Tuesday 18 November 2014

Greek Prisoner Hunger Strike Grows.


      Other prisoners go on hunger strike in solidarity with Nikos Romanos, who is on hunger strike in a stinking hell hole of a Greek prison.
This from Contra Info:
      Comrade Yannis Michailidis, currently incarcerated in Koridallos prison, announced that the anarchists who were arrested after the double robbery in Velventos, Kozani (in February 2013), begin a rotating hunger strike as of Monday, November 17th, 2014 to show factual support to Nikos Romanos, who is on hunger strike since the 10th of November demanding that educational furloughs be granted to him.
       In his statement, Michailidis – who is the first comrade to enter this solidarity hunger strike – has mentioned among others:
“In this instance, my comrade and brother Nikos Romanos is using his body as a barricade to claim passageways out of the stifling conditions of confinement, so I sought a way to express my solidarity with him in practice. Given the condition in which I also find myself at the present juncture, I decided to participate in a rotating hunger strike that we, the comrades who were arrested together after the robbery in Velventos, have now commenced. As of November 17th I start a hunger strike until the request of Nikos Romanos is met.
      This choice of ours aims to contribute towards further motivation of comrades outside the prison walls so as to multiply and intensify multiform solidarity actions, thus opening another front in the war against the State and consequently a scope of awareness amongst new comrades.”
     Additionally, anarchist prisoner Yannis Michailidis expressed his solidarity with Iraklis Kostaris, imprisoned member of the R.O. 17 November (17N), who conducts a hunger strike since October 29th, 2014 claiming educational furloughs he’s also entitled to.

 Educational furloughs:
       It was in 1955 that prison furlough, namely the release of prisoners on a temporary licence, was first introduced by Greek penal legislation. However, the Ministry of Justice was reluctant at the time to test the new measure on the ground. Indeed, it was only 35 years later, in 1990, that the Greek authorities decided to follow the lead taken by most western countries and take action towards implementing this penal provision (van Zyl Smit and Dünkel, 1991; O’Brien, 1995; Massouri and Koutroulis, 1996).

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