent several months in hospital before being sent to Korydallos prison in Athens and eventually ended up in the grim maximum security prison of Malandrinos in the centre of Greece.
Ever since he was struck and arrested Giannis has been the object of hysterical media sensationalism, referred to as one of a ‘notorious gang of Robbers in Black’. As always in such cases, he was accused of seven other unsolved robberies and even murder, but these charges were later dropped. Ever since his arrest anarchists have demonstrated solidarity with every means possible, meetings, posters, attacks on banks, the media, etc. On March 21 a 2-day discussion, counter-information, video-projection and benefit gig was held in an Athens university that had been squatted for the occasion, in solidarity with Giannis and other anarchist prisoners.
On April 23 a prison revolt broke out in Malandrinos prison after Giannis was attacked by a guard. 200 prisoners armed with metal bars and stones staged a rooftop protest that they kept up for 4 days without food or water. A prison built for 260, packed with 440 prisoners in the scorching heat. There had been no water for four days preceding the mutiny. That night 100 anarchists demonstrated outside the house of the Greek president K. Papoulias in solidarity to Dimitrakis and all the prisoners in revolt that was to spread to another 10 prisons in Greece, supported by hundreds of anarchists in the streets and on demos outside some of the prisons.
The trial was set to start at the beginning of July and extra police were stationed in the centre of Athens in anticipation of passionate manifestations of solidariy to Giannis. In fact, on July 3 the Greek ministry of culture was attacked with molotov cocktails, sticks and stones while the minister Voulgarakis was inside, resulting in one ministerial vehicle being totally destroyed and serious damage to the front of the building. The minister’s bodyguards responded by shooting straight at the comrades who managed to escape unharmed. The attack was claimed in an anoymous phone call to ‘Eleftherotipia’ daily as having taken place in solidarity to G. Dimitrakis. Next day, in Leukosia, Cyprus, cash points of the Bank of Cyprus were destroyed following an attack with gas cannisters, claimed by a ‘Communist Sect’ in solidarity to G. Dimitrakis. In Athens, at 12am, the main building of the National Insurance company and an adjacent conference centre on Syngrou Avenue were attacked with sledge-hammers causing extensive damage. Windows and a cash machine were smashed and paint thrown. Leaflets were scattered and walls were sprayed saying ‘Freedom to Giannis Dimitrakis on trial July 6 for the National Bank robbery’, just after 10am in the centre of Athens, on July 4. At 5pm, a group of anarchists occupied Sport fm radio station and played a pre-recorded 15 minute counter-information cd in solidarity to G. Dimitrakis and other imprisoned anarchists and social fighters. On leaving the radio station 17 comrades were arrested and taken to the Athens police headquarters but were later released without charge. July 5, Athens, 10.05am, in spite of a massive presence of various types of policemen in the area, the bank robbed by Giannis and other comrades was attacked with rocks, heavy sticks, iron bars and red paint by comrades wearing masks and motorcycle helmets. Leaflets in solidarity to Giannis, whose trial was due to begin next day, were scattered. 9 people were held and later released. At the same time the Bank of Cyprus, the Commercial Bank and Piraius Bank were attacked in another part of the city.
On July 9, a branch of the National Bank in Crete was attacked and messages of solidarity to Giannis scattered in leaflets and sprayed on walls.
On July 16, just before midnight, the National Bank in Neo Psychico, north Athens had windows smashed and the building was set on fire.
On July 19, after Giannis Dimitrakis had been sentenced to 25 YEARS, a group of about 15 anarchists wearing masks and helmets attacked branches of Eurobank and National Bank using iron bars, rocks and sticks. During the attacks the comrades scattered leaflets calling for his release.
Just after 11.30pm on Saturday 21 July, an improvised petrol bomb exploded in a parking lot belonging to Piraeus Bank on the eastern outskirts of Athens, damaging around 80 cars. No one was injured in the attack. Police said they were investigating the possibility of the attack being carried out by anarchists in solidarity with Giannis Dimitrakis.
Early in the morning of Monday 30th July damage was done simultaneously to more than ten cash point machines in the town of Hania, Crete. Polyurethane foam was used to block the card slots putting them out of order till the next day. A statement was made that the actions had been done in solidarity with the anarchist Yannis Dimitrakis who had just been sentenced to 25 years for bank robbery. The comrades claimed responsibility by email to the local newspaper in Hania.
Meanwhile the real robbers: the stock exchange, the government, the banks in Greece and all over the world, manned by millions of unquestioning employees and protected by the hired hitmen of the State, carry on robbing and reducing the lives of whole peoples to nothing more than toil and misery.
Freedom to Giannis Dimitrakis!
Arson against bank at Exarchia in solidarity with Giannis Dimitrakis
(Athens, 13/10/2008)
Today, October 13, the anarchist Giannis Dimitrakis faces jury at the martial court of Rouf, for his decision not to give away any of his time to the murderous machinery of the army.
That's why we decided to hit the subsidiary of Geniki Bank on Vatatzi street at Exarchia. He still remains imprisoned for the expropriation of Ethniki bank on Solonos street. An action of re-appropriation of all that the bosses rob us from daily, and of negation to the barbarism of work.
FREEDOM FOR GIANNIS DIMITRAKIS.
SOLIDARITY TO THE 3 FUGITIVES FOR THE EXROPRIATION OF ETHNIKI BANK.
"Group of Revolutionary Desertion"
Today, October 13, the anarchist Giannis Dimitrakis faces jury at the martial court of Rouf, for his decision not to give away any of his time to the murderous machinery of the army.
That's why we decided to hit the subsidiary of Geniki Bank on Vatatzi street at Exarchia. He still remains imprisoned for the expropriation of Ethniki bank on Solonos street. An action of re-appropriation of all that the bosses rob us from daily, and of negation to the barbarism of work.
FREEDOM FOR GIANNIS DIMITRAKIS.
SOLIDARITY TO THE 3 FUGITIVES FOR THE EXROPRIATION OF ETHNIKI BANK.
"Group of Revolutionary Desertion"
Reward of $887,000 offered for information leading to the arrest of the "robbers in black."
ATHENS, Greece, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Greek officials say they are offering a reward of $887,000 for information leading to the arrest of the "robbers in black."
Michalis Chrysochoidis, the newly appointed citizens' protection minister, told reporters Tuesday the robbers, identified as brothers Simeon and Marios Seisidis and Grigoris Tsironis, are wanted not only for a 2006 bank robbery but for possible links to anarchist groups accused of domestic terrorism, the Athens newspaper Kathimerini reported.
[Will the envelope of cash be white? Cuz I like things to be crystal clear]
The reward offer comes days after Chrysochoidis called for the reopening of the investigation of the November 17 anarchist group, some of whose suspected have been serving long jail sentences since it was broken up in 2002, the newspaper said. The government says domestic terror groups in Greece are making a comeback.
Sources told Kathimerini forensic evidence has linked one of the "robbers in black" with a 2007 attack on a former judge's private guard and to a later shooting at an Athens police station claimed by the group Revolutionary Struggle.
Michalis Chrysochoidis, the newly appointed citizens' protection minister, told reporters Tuesday the robbers, identified as brothers Simeon and Marios Seisidis and Grigoris Tsironis, are wanted not only for a 2006 bank robbery but for possible links to anarchist groups accused of domestic terrorism, the Athens newspaper Kathimerini reported.
[Will the envelope of cash be white? Cuz I like things to be crystal clear]
The reward offer comes days after Chrysochoidis called for the reopening of the investigation of the November 17 anarchist group, some of whose suspected have been serving long jail sentences since it was broken up in 2002, the newspaper said. The government says domestic terror groups in Greece are making a comeback.
Sources told Kathimerini forensic evidence has linked one of the "robbers in black" with a 2007 attack on a former judge's private guard and to a later shooting at an Athens police station claimed by the group Revolutionary Struggle.
An interview with Giannis Dimitrakis, November 2009
From Athens indymedia
translated by Occupied London
Translators’ note: The interview below was published in an Athens paper today (November 1st). It contains some very powerful words by a comrade who has managed to deal with the barbarity of incarceration with endless dignity, sobriety and the will to keep fighting. Our warmest greetings to Yiannis Dimitrakis and all other victims of the incarceration machine: until all are free, none of us truly is.
The journalist’s introduction:
For the police, he is a member of the gang of the "robbers in black". He was arrested during a bank robbery and convicted to a 25-year sentence. A few days ago, the Ministry for Citizen Protection set a price of 600,000 euros on the heads of the rest of the gang, at the same time arguing that they are not only robbers but also members of terrorist groups.
Yiannis Dimitrakis, an anarchist, speaks for the first time from the prison of Domokos where he is incarcerated. He talks about his comrades on the run, the recent attack on the police station of Ayia Paraskeui in Athens, the group "Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire", while he also responds to the minister for Citizen Protection, Michalis Chrysohoidis, who recently declared: "we are at war".
During the bank robbery of January 17th, 2006, where you were arrested, another three people (Simos and Marios Seisidis and Grigoris Tsironis) got away – and a few days ago, these three had a prize of 600,000 put on their heads by the minister of Citizen Protection, Mr. Chrysohoidis. Do you believe that anyone will step forward to supply information.
Indeed, the police force, some squalid hack writers and some permanent guests of TV shows together with the minister of Public Order (and not of "Citizen Protection", the government’s new name of preference for it) have set up an ideal scene for would-be scalp hunters. It is also a fact that the administrators of political authority would always try to form within society a mentality for informants and people snitching upon one another – sometimes with threats, other times with all sorts of rewards.
Luckily, the consciousness-bearing Greek society (that is, the one that recognises the cause for all her troubles in the face of the government terrorists or the financial elites and not in the face of three wanted anarchists), has historically resisted such practices and this, I believe, will happen this time around as well.
However, because there are and will also be aspiring Inspector Clouseau’s and ingenious Agatha Christie’s, I would like to tell them that many have fallenl in love with informing but no-one has ever loved the informant.
Do you believe that their arrest is near?
That I do not know and I wish that it never happens. What I do know is that if they do get arrested the unemployed are not going to find a job; salaries will not increase nor, finally, will anyone who struggles from dawn to dusk (running around like a slave between one, two and even three jobs) see anything change in their lives.
Do you believe they will surrender without a fight?
I believe that a "fight" in its narrow definition, that is, an exchange of bullet rounds, will not take place. Because they will never get arrested. I know and I am sure that they fight everyday to remain free. Why, you see, humans love freedom.
What would you do if you were in their position?
I would do exactly the same. I would also avoid my arrest, which given our situation would translate into my most certain conviction for the offence committed on January 16, 2006 – that is, when the robbery of the National Bank in Athens took place.
What kind of message would you send them from prison?
They already know they have my friendship and my love. So, I would tell them something that Nikos Kazantzakis once said: "I feel as if we are banging our heads against iron bars. Many heads are going to be smashed, but one day the iron bars will be smashed, too".
In your opinion what purpose is served by putting a price on their head?
I believe that the move to put a price on their head is part of the public relations planning of the ministry of Public Order, to contribute to the image put forward by the government: that it delivers. Unfortunately, this plan directly involves militarisation, with many units of police in Exarcheia and also with the raking up of past cases of armed struggle, as the minister himself said – which then leads to putting a price on the three comrades’ heads.
Do not forget that the evidence they provide for their involvement in urban guerilla groups is no more than media items that have themselves been circulating via "leaks" from the police headquarters to certain newspapers during the past six months. For me all this is a communication trick and maybe the setting up of an excuse for the operational inability of the police to find people involved in dynamic actions. Remember this: in the future we might even hear excuses such as "if we cannot even find the fugitives, who are definitely terrorists, how are we supposed to clear up the imbroglio of armed struggle?"
So you want to say that the government creates terrorists…
That is the only thing that is certain. They have been doing it for years now. That is the standard tactic of the government, with its only aim being to prove it can deliver.
Do you consider the recent terrorist attack against the Police Station of Ayia Paraskeui as a response to putting a price on the heads of the three wanted anarchists?
Those who did this are the most fit to answer your question with a communique. My own opinion is invalid. You are better off asking some of your co-journalists, who not only seem to know everything, they also seem to know very well how to judge and convict. They have become judges, prosecutors and attorney generals at once.
There is information leaked out from the police that yourself and your alleged accomplices are not simple robbers, but you also participate in terrorist groups. What do you have to say to that?
Look: The only things we have not been accused of through these infamous "leaks" is drug dealing, trafficking, rape of underage girls and worshipping the devil. I know that many creative minds in the police headquarters are aroused with the combination of all these and I would honestly like to apologise to disappoint them by telling them these kind of things only happen in the Hollywood films they watch and the books they read.
According to the police you belong to the gang of the "robbers in black". What is your response?
The "robbers in black" is an unfortunate and imaginative journalistic or police description that has no real base and that keeps being used by the media despite the fact that in the trial that took place it collapsed entirely. This, in the same way that even today they attribute to me seven robberies even though they know I have been accused of six and talk of unbelievable sums I am supposed to have in my possession, even though the court acknowledged the money belonged to the anarchist scene.
All this, finally, at the time when they know that they spectacular scuffle they describe never took place and especially concerning the three friends and comrades for which they have issued arrest warrants with evidence that in my eyes seems ridiculous.
And in any case, we should say something else that derives from common sense: CCTV in banks is usually of older technology and only records two colours, black and white. Robbers, you might know, tend to go to banks dressed in dark clothing, especially during the winter – they tend to avoid the appearance of a folk singer in a live club, for example.
You justified your participation in the robbery where you were arrested by talking of an act of "expropriation": What is the difference between an expropriation and a common robbery?
The difference is made by the subject of the action, even if for me the two terms are as detached as politicians are from real life. For a person to name their action "expropriation" they need nothing more than to pass over from their natural reaction against the conditions they are faced with, to the conscious revolutionary position: which is no other than the struggle against the powerful of this world. The difference is signified by the subject of the action.
The bank that you robbed was later targeted with consecutive arson attacks and was eventually forced to close. What this a revenge that some took in your name?
First of all, I do not know if that particular bank closed. In any case the attacks that were taking place at the time of my arrest were, obviously, acts of solidarity. For the majority of society the bank comprises a ruthless financial mechanism that will day after day squeeze thousands of families. And everybody knows that the banking giants are responsible for today’s financial crisis that the people come to pay for.
You define yourself as an anarchist. Do you believe in armed violence?
Throughout the process of social change, a number of different forms of struggle have taken shape. Each person chooses the form of action they believe to fit the political necessities of the times in which they live. I personally believe that there is no historical or objective condition now that should make us leave any particular form of struggle in the cupboard of history. To the contrary, we live in some very violent times, where states on the international level exercise terrorism against all.
A few days ago we had the armed attack against the Police Station of Ayia Paraskeui in Athens. Do you agree with attacks like this?
What matters is how these attacks are portrayed in the eyes of society, without the Goebbels-like distorting lens of the media. I am neither a critic nor an estimator of actions of armed struggle. I have never claimed – nor could I – such a title.
Some anti-authoritarians claim that in the face of the police that were shot, police violence is punished. Do you agree with this opinion?
Whether we like it or not the armed representatives of order and security, as they are called, have connected their operational existence with violence and repression: with "random" discharging of guns, with the raping of women and the assassinations of migrants in police stations, with beatings, torturing, arbitrariness, humiliation and so much that takes place either behind station walls or out in the streets. Every one of us should, taking all this into account, reach their own conclusions.
But isn’t the logic of "collective punishment" the most fascist one?
Such a logic should be sought between the winners of socio-political clashes, who are the ones who turned it into a regular tactic. The fact that some people chose to return what they have been receiving for years might strike many as odd, but what can we do? You’re going to reap just what you sow.
Do you believe that we are entering a phase of violence without rules? For example, up to this day, never before had a woman been attacked. What have you got to say about "blind" attacks like this?
I do not know if these are, indeed, "blind attacks". The ones that have taken place in the last few years comprise attacks against targets that historically belong to the authoritarian system of repression and exploitation of human society. I have never seen a citizen being targeted.
What kind of feelings does the attempted assassination of a 23-year old girl revoke to you?
You would be better off to ask those who have fallen dead by police bullets.
Should 19-year old children comprise the terrorists’ targets?
The police who were shot were not shot because they were young kids. They were shot for other reasons that obviously have nothing to do with their age. These will be explained to us by those who took that action.
A little while ago some youths were arrested in Chalandri, Athens, under the accusation of participating in the group "Coalition of the Cells of Fire". What about them, are they terrorists?
The terrorists are those who daily condemn us to a slow death. To a life without living. Those who framed-up 19-year old kids with no evidence, in order to alter the dynamics of their coming electoral defeat (he refers to the Conservative government that stepped down on October 4 – trans.)
What is your life in prison like?
As difficult as it is for the rest of the prisoners. The problems of the Greek purgatory-prisons are known to all of us and journalists in particular. You should know however that all of us in here will not allow neither for our dignity nor our right to freedom to rot away in the prison cells.
You exist around penal prisoners (as opposed to political prisoners – trans). How do they treat you?
First, I disagree with the term "penal". I do not agree with distinctions between prisoners. The way people treat us depends on how we treat them too. Everything is an impression. At second sight, nothing is as we imagine it to be.
If you could escape, would you do it?
I will reply to you with a slogan: "The passion for freedom is stronger than any prison".
Mr Chrysohoidis (the minister of "citizen protection") has announced he will be withdrawing personal body guards from politicians and businessmen. Would you advice him to withdraw them or retain them?
The ones you mentioned will most definitely advise him much wiser on what he should do!
What would you respond to his recent statement, "we are at war"?
At first reading, someone could come to think that Mr Chrysohoidis’ statement concerns exclusively people that take part in armed attacks against state or other targets. However, a closer reading of the actions of previous governments would reveal that the war in question is launched at all times against the most vulnerable social classes. We have been at war for many years now. They just won’t admit it. I am not sure what purpose is served by these war cries behind the security of ministerial offices and scores of security guards.
Who shouldn’t sleep peacefully in Greece from now on?
Exactly the same people who should not have slept peacefully before either.
Your court of appeals case is on December 9th. How do you see things forming up for you within such a tense climate?
Seeing the result of the initial trial and the stance of justice against all prisoners, I cannot really say I hold too much hope. That said, I will try to fight my struggle with my lawyers’ assistance.
Is there anything you regret?
Every decision and choice I make I do so after much thought and throughout the principles and values I hold. These I am prepared to defend with my own life. Until the end.
How do you see your life after?
Through the philosophical stance "Carpe diem". Or else, seize the day…
translated by Occupied London
Translators’ note: The interview below was published in an Athens paper today (November 1st). It contains some very powerful words by a comrade who has managed to deal with the barbarity of incarceration with endless dignity, sobriety and the will to keep fighting. Our warmest greetings to Yiannis Dimitrakis and all other victims of the incarceration machine: until all are free, none of us truly is.
The journalist’s introduction:
For the police, he is a member of the gang of the "robbers in black". He was arrested during a bank robbery and convicted to a 25-year sentence. A few days ago, the Ministry for Citizen Protection set a price of 600,000 euros on the heads of the rest of the gang, at the same time arguing that they are not only robbers but also members of terrorist groups.
Yiannis Dimitrakis, an anarchist, speaks for the first time from the prison of Domokos where he is incarcerated. He talks about his comrades on the run, the recent attack on the police station of Ayia Paraskeui in Athens, the group "Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire", while he also responds to the minister for Citizen Protection, Michalis Chrysohoidis, who recently declared: "we are at war".
During the bank robbery of January 17th, 2006, where you were arrested, another three people (Simos and Marios Seisidis and Grigoris Tsironis) got away – and a few days ago, these three had a prize of 600,000 put on their heads by the minister of Citizen Protection, Mr. Chrysohoidis. Do you believe that anyone will step forward to supply information.
Indeed, the police force, some squalid hack writers and some permanent guests of TV shows together with the minister of Public Order (and not of "Citizen Protection", the government’s new name of preference for it) have set up an ideal scene for would-be scalp hunters. It is also a fact that the administrators of political authority would always try to form within society a mentality for informants and people snitching upon one another – sometimes with threats, other times with all sorts of rewards.
Luckily, the consciousness-bearing Greek society (that is, the one that recognises the cause for all her troubles in the face of the government terrorists or the financial elites and not in the face of three wanted anarchists), has historically resisted such practices and this, I believe, will happen this time around as well.
However, because there are and will also be aspiring Inspector Clouseau’s and ingenious Agatha Christie’s, I would like to tell them that many have fallenl in love with informing but no-one has ever loved the informant.
Do you believe that their arrest is near?
That I do not know and I wish that it never happens. What I do know is that if they do get arrested the unemployed are not going to find a job; salaries will not increase nor, finally, will anyone who struggles from dawn to dusk (running around like a slave between one, two and even three jobs) see anything change in their lives.
Do you believe they will surrender without a fight?
I believe that a "fight" in its narrow definition, that is, an exchange of bullet rounds, will not take place. Because they will never get arrested. I know and I am sure that they fight everyday to remain free. Why, you see, humans love freedom.
What would you do if you were in their position?
I would do exactly the same. I would also avoid my arrest, which given our situation would translate into my most certain conviction for the offence committed on January 16, 2006 – that is, when the robbery of the National Bank in Athens took place.
What kind of message would you send them from prison?
They already know they have my friendship and my love. So, I would tell them something that Nikos Kazantzakis once said: "I feel as if we are banging our heads against iron bars. Many heads are going to be smashed, but one day the iron bars will be smashed, too".
In your opinion what purpose is served by putting a price on their head?
I believe that the move to put a price on their head is part of the public relations planning of the ministry of Public Order, to contribute to the image put forward by the government: that it delivers. Unfortunately, this plan directly involves militarisation, with many units of police in Exarcheia and also with the raking up of past cases of armed struggle, as the minister himself said – which then leads to putting a price on the three comrades’ heads.
Do not forget that the evidence they provide for their involvement in urban guerilla groups is no more than media items that have themselves been circulating via "leaks" from the police headquarters to certain newspapers during the past six months. For me all this is a communication trick and maybe the setting up of an excuse for the operational inability of the police to find people involved in dynamic actions. Remember this: in the future we might even hear excuses such as "if we cannot even find the fugitives, who are definitely terrorists, how are we supposed to clear up the imbroglio of armed struggle?"
So you want to say that the government creates terrorists…
That is the only thing that is certain. They have been doing it for years now. That is the standard tactic of the government, with its only aim being to prove it can deliver.
Do you consider the recent terrorist attack against the Police Station of Ayia Paraskeui as a response to putting a price on the heads of the three wanted anarchists?
Those who did this are the most fit to answer your question with a communique. My own opinion is invalid. You are better off asking some of your co-journalists, who not only seem to know everything, they also seem to know very well how to judge and convict. They have become judges, prosecutors and attorney generals at once.
There is information leaked out from the police that yourself and your alleged accomplices are not simple robbers, but you also participate in terrorist groups. What do you have to say to that?
Look: The only things we have not been accused of through these infamous "leaks" is drug dealing, trafficking, rape of underage girls and worshipping the devil. I know that many creative minds in the police headquarters are aroused with the combination of all these and I would honestly like to apologise to disappoint them by telling them these kind of things only happen in the Hollywood films they watch and the books they read.
According to the police you belong to the gang of the "robbers in black". What is your response?
The "robbers in black" is an unfortunate and imaginative journalistic or police description that has no real base and that keeps being used by the media despite the fact that in the trial that took place it collapsed entirely. This, in the same way that even today they attribute to me seven robberies even though they know I have been accused of six and talk of unbelievable sums I am supposed to have in my possession, even though the court acknowledged the money belonged to the anarchist scene.
All this, finally, at the time when they know that they spectacular scuffle they describe never took place and especially concerning the three friends and comrades for which they have issued arrest warrants with evidence that in my eyes seems ridiculous.
And in any case, we should say something else that derives from common sense: CCTV in banks is usually of older technology and only records two colours, black and white. Robbers, you might know, tend to go to banks dressed in dark clothing, especially during the winter – they tend to avoid the appearance of a folk singer in a live club, for example.
You justified your participation in the robbery where you were arrested by talking of an act of "expropriation": What is the difference between an expropriation and a common robbery?
The difference is made by the subject of the action, even if for me the two terms are as detached as politicians are from real life. For a person to name their action "expropriation" they need nothing more than to pass over from their natural reaction against the conditions they are faced with, to the conscious revolutionary position: which is no other than the struggle against the powerful of this world. The difference is signified by the subject of the action.
The bank that you robbed was later targeted with consecutive arson attacks and was eventually forced to close. What this a revenge that some took in your name?
First of all, I do not know if that particular bank closed. In any case the attacks that were taking place at the time of my arrest were, obviously, acts of solidarity. For the majority of society the bank comprises a ruthless financial mechanism that will day after day squeeze thousands of families. And everybody knows that the banking giants are responsible for today’s financial crisis that the people come to pay for.
You define yourself as an anarchist. Do you believe in armed violence?
Throughout the process of social change, a number of different forms of struggle have taken shape. Each person chooses the form of action they believe to fit the political necessities of the times in which they live. I personally believe that there is no historical or objective condition now that should make us leave any particular form of struggle in the cupboard of history. To the contrary, we live in some very violent times, where states on the international level exercise terrorism against all.
A few days ago we had the armed attack against the Police Station of Ayia Paraskeui in Athens. Do you agree with attacks like this?
What matters is how these attacks are portrayed in the eyes of society, without the Goebbels-like distorting lens of the media. I am neither a critic nor an estimator of actions of armed struggle. I have never claimed – nor could I – such a title.
Some anti-authoritarians claim that in the face of the police that were shot, police violence is punished. Do you agree with this opinion?
Whether we like it or not the armed representatives of order and security, as they are called, have connected their operational existence with violence and repression: with "random" discharging of guns, with the raping of women and the assassinations of migrants in police stations, with beatings, torturing, arbitrariness, humiliation and so much that takes place either behind station walls or out in the streets. Every one of us should, taking all this into account, reach their own conclusions.
But isn’t the logic of "collective punishment" the most fascist one?
Such a logic should be sought between the winners of socio-political clashes, who are the ones who turned it into a regular tactic. The fact that some people chose to return what they have been receiving for years might strike many as odd, but what can we do? You’re going to reap just what you sow.
Do you believe that we are entering a phase of violence without rules? For example, up to this day, never before had a woman been attacked. What have you got to say about "blind" attacks like this?
I do not know if these are, indeed, "blind attacks". The ones that have taken place in the last few years comprise attacks against targets that historically belong to the authoritarian system of repression and exploitation of human society. I have never seen a citizen being targeted.
What kind of feelings does the attempted assassination of a 23-year old girl revoke to you?
You would be better off to ask those who have fallen dead by police bullets.
Should 19-year old children comprise the terrorists’ targets?
The police who were shot were not shot because they were young kids. They were shot for other reasons that obviously have nothing to do with their age. These will be explained to us by those who took that action.
A little while ago some youths were arrested in Chalandri, Athens, under the accusation of participating in the group "Coalition of the Cells of Fire". What about them, are they terrorists?
The terrorists are those who daily condemn us to a slow death. To a life without living. Those who framed-up 19-year old kids with no evidence, in order to alter the dynamics of their coming electoral defeat (he refers to the Conservative government that stepped down on October 4 – trans.)
What is your life in prison like?
As difficult as it is for the rest of the prisoners. The problems of the Greek purgatory-prisons are known to all of us and journalists in particular. You should know however that all of us in here will not allow neither for our dignity nor our right to freedom to rot away in the prison cells.
You exist around penal prisoners (as opposed to political prisoners – trans). How do they treat you?
First, I disagree with the term "penal". I do not agree with distinctions between prisoners. The way people treat us depends on how we treat them too. Everything is an impression. At second sight, nothing is as we imagine it to be.
If you could escape, would you do it?
I will reply to you with a slogan: "The passion for freedom is stronger than any prison".
Mr Chrysohoidis (the minister of "citizen protection") has announced he will be withdrawing personal body guards from politicians and businessmen. Would you advice him to withdraw them or retain them?
The ones you mentioned will most definitely advise him much wiser on what he should do!
What would you respond to his recent statement, "we are at war"?
At first reading, someone could come to think that Mr Chrysohoidis’ statement concerns exclusively people that take part in armed attacks against state or other targets. However, a closer reading of the actions of previous governments would reveal that the war in question is launched at all times against the most vulnerable social classes. We have been at war for many years now. They just won’t admit it. I am not sure what purpose is served by these war cries behind the security of ministerial offices and scores of security guards.
Who shouldn’t sleep peacefully in Greece from now on?
Exactly the same people who should not have slept peacefully before either.
Your court of appeals case is on December 9th. How do you see things forming up for you within such a tense climate?
Seeing the result of the initial trial and the stance of justice against all prisoners, I cannot really say I hold too much hope. That said, I will try to fight my struggle with my lawyers’ assistance.
Is there anything you regret?
Every decision and choice I make I do so after much thought and throughout the principles and values I hold. These I am prepared to defend with my own life. Until the end.
How do you see your life after?
Through the philosophical stance "Carpe diem". Or else, seize the day…
Letter from anarchist prisoners during mass hunger strike 2007
Anarchist prisoners Giannis Dimitrakis and Giorgos Voutsis-Vogiatzis are taking part in the hunger strike, while anarchist prisoner Poly Georgiadis and the 17th November prisoners are also taking part in the mobilization by refusing prison food.
LETTER FROM ANARCHIST PRISONERS
Even if prisons were transformed from human storerooms into luxury hotels, even if the prisoners of all prisons are satisfied with "reduced sentences", even if the everyday beatings of prisoners are replaced by sly agreements and assimilated by correctional policies in accordance with the "human rights" model, even if the "white cells" turn "pink", and heroin gives way to methadone we will remain forever enemies of every structure that denies us our freedom.
We will be the rebels inside your luxury hotels and the arsonists of legal justice. We will be eternal fighters in love with freedom. Better prison conditions mean nothing more than improved conditions of captivity. For us the issue remains in its essence. That is, the condition of captivity in itself. Freedom and revolution are the only concepts that include us as a whole. We are participating in the mass mobilizations that are taking place in most prisons at this time. We choose to act together with those who keep struggling for that one step more. Because revolution is continuous movement. In this continuous movement we are organic components. The harvest from our struggle is the relationships and the spark of destruction ignited inside and outside the galleys. Our every action is one more step for the destruction of prisons.
FREEDOM FOR ALL
Neither social nor political
prisoners
Dynamite and fire to
every prison
LETTER FROM ANARCHIST PRISONERS
Even if prisons were transformed from human storerooms into luxury hotels, even if the prisoners of all prisons are satisfied with "reduced sentences", even if the everyday beatings of prisoners are replaced by sly agreements and assimilated by correctional policies in accordance with the "human rights" model, even if the "white cells" turn "pink", and heroin gives way to methadone we will remain forever enemies of every structure that denies us our freedom.
We will be the rebels inside your luxury hotels and the arsonists of legal justice. We will be eternal fighters in love with freedom. Better prison conditions mean nothing more than improved conditions of captivity. For us the issue remains in its essence. That is, the condition of captivity in itself. Freedom and revolution are the only concepts that include us as a whole. We are participating in the mass mobilizations that are taking place in most prisons at this time. We choose to act together with those who keep struggling for that one step more. Because revolution is continuous movement. In this continuous movement we are organic components. The harvest from our struggle is the relationships and the spark of destruction ignited inside and outside the galleys. Our every action is one more step for the destruction of prisons.
FREEDOM FOR ALL
Neither social nor political
prisoners
Dynamite and fire to
every prison
Giannis Dimitrakis writes about the revolts 2006
The days and nights on the roof of Malandrino prison have found us united, free from any addiction. Each of us ignored our personal interests, but not the common aims and actions which have brought us all to our common destiny in prison. United as a fist, against hunger, thirst and weather, fixed, still and resolute in our objective – the meeting of our demands.
We didn’t ask, we demanded the removal of all contested laws, so we could raise our face up again. We all said NO to the drugs and addictive substances which every type of power distributes generously for the functioning of jails. You’ve seen, and you’ll see it again, the detainees feel the bitter pain of the batons, the smoke of tear gas and other chemicals. You’ve seen, and you’ll see it again, detainees pushed back with plastic bullets.
The result of those revolts, the experiences we’ve had and the problems we encountered need to be analysed and reflected on. Some might say the struggle was useless and a failure, but in the detainees’ souls there’s no space for defeatism and resignation. On the contrary, amongst us there have been fundamental stirrings, exchanges of opinions and thoughts. We have calculated our possibilities and we’ve learnt enough to be more lucid in our requests next time. We owe it to the fighters of the Resistance, and also to the ones that came before and after them. We owe it to all those Greeks, Albanians, Russians, Kurds, Iranians, Iraqis and in general to all those who took part in the collective protest of 23rd April in the torture jails.
We owe it to all those who fought with passion for liberty and dignity. We will always be in debt...
We didn’t ask, we demanded the removal of all contested laws, so we could raise our face up again. We all said NO to the drugs and addictive substances which every type of power distributes generously for the functioning of jails. You’ve seen, and you’ll see it again, the detainees feel the bitter pain of the batons, the smoke of tear gas and other chemicals. You’ve seen, and you’ll see it again, detainees pushed back with plastic bullets.
The result of those revolts, the experiences we’ve had and the problems we encountered need to be analysed and reflected on. Some might say the struggle was useless and a failure, but in the detainees’ souls there’s no space for defeatism and resignation. On the contrary, amongst us there have been fundamental stirrings, exchanges of opinions and thoughts. We have calculated our possibilities and we’ve learnt enough to be more lucid in our requests next time. We owe it to the fighters of the Resistance, and also to the ones that came before and after them. We owe it to all those Greeks, Albanians, Russians, Kurds, Iranians, Iraqis and in general to all those who took part in the collective protest of 23rd April in the torture jails.
We owe it to all those who fought with passion for liberty and dignity. We will always be in debt...
Letter from Anarchist Giannis Dimitrakis, from Koridallos prison 2006
On the afternoon of 16/1/06 an armed robbery took place at the National Bank of Greece in the centre of Athens. After an exchange of fire with 2 cops from a special unit, one of the participants Giannis Dimitrakis, was seriously injured when shot by the cops 3 times in different parts of his body. The other 4 participants managed to get away from the scene with about 50,000 euro, with one of them also slightly injured. Giannis, who openly admitted that he is an anarchist, stayed in different hospitals for a few months till he recovered, then he was sent to Korydallos prison of Athens. In another parody of the Greek justice system Giannis was charged with 7 robberies! Also he was charged with numerous counts of attempted murder, topped with the anti-terror law! Its not the first time that a fixed charge is given towards anarchists in Greece. This is the letter he sent from prison on the 23rd of June where he explains a lot about what has happened in the meantime and his personal position on the robbery.
Comrades,
This letter is my first attempt to communicate and comment on the events that took place and I experienced due to my participation in the bank robbery of the National Bank of Greece in the centre of Athens on January 16th. Before I go on to enlarge upon the actual events, I'd like to say a few things in regard to the motives that lay behind my choice in taking such action and what it means to me. For me, present-day society is a wagon following a pre-defined course that is leading straight to its complete dehumanization. The role of its passengers, its wheels and its horses—in other words of its driving force—is played out by ourselves, the people. The wagon's driver has the cruel face of capitalism and its co-driver is a faceless and vague State. The path the wagon follows is of course not strewn with rose petals and flowers but with blood and human bodies. With individuals or groups of people that wanted either to resist and change its frantic course or stand as an obstacle in front of it. The list of those is long: insubordinates, rebels, leftists, anti-authoritarians and anarchists fill many bloody pages in this journey's storybook. Somewhere in between the last two groups is where I place myself. So, to the degree of consciousness that my world-view and perception offers me, what I can easily discern is that present-day society relies only on violence, oppression and exploitation. A society which aims at the loss of human dignity in every way, by every means. This is something that is experienced and received by each and every one of us in their everyday life, either by being forced to deal with State institutions or at our work-place and from those who manage and profit from our work. Employment, work: words whose true meaning is wage-slavery, enslavement. Work and its surplus-value are the pillars of today's economic system while the individuals that carry it through and the circumstances under which this takes place confirms that people are treated as expendable goods, as modern slaves. We see workers rotting away from illnesses that are due to their long-term exposure to hazardous substances, that die either by falls or by explosions in the capitalist temples they are building, that lose their urge, their liveliness, their spontaneity, all that characterizes a would-be free person. Working exhausting hours and employed in two or three jobs simultaneously just for a few crumbs. When to cover their most basic needs a person is obliged to mortgage himself to those cold-hearted oppressors otherwise known as banks and, under the burden of this financial responsibility, start showing signs of subservience and submission, whereas in the case that they cannot eventually cope and are led to bankruptcy end up commiting suicide or are publicly ridiculed by the mass media as one more human wreckage, leads us to one conclusion. The State and capital, in order to continue existing, manufacture modern-day helots who can easily be compared to the Spartan ones. A system which on the altar of profit sacrifices human lives inconsiderably and with audacity. As I've already mentioned, one of the main partners in this crime are banks which are nothing more than legitimate loan-sharks and are partly to blame for the plundering that's taking place at the expense of peoples' work. Taking all the above into consideration we can understand Brecht’s Maki when he asks 'What is a bank robbery compared to the establishment of a bank?' But also taking me into consideration who, wanting to resist on a personal level—as on a mass level all those that know me personally know that I have participated as much as I could—to my future yoke, to determine the conditions and quality of my life myself, to put into practice my refusal to 'work' and also to play the role of yet another productive unit, of yet another wheel in the wagon, wanting to attack the monstrosity that is called a bank (however at the same time having no illusions that I'll inflict any major blows to this economic institution), choosing to mark a course of dignity in my life, I decided to rob a bank. An act which I consider, amongst many others, as revolutionary and which deservingly claims its own place as such. In all honesty I must admit that the money I was going to acquire through the robbery was going to have me as the end-recipient. At the same time, however, as an anarchist and as a person who wishes to show their solidarity through deeds I'd be one of the first to actively and with joy help in contributing to monetary needs, which might come up in this scene to which I belong. Finally, what I'd like to point out here is that all that I have mentioned up to now does not in any way mean that I support a notion that whoever is an anarchist should be a bank robber or that whoever works is enslaved. Going on now to recount the chain of events that took place, I take as a starting point the scene where I'm lying on the ground seriously injured by the cops' fire and I have to let myself be taken into the State’s 'warm' embrace. The welcoming is to, say the least, impressive as an image, as most people saw, but also exemplary towards anyone who is considering acting in a similar way. A pack of hunters in blue uniforms and me in the role of the injured game being surrounded and receiving 'friendly' kicks—which later I found out were part of the framework to disarm me—and comments like ‘we fucked you’ or ‘you’re not such a big shot now, you fucker?!’ among other brave words. Finally, being handcuffed from behind despite the fact that I couldn’t move or breathe, having received bullets in my lungs, liver and elbow, completes the picture. I refer to these events without the slightest trace of bitterness, complaining or disappointment, as I didn’t expect any better treatment from my enemies in the case that I did fall into their hands. In any case, a similar attitude has been displayed to less ‘dangerous’ villains, and, as a mere example, I’d like to remind you of images such as the arrest of protesters and immigrants or the pogroms at gypsy camps, just to name a few. I am referring to these events however as, in a tragic and insane way, these are the people who will come forward at my trial as the ones who defend and honour human life and dignity, while I’ll be in the role of the immoral, hardened, violent and heartless criminal. For the time that I was kept at Athens General Hospital I literally experienced the violation of every human right as an arrestee and later as a prisoner. There were early signs regarding how I was going to be treated at my parents first visit to see me at the ICU (Intensive Care Unit). While there are very strict rules about the number of visitors—even in the case of relatives—an armed to the teeth police officer barges in and places himself in a corner which as a consequence destroyed any concept of at least sharing a private moment with my family, as from the drugs-treatment I was receiving I couldn't even open my mouth, let alone hold a conversation. Following this incident and at an unsuspected moment, while in a hazy condition from the heavy drugs treatment I was undergoing due to the pains I had from my wounds, and swimming in a sea of tubes that were coming out of my body, I realized that a guard was now permanently positioned inside the room and right next to me. This situation really irritated me and didn’t allow me to rest and I made it known to him. Strangely enough he then left the room and instead stood right in front of it. Of course when the doctors and the head of the ICU came to examine me I reported this incident and, truly astounded and irritated by the event, they got rid of the cop, wondering who had let him in. Here, a big thank you needs to be given on my behalf to all those people, from the doctors to the nurses, who gave me attention and who, irrelevant of their own political beliefs, took care of me as best they could. Some of these people also resisted as much as they could to the different pressures put on them by the prosecuting authorities, either in regards to my guarding or my transport and exit from the ICU. On the third or fourth day of my hospital treatment I was informed that prosecutor Diotis was coming to see me later that afternoon. I must confess that to start with I wasn’t sure whether in my condition I would be up to facing him. The head of the ICU, however, assured me that he would be by my side for the duration of the interrogation and made it known to me that due to my condition I had a right to stop the process at whatever moment, something that I was unaware of. So when Diotis arrived escorted by a security police chief and another person whose official role I can’t remember, but was probably the interrogator, and as soon as each of them had spoken to me to me for a couple of minutes I signalled to my doctor that I wanted them to leave. On his way out Diotis told me that in any case they were going to find who else was with me and that to talk now would just make it easier for me. Of course his words fell on deaf ears. The second time he came I was given a chance to understand who Diotis really is when in a lively exchange of words with the head of the ICU a very strange phrase slipped out of his mouth. Having finished his monologue and having delivered me the arrest warrant and the list of accusations I was facing he asks me to sign. My doctor immediately intervenes and explains to him that I am incapable of doing such a thing at the moment and asks him to leave as my strength was deserting me. Then Diotis, to both our surprise, answers: ‘Of course I respect the boy’s condition and I don’t intend to give him a hard time, because if I did I could just pull on his tubes a little and put his pressure up to 50.’ I realized at that moment what would have happened in that room if the doctors weren’t people with willpower and values but simply pawns. I would have, no doubt, discovered the ‘famous’ interrogation methods that prosecutor Diotis has used in the past. After this incident the conditions of my detention really worsened. Two armed guards were permanently placed inside the ICU and pressure was put on the head of the department for me to be dismissed earlier, which was achieved. I was then transferred to a specially laid out room in the Eye Clinic with the excuse that they would be able to guard me more efficiently. In this new space in which I was placed I was sleeping with two undercover cops by my side. Another two cops were permanently stationed in front of the open door of the room while one character kept trooping in and out every half hour to check up on things, another 5-6 cops were in the waiting room and an unknown number of individuals in the corridor outside. The result of all this was for me not to able to sleep for 3-4 days and to feel like a monkey in the zoo as every jumped-up cop came in looking at me up and down and discussing me on his mobile phone or with his collegues. I was at the end of my tether and so made a complaint to the head of security about it all who replied that I was a prisoner now and that they’ll be the ones to judge how I should be guarded and that they’re protecting me from myself meaning, if you can believe it, that they were watching over me so I didn’t commit suicide. Other amazing scenes that took place included me, still bed-ridden, relieving myself in front of them while they watched undisturbed, or me being handcuffed to the bed inside the ICU, again with the excuse of preventing me from committing suicide and other such incidents. Like the attempt to kidnap me from the Eye Clinic and to transport me to the hospital at Korydallos prisons while I still had stitches in from the surgical incisions, falsely claiming that the doctors had given their permission and which in the end was, for the time being, avoided due to my parents notifying the doctors. I believe the sole purpose of all this was to humiliate me, to make me lose all sense of self-respect and to generally make me realize the fact that I was a captive in their hands and I no longer had any rights. These situations drove me to think of the hospital and prisons at Korydallos as a haven of mental tranquility. In the meantime, while I was waiting to be transferred to Korydallos prisons, we all saw an orchestrated attempt by the prosecuting authorities to manufacture culprits with their only indication being that they belonged to my citcle of friends or to the anarchist scene. I am now sure that the taking in of people to be interrogated, the making public of names and the issuing of arrest warrants were triggered by the police finding some of my personal photos, calls to and from my mobile or whatever document proved I had a friendly relationship with these individuals. I want to express my solidarity to all of them. According to the police and journalist scenarios, we form an, unknown at least to me, ‘gang in black’ which consists of 10-15 individuals, anti-authoritarians and anarchists (which leaves open an option for the authorities involving other individuals) and this gang has committed another 6 bank robberies, goes on holidays to expensive resorts, has close ties to Passaris and so on. As far as the money that had been gathered by various comrades to cover needs of the anarchist scene and which I kept in a bank deposit box, it was labeled as the product of robberies. As an outcome of all the above, I ended up defending myself in front of the interrogator for 7 bank robberies, for attempted homicide and for money-laundering, plus being put under the anti-terrorist law. That the State and its underdogs have been tarnishing peoples' reputation as a standard tactic for years now, to inflate briefs, to manufacture culprits, organize trials that are judicial parodies and generally in all kinds of ways to demonstrate their hatred and vengefulness towards whoever resists, is well known. One question however forms when taking all the above into serious consideration. What kind of treatment and what kind of methods will the State use in the case of the arrest or voluntary coming forward of the three comrades in order to get a confession out of them and send them to trial but also how will a ‘fair trial’ be secured for whoever goes through with this procedure? Finally I have one thing to say to all those who are planning our physical, ethical and political annihilation, once and for all: no matter what dirty and unethical means they use, no matter how much they hunt us down and imprison us, they will never crush us and tame us. Because those who are just are those who revolt, not those who snitch and bow their heads down. I also want to say a big thank you to all those who have chosen, chose or will choose to give me their support and solidarity, by whatever means, even though the nature of my case is, I believe, very difficult.
In struggle
Giannis Dimitrakis
Korydallos Prisons,
5 June 2006
Comrades,
This letter is my first attempt to communicate and comment on the events that took place and I experienced due to my participation in the bank robbery of the National Bank of Greece in the centre of Athens on January 16th. Before I go on to enlarge upon the actual events, I'd like to say a few things in regard to the motives that lay behind my choice in taking such action and what it means to me. For me, present-day society is a wagon following a pre-defined course that is leading straight to its complete dehumanization. The role of its passengers, its wheels and its horses—in other words of its driving force—is played out by ourselves, the people. The wagon's driver has the cruel face of capitalism and its co-driver is a faceless and vague State. The path the wagon follows is of course not strewn with rose petals and flowers but with blood and human bodies. With individuals or groups of people that wanted either to resist and change its frantic course or stand as an obstacle in front of it. The list of those is long: insubordinates, rebels, leftists, anti-authoritarians and anarchists fill many bloody pages in this journey's storybook. Somewhere in between the last two groups is where I place myself. So, to the degree of consciousness that my world-view and perception offers me, what I can easily discern is that present-day society relies only on violence, oppression and exploitation. A society which aims at the loss of human dignity in every way, by every means. This is something that is experienced and received by each and every one of us in their everyday life, either by being forced to deal with State institutions or at our work-place and from those who manage and profit from our work. Employment, work: words whose true meaning is wage-slavery, enslavement. Work and its surplus-value are the pillars of today's economic system while the individuals that carry it through and the circumstances under which this takes place confirms that people are treated as expendable goods, as modern slaves. We see workers rotting away from illnesses that are due to their long-term exposure to hazardous substances, that die either by falls or by explosions in the capitalist temples they are building, that lose their urge, their liveliness, their spontaneity, all that characterizes a would-be free person. Working exhausting hours and employed in two or three jobs simultaneously just for a few crumbs. When to cover their most basic needs a person is obliged to mortgage himself to those cold-hearted oppressors otherwise known as banks and, under the burden of this financial responsibility, start showing signs of subservience and submission, whereas in the case that they cannot eventually cope and are led to bankruptcy end up commiting suicide or are publicly ridiculed by the mass media as one more human wreckage, leads us to one conclusion. The State and capital, in order to continue existing, manufacture modern-day helots who can easily be compared to the Spartan ones. A system which on the altar of profit sacrifices human lives inconsiderably and with audacity. As I've already mentioned, one of the main partners in this crime are banks which are nothing more than legitimate loan-sharks and are partly to blame for the plundering that's taking place at the expense of peoples' work. Taking all the above into consideration we can understand Brecht’s Maki when he asks 'What is a bank robbery compared to the establishment of a bank?' But also taking me into consideration who, wanting to resist on a personal level—as on a mass level all those that know me personally know that I have participated as much as I could—to my future yoke, to determine the conditions and quality of my life myself, to put into practice my refusal to 'work' and also to play the role of yet another productive unit, of yet another wheel in the wagon, wanting to attack the monstrosity that is called a bank (however at the same time having no illusions that I'll inflict any major blows to this economic institution), choosing to mark a course of dignity in my life, I decided to rob a bank. An act which I consider, amongst many others, as revolutionary and which deservingly claims its own place as such. In all honesty I must admit that the money I was going to acquire through the robbery was going to have me as the end-recipient. At the same time, however, as an anarchist and as a person who wishes to show their solidarity through deeds I'd be one of the first to actively and with joy help in contributing to monetary needs, which might come up in this scene to which I belong. Finally, what I'd like to point out here is that all that I have mentioned up to now does not in any way mean that I support a notion that whoever is an anarchist should be a bank robber or that whoever works is enslaved. Going on now to recount the chain of events that took place, I take as a starting point the scene where I'm lying on the ground seriously injured by the cops' fire and I have to let myself be taken into the State’s 'warm' embrace. The welcoming is to, say the least, impressive as an image, as most people saw, but also exemplary towards anyone who is considering acting in a similar way. A pack of hunters in blue uniforms and me in the role of the injured game being surrounded and receiving 'friendly' kicks—which later I found out were part of the framework to disarm me—and comments like ‘we fucked you’ or ‘you’re not such a big shot now, you fucker?!’ among other brave words. Finally, being handcuffed from behind despite the fact that I couldn’t move or breathe, having received bullets in my lungs, liver and elbow, completes the picture. I refer to these events without the slightest trace of bitterness, complaining or disappointment, as I didn’t expect any better treatment from my enemies in the case that I did fall into their hands. In any case, a similar attitude has been displayed to less ‘dangerous’ villains, and, as a mere example, I’d like to remind you of images such as the arrest of protesters and immigrants or the pogroms at gypsy camps, just to name a few. I am referring to these events however as, in a tragic and insane way, these are the people who will come forward at my trial as the ones who defend and honour human life and dignity, while I’ll be in the role of the immoral, hardened, violent and heartless criminal. For the time that I was kept at Athens General Hospital I literally experienced the violation of every human right as an arrestee and later as a prisoner. There were early signs regarding how I was going to be treated at my parents first visit to see me at the ICU (Intensive Care Unit). While there are very strict rules about the number of visitors—even in the case of relatives—an armed to the teeth police officer barges in and places himself in a corner which as a consequence destroyed any concept of at least sharing a private moment with my family, as from the drugs-treatment I was receiving I couldn't even open my mouth, let alone hold a conversation. Following this incident and at an unsuspected moment, while in a hazy condition from the heavy drugs treatment I was undergoing due to the pains I had from my wounds, and swimming in a sea of tubes that were coming out of my body, I realized that a guard was now permanently positioned inside the room and right next to me. This situation really irritated me and didn’t allow me to rest and I made it known to him. Strangely enough he then left the room and instead stood right in front of it. Of course when the doctors and the head of the ICU came to examine me I reported this incident and, truly astounded and irritated by the event, they got rid of the cop, wondering who had let him in. Here, a big thank you needs to be given on my behalf to all those people, from the doctors to the nurses, who gave me attention and who, irrelevant of their own political beliefs, took care of me as best they could. Some of these people also resisted as much as they could to the different pressures put on them by the prosecuting authorities, either in regards to my guarding or my transport and exit from the ICU. On the third or fourth day of my hospital treatment I was informed that prosecutor Diotis was coming to see me later that afternoon. I must confess that to start with I wasn’t sure whether in my condition I would be up to facing him. The head of the ICU, however, assured me that he would be by my side for the duration of the interrogation and made it known to me that due to my condition I had a right to stop the process at whatever moment, something that I was unaware of. So when Diotis arrived escorted by a security police chief and another person whose official role I can’t remember, but was probably the interrogator, and as soon as each of them had spoken to me to me for a couple of minutes I signalled to my doctor that I wanted them to leave. On his way out Diotis told me that in any case they were going to find who else was with me and that to talk now would just make it easier for me. Of course his words fell on deaf ears. The second time he came I was given a chance to understand who Diotis really is when in a lively exchange of words with the head of the ICU a very strange phrase slipped out of his mouth. Having finished his monologue and having delivered me the arrest warrant and the list of accusations I was facing he asks me to sign. My doctor immediately intervenes and explains to him that I am incapable of doing such a thing at the moment and asks him to leave as my strength was deserting me. Then Diotis, to both our surprise, answers: ‘Of course I respect the boy’s condition and I don’t intend to give him a hard time, because if I did I could just pull on his tubes a little and put his pressure up to 50.’ I realized at that moment what would have happened in that room if the doctors weren’t people with willpower and values but simply pawns. I would have, no doubt, discovered the ‘famous’ interrogation methods that prosecutor Diotis has used in the past. After this incident the conditions of my detention really worsened. Two armed guards were permanently placed inside the ICU and pressure was put on the head of the department for me to be dismissed earlier, which was achieved. I was then transferred to a specially laid out room in the Eye Clinic with the excuse that they would be able to guard me more efficiently. In this new space in which I was placed I was sleeping with two undercover cops by my side. Another two cops were permanently stationed in front of the open door of the room while one character kept trooping in and out every half hour to check up on things, another 5-6 cops were in the waiting room and an unknown number of individuals in the corridor outside. The result of all this was for me not to able to sleep for 3-4 days and to feel like a monkey in the zoo as every jumped-up cop came in looking at me up and down and discussing me on his mobile phone or with his collegues. I was at the end of my tether and so made a complaint to the head of security about it all who replied that I was a prisoner now and that they’ll be the ones to judge how I should be guarded and that they’re protecting me from myself meaning, if you can believe it, that they were watching over me so I didn’t commit suicide. Other amazing scenes that took place included me, still bed-ridden, relieving myself in front of them while they watched undisturbed, or me being handcuffed to the bed inside the ICU, again with the excuse of preventing me from committing suicide and other such incidents. Like the attempt to kidnap me from the Eye Clinic and to transport me to the hospital at Korydallos prisons while I still had stitches in from the surgical incisions, falsely claiming that the doctors had given their permission and which in the end was, for the time being, avoided due to my parents notifying the doctors. I believe the sole purpose of all this was to humiliate me, to make me lose all sense of self-respect and to generally make me realize the fact that I was a captive in their hands and I no longer had any rights. These situations drove me to think of the hospital and prisons at Korydallos as a haven of mental tranquility. In the meantime, while I was waiting to be transferred to Korydallos prisons, we all saw an orchestrated attempt by the prosecuting authorities to manufacture culprits with their only indication being that they belonged to my citcle of friends or to the anarchist scene. I am now sure that the taking in of people to be interrogated, the making public of names and the issuing of arrest warrants were triggered by the police finding some of my personal photos, calls to and from my mobile or whatever document proved I had a friendly relationship with these individuals. I want to express my solidarity to all of them. According to the police and journalist scenarios, we form an, unknown at least to me, ‘gang in black’ which consists of 10-15 individuals, anti-authoritarians and anarchists (which leaves open an option for the authorities involving other individuals) and this gang has committed another 6 bank robberies, goes on holidays to expensive resorts, has close ties to Passaris and so on. As far as the money that had been gathered by various comrades to cover needs of the anarchist scene and which I kept in a bank deposit box, it was labeled as the product of robberies. As an outcome of all the above, I ended up defending myself in front of the interrogator for 7 bank robberies, for attempted homicide and for money-laundering, plus being put under the anti-terrorist law. That the State and its underdogs have been tarnishing peoples' reputation as a standard tactic for years now, to inflate briefs, to manufacture culprits, organize trials that are judicial parodies and generally in all kinds of ways to demonstrate their hatred and vengefulness towards whoever resists, is well known. One question however forms when taking all the above into serious consideration. What kind of treatment and what kind of methods will the State use in the case of the arrest or voluntary coming forward of the three comrades in order to get a confession out of them and send them to trial but also how will a ‘fair trial’ be secured for whoever goes through with this procedure? Finally I have one thing to say to all those who are planning our physical, ethical and political annihilation, once and for all: no matter what dirty and unethical means they use, no matter how much they hunt us down and imprison us, they will never crush us and tame us. Because those who are just are those who revolt, not those who snitch and bow their heads down. I also want to say a big thank you to all those who have chosen, chose or will choose to give me their support and solidarity, by whatever means, even though the nature of my case is, I believe, very difficult.
In struggle
Giannis Dimitrakis
Korydallos Prisons,
5 June 2006
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