Thousands March To Defend Exarcheia.

        Happening now, thousands take to the streets in Athens in protest at the riot police and military style violent attacks on the district of Exarcheia. Since mid August the district of Exarcheia has been under continuous police attacks and evictions, with hundreds of migrants evicted and arrested. Exarchia is a district in Athens where there are numerous squats in empty property and used as social spaces, educational and health centres, and for housing migrants. It is run on the principles of mutual aid, co-operation, self-help and respect for the individual, free from the burdening shackles of the state.  The Greek authoritarian state has decided that it will not tolerate people living outside their dictates, rules and regulations, it seeks total control. Besides it sees the district as of value to the developers, so wishes to clear the residents out and see it become another tourist centre pandering to the rich with expensive apartments, high fashion outlets and a source of tax revenue to fund their neo-liberal capitalist expansion.

        The people of Exarcheia need our support and solidarity, and their fight to be put fully in the spotlight of public knowledge, share and spread. First they came for Exarcheia---.

Links:

https://itsgoingdown.org/greek-anarchist-movement-responds-to-assault-on-exarchia/

 http://voidnetwork.gr/category/voidnetwork-news/

 https://twitter.com/th1an1/status/1172831586355752960

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Resistance To State brutality Is The Only Answer.

           Yea, here I go again, Exarcheia, well it is savage, brutal and against all humanity, and I am well aware that this sort of thing is happening all over our planet every day of the week. Perhaps shining a light on this particular one incident, will help to bring home just how brutal any state can be, and their total lack of human consideration. Dialogue and voting for change is pointless, as should be obvious by now. How many ballot boxes have been filled and counted, how many change of governments have we seen throughout history? However, the brutality still persists, the drive for total control increases, and another ballot box is not going to change that. Resistance and solidarity across borders is the only answer.

           A report from resistance in Exarcheia, and a call for solidarity. The brutality of the state goes on, the state is not concerned with human needs, but only with gaining control. Migrants will be treated as non-persons, with no rights, not as human beings in distress, and will be herded into concentration camps. Those who stand up to defend and support migrants will be labelled criminals. The media will dress this savage attack on a way of life based on mutual aid and solidarity, as clearing the area of criminals and terrorists. The repression will not stop until the resistance wins or the state wins and hands the area over to the developers. The outcome is in the hands of the people.

        This entry was posted on Monday, September 9th, 2019 at 2:48 pm, and is filed under Automony. 

 This from 325:

 Greece: We stand against state repression

          The state and capitalism continue to target the freedom of the social base and appropriate its labour and resources. In recent years we have experienced some of the most violent attacks on this freedom through the mass impoverishment of the already oppressed and exploited. At the same time, a widespread social resistance and solidarity movement has formed. People have created a variety of self-organized spaces such as housing infrastructures, social medical centers, community kitchens, open parks and public spaces. In spite of setbacks, the movement has created a solid social ground and accumulated considerable knowledge and experience. Through squats, political groups, base unions, squares and neighbourhood assemblies we have formed communities of struggle with strong social bonds. Communities oriented towards society, with a critical eye all the same. At times, the movement has had to use violence as a means of defending and expanding free spaces against state repression, capitalist interests and fascist attacks. It is a movement that grows in diversity and vibrancy, despite the ongoing criminalisation of solidarity and mobility.
         In the context of this socio-class conflict, on Monday 26/8, the state, armed with police forces, seized Exarchia and evicted four squats. Two of these squats were migrant homes—Transito and Spirou Trikoupi 17, from where the police abducted 144 migrants, uprooting them from their places of residence for a second time and isolating them in what the state calls detention centers. Evictions were also carried out in an ongoing housing and political squat in Assimaki Fotila street, and the Gare squat, where three arrests were made. Police also invaded the homes of comrades from Gare. In the next days, police kicked out homeless persons from Strefi hill, beat up a homosexual couple, attacked the steki of anarchist immigrants and the squatted social space of K’ BOΞ. The movement gave multiform answers with gatherings, actions and demonstrations. In addition to the squats and the movement, this repressive operation targets migrants. These are some of the most oppressed people in society, since their very existence is considered illegal. In a state of ‘illegality’ there is no access to health and education, and working conditions are like slavery. Many choose self-organisation and solidarity structures in order to survive and resist. Together with locals and internationals they build communities and claim visibility, posing a direct threat to political and economic power. The solidarity we are—all of us together—building is antithetical to the humanitarian aid of NGOs that can be seen to manipulate migrants and make money off their problems. Real solidarity is at odds with state ‘humanitarianism’, which covers up deaths at the borders and deflects from the violent conditions in concentration camps. Prisoners do not receive adequate medical care and therefore suffer from potentially fatal diseases. These concentration camps lack basic hygiene, people live with bed bugs and miserable food and are frequently beaten, all to force them to flee Greek and European territory. Transferring migrants from the squats where they have chosen to live undermines their dignity and self-determination. The excuse that these camps are safer and healthier is a shameful lie of the state, an absolute reversal of reality.
           Throughout these years, the solidarity movement has responded to a variety of needs and desires. The most important achievement of the movement is that people of different backgrounds have organized into squats and formed collective bodies to create projects that reflect the world of equality and freedom we desire. Squats are free spaces where social relations can be developed free from state control and economic exclusion. These spaces transgress national, gender and other systemic discrimination and answer basic needs such as housing, breaking out of rent coercion and wage exploitation. In times of mass forced migration, they offer shelter and hope to thousands of people by making inclusive and active spaces. Squats in collaboration with other grassroots forces defend neighbourhoods and public spaces from corporate and political power. The political agenda of New Democracy is a continuation of Syriza’s policy. It aims to transform the whole territory into readily exploitable land for local and foreign capital. The result is further exploitation and destruction of the environment and the aggressive gentrification of urban space that transforms neighbourhoods inside the city into areas of touristic consumption, displacing residents and carrying out an informal “social cleansing”. The militarisation of public space, the imprisonment of those who rise up, the subjugation of workers, students, the unemployed, migrants, women and LGBTQI+ people is essential for implementing such a plan. Some of New Democracy’s first moves were to integrate the correctional system and the immigration ministry under police jurisdiction. At the same time, they hired 1,500 new people to the police force, expanding the state’s army of repression. They further criminalised the means of struggle and abolished university asylum in preparation for the new social and class struggles. The struggles that Syriza assimilated and disintegrated paved the way for an even more aggressive totalitarian state that we saw with the rise of New Democracy.
          We call all people of the struggle–the rebels, squatters, collectives and individuals–here and abroad, to join in strengthening our efforts towards a common front against police and state repression. Our primary aim is to defend the squats and our social achievements against the state and capital.
             Don’t let the struggle be absorbed by any force of the regime! Let’s expand the already existing self-organised structures and create new ones, let’s escalate our class and social struggles. It is time to crush the oppressive forces, to debunk systemic media propaganda, and to bring out the truth of the struggle of the oppressed.

SOLIDARITY TO SQUATS AND ALL SPACES OF STRUGGLE
LOCALS-MIGRANTS WE STRUGGLE TOGETHER

Other report on Exarcheia evictions: 

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Our Resistance Must Be International.

        Perhaps I go on and sound like a broken record that is stuck in a track, but I do believe that what is happening in Exarcheia, Athens, is of the utmost importance to all free thinking minds, though it is not the only struggle against state repression that is going on at the moment. Any attack by any state on the freedom of the individual or group that challenges the authoritarian methods of the state is an attack on all our freedoms. What brutal actions one state gets away with the others will look at and borrow when they feel the need. As well as supporting those who are at the receiving end of this brutal attack, we can also learn from their methods of  resistance, as our turn may come sooner than we expect. The Greek state is not unique, it is doing what they all do, attempting to subdue those who wish to think for themselves and shape their lives around mutual aid, co-operation, respect for all, self help and an end to the destructive force of capitalism. It is all a matter of degree, what the state thinks it can get away with in its drive for total control. They will do it with subtle persuasion, smoke and mirrors of propaganda, or by brute force. To the state, to achieve its aim of total control, "all options are on the table", likewise, our desire for freedom and justice should hold the same rules. Authoritarianism is international, our resistance must be international.
This from It's Going Down:

The Greek Anarchist Movement Responds to Assault on Exarchia

Listen to the podcast HERE:

        In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with a long-time anarchist based in the Greek neighborhood of Exarchia. This discussion takes place at a time when the new government, New Democracy, is in the middle of launching a violent assault against the neighborhood which for decades has been a hotbed of anarchist activity, squats, guerilla gardens, rebel art, and is largely a cop-free zone.
       In our discussion, we speak about the history of Greece from World War II up until today as well as the history of the anarchist movement itself, focusing primarily on the last 11 years, and speaking largely on the massive insurrection that broke out in 2008. We then discuss the coming to power of the far-Left Syriza government and their betrayal of social movements as well as the current refugee crisis, and how anarchists have responded by setting up a large network of squats.
       We also talk about the continuing threat of the far-Rigth in Greece, primarily Golden Dawn, as well as the coming to power of a new far-Right party, New Democracy, who campaigned heavily on clearing the anarchists, refugees, and squatters out of Exarchia. We talk about how the movement is responding to the recent wave of violent evictions, raids, and police attacks, and how this mobilization in solidarity with the neighborhood might signal a new turning point for the anarchist movement.
      While its frightening that a ruling party would come into power off of playing up fears and anger directed against the anarchist movement, squats, and refugees, anarchists are hopeful that the energy that is erupting on the streets of Athens will continue to grow.

  

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No Pasaran.

       We should not take the resistance that is happening in Exarcheia, Athens, as some little thing that is happening in a small area somewhere else. It is of international importance, and we should give it all the support and publicity that we can muster. It is an area where migrants are welcomed and where possible provided for, an area where people try to live their lives in a sense of mutual aid, self determination and respect for the individual and individual freedom. A place that flies in the face of control by the strangling hand of the authoritarian state. You can rest assured other states are watching and taking notes, as their aim is the same as the Greek state, total control of the population, a desire to have an army of submissive citizens. If the Greek state wins and destroys the ethos of Exarcheia, locks the migrants up in appalling over crowded concentration camps, imprisons those who supported the migrants through humanity, the flower of freedom has further withered for all of us. Authority and control will have tightened its grip, and that affects us all, no matter where we live. The resistance in Exarcheia demands our full support and solidarity, their struggle is our struggle.

This from Anarchist News:

No Pasaran: Thousands take to the streets against the Greek State's attack at Exarcheia.

        (Athens, Greece) Saturday, 31 August 2019: Two to three thousand people (according to different estimates) marched down the neighbourhood of Exarcheia in central Athens, following a massive police raid against 4 squats (mainly housing refugees) on Monday 26 August and the consequent arrest of 143 migrants and 3 others. Following the police raid, the neighbourhood of Exarchia has been turned into a “militarized” zone with constant riot police attacks against people in the area and social centers.
       But what the government didn't expect was that people in the area, instead of “cowering” in fear, they chose to defy the greek riot police and the government's ideological terrorism, also expressed through its controlled mass media. Thus, thousands of anarchists and other activists sent through the protest a message of resistance to the State's repressive campaign, as well as, signals of solidarity to the squats and social centers evicted and those under the imminent threat of new attacks by the greek State.
        To get an idea of the situation in Exarcheia during the last few days, on Thursday 29 of August 2019, during a live gig organized by bookshops and book publishing companies, scores of riot policemen suddenly attacked more than a thousand attendees with asphyxiating gas, flash bang grenades, and baton attacks, whilst in the chaos that followed, they attacked “Vox” social center (located on Exarchia Square), smashing its window screen and throwing an asphyxiating gas canister inside its closed spaces, an action that could have had resulted to death. Many people inside and outside were also treated with serious head wounds. Then, on Saturday 31 August, following the afternoon demo seen in the video, riot cops attacked again the concert on its 3d day, led by a riot policeman that had drawn his gun aiming at people while charging, according to witnesses of the events. But that was not the last of it. On Sunday 1 September the Vox social center was attacked by the greek riot police for a third time in just four days.
        Another big protest against the greek State's terror at the Exarcheia neighbourhood of Athens has been announced for the 14th of September.

More on Exarcheia:

    First they take Exarcheia
Recent evictions of several squats, some housing refugees and migrants, mark the beginning of a new chapter of repression and dissent in Greece.

 https://roarmag.org/essays/first-they-take-exarcheia/

    Exarchia: The struggle continues
From Yannis Youlountas, from Exarchia (31/08/2019) …

 http://autonomies.org/2019/08/exarchia-the-struggle-continues/

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Modern Democracy At Work.

       The storm-troopers of the Greek state are continuing and intensifying their savage attacks in Exarcheia, in central Athens. This sustained brutal attack is an attempt by the state to crush those who would dare to live outside the authoritarian dictates of the right-wing state. An attack on those who wish to live their lives in mutual aid, co-operation, self help and assistance to those in need, without the interference and the shackles of the state.

     The latest savagery was an attack on the social centre K-Vox, which I have visited several times, and was inspired. It was an old cinema, but is now an autonomous social space with a cafe, meeting rooms and a free to all, health centre in the basement. This is the type of structure that the state can't countenance, as it is outside their strangling control, control is everything to the state. 

      We should be alive to what is happening in Exarcheia, it is just another example of how any so called democracy can move in with crushing violence on those who wish to live their own lives in their own manner. Accept its dictates or suffer the consequences, is their mantra.

      This from Enough Is Enough:

        Written by Riot Turtle.

Modern democracy at work.

         On Monday riot cops evicted four squats in the Exarcheia district in Athens. But the cops did not retreat from the area after the evictions. The district is still occupied by state forces. Last night they attacked the K*Vox social center. One person suffered head injuries and was transferred to a hospital in the Greek capital.

Before that, riot cops were attacked in the area. The Anarchist migrants Facebook page published the following text: “A group of 50 anarchists attacked MAT at tositsa/trikoupi streets around 00:30(tonight) Riot had continued from tositsa/trikoupi to trikoupi and exarchia square with more participaters(a after a few minutes from start)because exarchia square was full of people. When the cops entered next to exarchia square, started to smash the windows of K*VOX and throwing tear gases inside the place. Rioters comrades left the area safe without arrestion. 10 minutes after the riot, MAT from their point in PASOUK, started to come more inside exarchia and terrorize the area by their presence.”

More videos HERE:

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Latest From Police Occupied Exarcheia.

        The latest from the police occupied district of Exarchia, Athens.

     EXARCHIA: Solidarity to squats and all spaces of struggle- ASSEMBLY Announcement 

August 29, 2019 in Events/Global movement/Void Network News 

        The state and capital always attack the freedom of the social base, steal its labor and resources. In recent years we have experienced one of the most violent attacks through the massive impoverishment of people who are already oppressed and exploited.
        On the other hand, there has been widespread social resistance and solidarity. People have created a variety of self-organized spaces such as housing infrastructure, social medical centers, community kitchens, open parks and public spaces which are just some of the main examples. In spite of weaknesses and setbacks, with squats, political groups, base unions, squares and neighborhood assemblies, the movement has created a solid social territory that has gathered significant knowledge and experience, forming communities of struggle with strong social bonds, addressing society with criticism. On many occasions the movement had to use violence to defend and expand the free spaces and territories from state and capitalist interests and fascist attacks. The movement has grown in diversity and vitality, despite the continued criminalisation of solidarity and mobilisation.
        In the context of this socio-class conflict, on Monday, 26/8, the state, armed with police forces, seized Exarchia and evacuated four squats. Two of them were refugees / migrants’ houses, Transito and Sp Trikoupi 17, where they captured 144 refugee migrants by uprooting them from their residences for a second time and isolating them in what they call detention centers.Intrusions-evicted were also carried out in an ongoing housing and political squat in Assimaki Fotila and the Gare squat where three arrests were made. The cops also invaded the comrades’ home from Gare.
        In addition to the squats and the movement itself, this repressive operation is aiming at migrants. They are one of the most oppressed parts of society since their very existence is considered illegal. In a state of illegality there is no access to health and education while working conditions are exploitation and subjugation. The situation of exclusion, which often comes also from a section of society, leads them to violent and wild situations, which are then used by the state and racists to attack migrants. Many choose their self-organization and solidarity structures in order to survive and resist. Together with local and international solidarity they build communities and claim their visibility, posing a direct threat to political and economic power. The solidarity we are building is in contrast to the humanitarian aid of NGOs that victimize migrants and make money from their problems. Real solidarity is at odds with the humanitarianism of the state which is a simple cover up of deaths at the borders and the murderous conditions at the concentration camps. Prisoners do not receive medical care but instead suffer daily from diseases that lead to death. These concentration camps lack basic hygiene, people live with bed bugs and miserable food, constantly being beaten or raped to force them to flee the Greek and European territory or commit suicide. Transferring them from the squats they have chosen to live, undermines their dignity and self-determination, while the excuse that these camps are safer and healthier is one of the most vicious state lies, an absolute reversal of reality.
        As far as squats are concerned, all these years they have responded to a variety of needs and desires. They are free spaces where the social base re-creates its relationships without state control and economic exclusion, over-coming national, gender and other systemic discrimination. They respond to basic needs such as housing, breaking out of rent coercion and wage exploitation. In times of migration, they have offered shelter to thousands of people by making spaces beyond the barbaric so-called ‘detention centers’ which are nothing more than concentration camps. The most important achievement is that people of different backgrounds were organized into squats and formed collective bodies to create projects that reflect the world of equality and freedom we desire. Squats in collaboration with the social and other grassroots forces defend neighborhoods and public spaces from the business and political interests of power.
        The political agenda of the “New Democracy” is a continuation of Syriza’s policy. It aims to transform the entire region into easily exploitable land for local and foreign capital. The result is the further exploitation and destruction of the environment and the aggressive gentrification of urban space that transforms neighborhoods — within cities — into tourist consumption areas, displacing residents and carrying out informal “social cleansing”. The militarisation of public space and the imprisonment of those who are rising up is of prime importance and requires the implementation of repression against migrants, workers, students, the unemployed, women and queers. Some of the state’s first moves were to integrate the correctional system and the immigration ministry under police jurisdiction. At the same time, they hired 1,500 new people to the police force, expanding the state’s repressive army. They further criminalised the means of struggle and abolished university asylum in preparation for the new social class struggles. The struggles that Syriza assimilated and disintegrated paved the way for an even more capable totalitarian state that we saw with the rise of New Democracy.
        As a continuation of the resistance of all recent years, we call on people of struggle, the rebellious, the squatters, the collectives and individuals to step up their efforts for an open front against repression. With the primary aim of defending the squats and of a broader objective of defending all social achievements against the state and capital until they are overthrown. Strengthen social structures and create new ones, further escalate social, class and local struggles. Don’t let the struggle be assimilated by any regime of power. To crush the repressive forces, to break the media propaganda, to bring out the truth of the struggle of the oppressed.

SOLIDARITY TO SQUATS AND ALL THE SPACES OF STRUGGLE

COMMON STRUGGLES OF LOCALS AND MIGRANTS

       Open Assembly of affinity groups, international solidarity activists and migrants / refugees at Polytechnic University

CALL OUT for actions
THUR. 29/8 – 18.00: Occupied Space Mpoumpoulinas 42 / Info Megaphone
FR. 30/8 – 05.00 ‘o clock in the morning: Mpoumpoulinas 42 / Organized Defense of the building
FR. 30/8– 18.00 Polytechnic University/ Open Assembly for solidarity to Occupied Spaces of Exarchia
SAT. 31/8– 12.00 Exarchia Square- DEMONSTRATION against the organized

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The State's Steel Boot Stamps On Freedom.

 

   

       What is happening today in Exarcheia, in Athens, which is at the present time, under police occupation, is the true face of our so called representative democracy. It has nothing to do with humanity, and all to do with dogmatic ideology. Logically the state should welcome what goes on in that district, locals help refugees to live with some dignity and freedom of movement without any state aid, surely to be applauded by financial pundits in the state apparatus. However. like I said, the state is not about humanity, dignity or freedom, it is all about control and the development of big corporate profits. Self organising people living with the ethos of mutual aid, is an anathema to the state. During the recent election in Greece, the rhetoric from the right-wing party that gained power was that the district was a nest of criminals and they promised to bring it back under the control of the state. What in fact they wish to do is to clear the district that survives more or less outside the state by means of self-help, mutual aid and co-operation, and hand it over to the corporate juggernaug who would start by clearing out the locals and building luxury hotels, expensive restaurants, opulent apartments and shops filled with over price trinkets for the wealthy Greeks and rich tourists.

       The method used by the state in this operation of control and suppression is to bring in an army of armed thugs in uniforms and beat up and intimidate the locals, arresting some of the locals, and all the refugees they can lay their hands on, men, women and children, hoarding them onto buses, taking them for a position of self help and some dignity and locking them up in over crowded concentration camps with appalling conditions. To date approximately 150 refugees have been arrested in the district, and rising. This operation will be carried out with brutality and out without any thought of humanity.

      What is happening in Exarcheia, is just anther step deeper into the fascist state of politics today, and demands our strongest opposition as across the globe states seek ever greater control over the population, all for the benefit of the corporate world of greed and profit. We must continually struggle for a society of mutual aid, self help and co-operation and support all those who walk that road.

 

      Yesterday in Glasgow a group of people took to the street to show their anger at what is brutally being executed in Exarcheia and their support for the people of that district. More of this is required across the globe.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Squat The World.

 

     Squats are always a symbol of rebellion, an important aspect of taking control by ordinary people, and sometimes a matter of necessity. They are however, detested by the powers that be, as it is a group that is stepping out of the status-quo, a group moving with self determination, a group that is not being subservient to the rules of this exploitative system, a group that refuses to see the sanctity of private property. Squats should always be publicised and supported when and where possible.

      Athens is no stranger to squats and they are always under attack from the authorities who see them as part of the population that has not submitted to its authoritarian and unjust rules, a threat to its total control of the population, a threat that could spread, so must be eliminated.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

         Today 17 July 19, we the self-organized collective of anarchist immigrants together with other self-organized collectives and  individuals in solidarity occupied an abandoned shop at the corner of Tsamadou/Tositsa streets, Exarchia.

Our goals to use this steki as the self-organized collective of anarchist immigrants are:
1- a centre of struggle for anarchist immigrants
2- self-organizing immigrants for common struggle and building relations between the immigrant communities and the movement
3- a collective cafeteria in solidarity with political prisoners
4- education activity
Our opinions on the identity of squat:
A- the squat is not the goal of struggle but is the tool of struggle, which means: the struggle should happen in the street and the squat is a help to organize the social struggles which should happen in the street.
B- the squat should be a social open space, creating open activity for society. For example: open education classes etc…
C- the steki of self-organized anarchist immigrants will not be a housing project. In our opinion: it is not a project to occupy a space for housing. Housing by squatting a place is only a project when the squat is a social political space and is active for struggle in the neighbourhood and other areas.
D- in the squat decisions should be taken in the collective way and the assemblies should be with no authority or hierarchical situation.
In reference to our opinion on squatting, we are struggling to SQUAT THE WORLD.

       Once a place is squatted, it has to be defended, it will always be a point of conflict with the stifling state. Again from Act For Freedom Now:

Photo: The squat patrol in Exarcheia, in front of the memorial for Alexis Grigoropoulos and Michael Kaltezas.

      17.07.19: They think that we will live like slaves. They expect that we will cease to exist, that we will die quietly to perpetuate the world of power. In stubbornness of the times, not only have we not been destroyed, we have strengthened, we have spread everywhere, we have become the hope of the earth. They continue to torture us, preparing prisons and concentration camps for us, sprinkling our streets and our bodies with chemicals and plastic bullets and killing us. Once again they announce that they will take our homes, our squats, our squares, everything.
     We are determined to defend our squats, our neighborhoods and the memory of our struggle. We will fight. The world of freedom, community and solidarity will win.
via: anarchistsworldwide.

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Nikos Romanos Released From Prison.

         The news that Nikos Romanos has been released from prison must bring pleasure to the hearts of all anarchists. I have no doubt the the life Nikos has lead up to now was greatly influenced by that event on a Saturday evening in 2008, when, as a teenager out at a cafe with his teenage friend Alexis Grigoropoulos and was by his side when Alexis was shot dead in cold blood by a police officer. No matter his political views before that event, it is obvious that such a cold blood murder of his teenage friend standing beside him, would sharpen his hate of a system that harboured and armed such cold blooded murderers.

This from AWM English:

• Posted on: 11 July 2019

        Anarchist comrade Nikos Romanos was released from prison in Greece yesterday after six years of imprisonment.
        Nikos was a close friend of Alexis Grigoropoulos, an anarchist teenager who was murdered in Exarcheia by the police in 2008, sparking the Greek anarchist insurrection.
       Nikos Romanos was arrested in February 2013 with 3 more people and charged with attempted armed robbery at the Agricultural Bank and TT Hellenic Postbank in Velvento, Kozani.
        He was also sentenced to 18 years in prison for possession and placement of explosive devices in 2012. Among the “targets” was the home of the former Minister of National Defense, Giannos Papantoniou.
       The court that originally sentenced Romanos had not admitted any mitigating circumstances, including his good behaviour while in prison but this decision was later reversed by the Supreme Court. Taking the Supreme Court’s decision into account, a Five-member Criminal Appeals Court that reconsidered his case recently reduced his sentence by four years, to 14 years in prison.
      This made possible the release of Romanos, whose six years in prison counted “double” due to days of work done while incarcerated, during which time he had also finished high school and sat university entrance exams, getting a place in the Athens TEI School of Management and Economy.
       In an interview earlier this year, Nikos stated, “Our goal should be to sharpen the subversive struggle in every form it can take, to transform it into a real danger for every ruler. Part of this process is reconstructing our historical memory, so it can serve as a compass for the strategies of struggle we employ. We should start talking again about the organization of different forms of revolutionary violence, the practices of revolutionary illegalism, and the need to diffuse these in the movement in order to overcome the “politics” (in the dirty and civil meaning of the word) that have infected our circles… Whoever arms his conscience to overthrow the brutal cycle of oppression and exploitation will definitely be the target of vengeful and authoritarian treatment by the regime. This does not mean that we will give up our fight, in the courtroom or elsewhere.”
        Anarchists around the world will celebrate the release of Nikos, a comrade who has remained intransigent in his revolutionary values in the face of harsh repression from the state.

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Give And Take, Community.

      Consumerism is the backbone of this capitalist system, we have to consume the plethora of crap the system produces or it grinds to a halt. So if we want to get rid of this exploitative greed driven system of capitalism we have to drag our minds away from consumerism in the capitalist sense of the term.

Skoros Athens

Published on Jul 27, 2015

        This collaborative ethnographic film is about Skoros, an anti-consumerist collective in Exarcheia, Athens, that run a space where people could come and give, take, or give and take, goods and services without any norms of reciprocity. Soon after came the Greek "Crisis", a new kind of "here and now" focusing less on trying to do things differently and more on urgency, a need to provide solidarity to an increasing number of people that were nearing and falling below the poverty line.

        Could you do this in your community? It only takes a few people and a space to get it started.

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Respect The Feelings Of Bulldozers.

   A little piece from Contra Info proving that bulldozers have feelings.

       In the early hours of December 2nd 2016, in Exarcheia, on the corner of Akadimias and Themistokleous St. a bulldozer at the service of DEI electricity company couldn’t take it anymore and decided to give an end to its automatized routine. Before its self-immolation the poor machine reportedly said:

      “Solidarity with the comrades Siao, Hodey and Maya, recently arrested in Germany for defending the Hambach forest!

      Strength to the anarchist Natalia Collado, imprisoned in Chile because she liberated a Transantiago bus with fire!”

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Sqats, A Road Out Of Capitalism.

      And more on squats and their place in the battle to radically change the shape of society to a more community based system of co-operation.

 K*Vox occupied social centre which houses a café, a library and a free medical centre.

From 325:

Radiofragmata: International Call for Action about Squats (Greece)

      The anarchist squats ought to be a thorn for the repression mechanisms, against every dominant expression of the existing system. All things considered, they ought to be thorns against the social norm, against the alienated everyday life of decay that the social norm itself produces.

       Regarding the link of dynamics of the people who take action in squats and choose to clash with the above aspects of the dominant complex, we believe that a necessary tool is the coordination of individualities and groups which act within and around the squats, so as to able to form a living organism with direct offensive reflexes. The coordination and the interaction between squats mustn’t be determined by the attacks from the state and its mechanisms -official or unofficial- but to form a cell of essential political fermentation and a meeting place of our individual and collective negations and desires.

        It is necessary again to overcome the pathogenic characteristics of introversion and institutionalization that are making their appearances even within the occupied spaces of the Greek landscape. The continuous gamble that the squats are being asked to win is the one regarding the clash with authority, the one of our theoretical and insurrectional development, the overcoming of the social automatisms which constitute takeoffs of a social web’s miniature that we detest. These squats are able to form a new field of creative development and confrontation against the existing system. For these squats, the authority is going to bleed if they ever attempt to take them back, because they will be liberated centres of struggle of the polymorphous anarchist action, vital parts in other words, of a wider range of a combative network of liberated spaces that won’t bargain their life over obedient submission.

      We, as Radiofragmata, since we are a vital part of an occupied space (the one of the polymorphous anarchist action at Zaimi 11, Exarcheia, Athens), support and constitute an active mosaic of this call, in which the comrades of the Anarchist Library Teflon, Papamichelaki Squat and Continuous Deconstruction are equally taking part, that places the issue about squats at the epicenter, the coordination amongst them and the need for intensification of their offensive characteristics.

 

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