Savage State.

        The state has many ways of bludgeoning its enemies, from the subtle to the down right brutal. We should never fail to bring to public notice any of these repressive inhumanities, they should never be allowed to do their savagery away from the gaze of the public eye. Their brutality must become common knowledge, so that we can put an end to this authoritarian inhumane total disregard for human life and dignity.

 EU slams Greek prison system.

 

     The case posted below is from Greece, but around the globe these acts of callous brutal inhumanity are common place in state after state, part and parcel of this system of protecting the powerful and wealthy parasite class, and the inequality of the status-quo.

The following from Act For Freedom Now:

        Letter of Vasilis Dimakis, dated 27/4/2020, Grevena prison, Greece -Statement of hunger and thirst strike

        Original: https://www.athens.indymedia.org/post/1604730/
     “As of today, Monday 27/04/2020 and, after officially six days of hunger strike, since I have not accepted food from the moment of my violent transfer-abduction from Korydallos prison, headed for Grevena prison on Thursday 16/4, and weighing 62kg, I am going on thirst strike, claiming and trying to protect what I have painstakingly achieved until today, that is my dignified presence and studentship in the EKPA higher education community, as a student of the Department for Political Science and Public Management of the University of Athens. And I have done this under grave conditions, since studying in incarceration is effectively a great feat.
     I am demanding from my wannabe executioners, who arbitrarily and provocatively ordered my transfer, and also enforced the cessation of my studies, to act in a humane way, not driven by base motives, as should be fitting to any democratic citizen, before it is too late, to order my transfer back to my cell in Korydallos prison where all my notes and books are, so that I complete, without any more tricks and obstacles, my so far dignified course in education, so that I can ‘meet’ my future once again.
       It is impossible for me to accept without question the order that came without cause or reason, by some responsible who decided this transfer, interrupting in this way the studies and future of a human being! I inform you, who decided for me without me, that my will to study is so powerful, that is first of all touches my heart and then my dignity, not allowing me to make any discounts on the part that concerns my education!
       For this reason I place my body as a trench, for the second time, and facing serious risk to my health, because for me dignity has more value than life itself!
Fully conscious of the risks involved for my health and my existence, I kindly ask the medical staff of Grevena prison, in case of any complications (fainting, cardiac episode), that they do not medicate me or try to resuscitate me, as this would mean an added violence against my life. I consider that with this statement I absolve the medical staff of the prison and of any other health provider, from any legal responsibilities in case of a deteriorating course to my health.
With regards, prisoner Dimakis Vasilis on hunger and thirst strike.”

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It Also Got Dark Inside---

        A call for solidarity on behalf of anarchist prisoner Tasos Theofilou asking for funds for his legal fees through the purchase of sound track. Enjoy the track and if you you can, download for what you want to pay. 

From Contra Info:

       Tasos is currently in prison, after being sentenced on the basis of forged and nonexistent evidence. He was convicted just because he’s an anarchist. He was convicted because he didn’t lose his smile even when the court of first instance announced his sentence.

        “I have committed the offence that encompasses all offences. In the class war, I chose to side with those who have been treated unjustly.” (Tasos Theofilou, February 2014)

        “I am an anarchist communist. I cherish life as much as I love freedom. Let’s fight to tear down the prisons that bury thousands of living persons inside them. Let’s fight for the vision of social liberation. Let’s fight for the liberation of our class from the power of the Capital.” (Tasos Theofilou, September 2012)

       Electric Litany covered the Apostolos Kaldaras song “Night has fallen with no moon (Nychtose choris feggari)” with its original lyrics (before the 1947 censorship) as a gesture of solidarity with anarchist communist Tasos Theofilou, imprisoned in Greece.

         This release (recorded in London during September 2015) has the sole purpose of raising funds to support the case of Tasos Theofilou. You can purchase the track by donating an amount of your choosing through PayPal. Contact email: londanfund15 (at) gmail.com

       All proceeds will go to cover the legal costs of the case, which will be tried at the appellate level. 

via ASF LDN – Anarchists in Solidarity (original description in Greek):

“Night has fallen with no moon, it also got dark inside Yedi,*
and yet, one palikari is unable to fall asleep.
      Who knows what he’s waiting for from evening till morning
at the narrow window that illuminates the cell…
     The door opens, the door closes, but it’s double-locked with key.
What has he done, why was the fellow thrown into prison?”
      * in reference to the notorious Yedi Kule prison in Thessaloniki, Greece (The banner viewed at minute 2:46 reads: “We are all guilty”)
        With those who put up strong resistance for all of us;
with those we will always stand in solidarity.

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Details Of The Greek Prison Hunger Strikes.

       The hunger strike in the Greek prison system has now been going on for almost a month, having started on March 2, two have been removed to hospital. The Greek state, even with Syriza in power, is arresting and imprisoning family members of those in anarchist groups. Guilty by association is one form of state repression, but guilty by blood line? There is no depth the established power will go to abort any form of democratising society. It is important that we support the hunger strikers and broadcast their case far and wide, solidarity knows no borders.

 Click on image to listen to broadcast.

      This is an English broadcast from Athens, explaining the details of the hunger strikers' case from Radiozones of Subversive Expression radio98fm.org

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Solidarity Knows No Borders.

      Syriza still playing the financial game and trying for modifications in the financial Mafia's master plan. Still waving the left wing flag, but still ignoring all the political prisoners in Greece hell-holes called prisons. Principled people are putting their lives on the line, in the name of freedom, but still the "party of the people" ignores their cry for justice. However they are not forgotten by their comrades on the outside who continue to show solidarity.

      The latest update on the hunger strikers incarcerated in the Greece's draconian dungeons of despair, from Contra Info:

        Till this day, March 23rd 2015, dozens of political prisoners have gone on hunger strike (most of them since March 2nd), demanding that the following be abolished: the special “anti-terrorist” legislation, and particularly articles 187A (terrorist organisation) and 187 (criminal organisation); the special repressive law (hoodie law); and the type C prisons, which are completing the state of exception for political prisoners. They also demand that the use and processing of DNA as means of evidence be limited; and that Savvas Xiros (who, despite having a 98% disability, is being systematically exterminated by the State for 13 years now), as well as the relatives of Conspiracy of Cells of Fire members be immediately released from prison.

      We, a group of solidarian comrades from the anarchist milieu who support the demands of the hunger strikers, have occupied the ‘105.5 FM Sto Kokkino’ radio station in Athens. We chose to occupy this specific station for obvious reasons: it is the radio outlet of the establishment and currently also of the government, or plainly the speaking trumpet of the SYRIZA-Independent Greeks coalition.

The ‘105.5 FM Sto Kokkino’ radio station, same as the vast majority of media scum, distorts both the overall context of the struggle waged by the hunger strikers and the actions in solidarity with them. This occupation is an action stemming from the broader movement of solidarity with the prisoners, who are giving a fight that concerns us all.

      We of the occupation in ‘105.5 FM Sto Kokkino’ are taking this means into our own hands and making counter-information a weapon! This action is part of the wider polymorphous movement of solidarity with the political prisoners on hunger strike.

Victory to the struggle of the hunger strikers!
Until every prison is torn down!

‘105.5 FM Sto Kokkino’ Occupation

Greek original: Athens IMC (March 23rd 2015)

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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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A System That Destroys Human Beings.

     Prisons are never welcoming places, they are there to repress and intimidate, but it is difficult to imagine the depth of deprivation and inhumanity into which the Greek prison system has collapsed. The prison hospitals are really misnamed, they are no more than human disease incubators, and the prisons are not far behind them. This is a supposed, developed European country in the 21st. century, but has all the qualities of pre-middle ages conditions. The State's treatment of those it considers a threat to its power are always dealt with in the most brutal manner, no matter where that state exists. There is nothing in the rule book that says that it couldn't happen here.

Greece's Korydallos Prison Hospital

This from Contra Info:  

       Regardless of a “typical” dispute between an anarchist and a prosecutor, whose CV surely contains many more cruel accomplishments and sad stories that remain in the dark, I have to focus on what “special detention wings” actually mean. In order for her to be assured that her command was executed, her insanity and vengefulness have led her to the disciplinary wings for the first time. She didn’t pay much attention though to what this place, where she sends so many people, really is. Obviously, her time is too precious to care about the fact that 20-25 people live in nine 2m×2m cells in a 25m×0.5m narrow corridor, while in some cells 4 people live with 2 mattresses on the floor and with literally no space to step on. Obviously, the fact that there is only one double bunk bed and a toilet with improvised flushing without a door or even a partition in these cells, whilst they also lack windows, sink, tables, chairs, heater and a refrigerator, is not important. Obviously, the fact that the whole area is dipped in filth and stench, that is now impossible to remove, is of no importance. Trash everywhere, cockroaches, mice and germs compose an actual sanitary bomb.

       Obviously, the fact that the prisoners constantly ask for de-worming and cleaning materials in order to clean the cells themselves, as the cleaning crew doesn’t come here like it does to the other wings, and the fact that the prison authorities never give these things to them, is not important. Obviously, the fact that the things that the prisoners order, only come once in a while, is not important. Obviously, the fact that the prison yard, which is a 5m×5m concrete hole with barbed wire serving as a ceiling, is never accessible to them, is not important. Obviously, the fact that there is only one shower for all the prisoners, from which you come out dirtier than before, only one outdated and dirty water cooler and only two pay phones, out of which only one is working, is not important. Obviously, the fact that there is a rickety electrical table and rickety plugs ideal for electrocution and in some cells, like mine, instead of a plug there are two bare electric wires, which results in prisoners making improvised constructions, is of no importance. One of my cellmates, without realizing what he was doing and because he was trying to help me, was carving the bare wires with a plastic knife until I stopped him. Obviously, the fact that the disciplinary wings were closed down after a sanitary inspection, but were re-opened after a superficial painting of the walls, is not important! Obviously, these things are not important since the locks and the camera, the only things considered important here, are also the only things that function properly in this storehouse for souls.

Read the full article HERE:

Most Greek prisons are grossly overcrowded.

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Tightening Of State Repression.

       An update on the Greek prison struggle, though the fascist regime in Greece was forced by the actions of the prisoners and their supporters, to amend the draconian legislation regarding its new high security prison, it still means that a prisoner once sentenced could see their sentenced increased, if they don't behave the way the authorities dictate. The prisoner can have two years added and then another two and so on. This is "democratic Europe" in the 21st. century.

This from Contra Info: 

         After some modifications to the draft bill on maximum security prisons, the recess section of the Greek Parliament is now prepared to vote on this new law on Monday, July 7th. Perhaps it will take another summer session for the final voting, but their plan is to pass the bill no matter what… A protest gathering, supported also by anarchists, against the passage of the ‘prison reform bill’ will take place on Monday 7/7, at 18:00 in Syntagma Square, Athens.
        Prisoners throughout Greece have quit their mass hunger strike since the 1st of July, promising other forms of protest on the inside (we don’t have related info as of yet).  
       One can never know what the fucking minister of Justice, Charalambos Athanasiou, will submit at the last minute, but according to updates so far, main modifications are supposed to be as follows:

      - initial incarceration period in Type C prison units for recalcitrant inmates: (from 4 years to) 2 years;
      - initial incarceration period in Type C prison units for inmates convicted to over 12 years for terrorism (article 187A of the Greek penal code), and for inmates convicted to over 15 years for criminal organization (article 187 of the Greek penal code): (from 10 years to) 4 years.
        It is said that prisoners remanded on terrorism charges (under article 187A), who are still awaiting trial (not yet convicted), will also be sent to Type C prison units.
       It is still a fact that inmates locked up in Type C prison units won’t have the right to furlough (days of leave from the prison).
       Even if “dangerous” inmates serve 4 full years in a Type C prison, the incarceration period can be extended by prison prosecutors to 2 more years (when these prisoners are not “well-behaved”, or suddenly have further “incriminating indications” presented against them, etc.); when the additional 2 years are over, their incarceration in a Type C prison can be prolonged again to another 2-year period, and so forth…

This is all we can transmit for the time being.

Solidarity with prisoners of the State/Capital. Destroy all prisons!

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The Largest Hunger Strike Ever.

         The latest update on the mass hunger strike by prisoners in Greece. The largest hunger strike in history, though it received no coverage by that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, has forced the government to amend its proposals regarding the legislation for the new high security prison. Though the prisoners and their supporters do not have much faith in the amendments which will be released today, and are preparing for further action.

Solidarity Has No Borders.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

ANNOUNCEMENT OF PRISONERS:

     Suspension of pan-hellenic hunger strike.Today, Tuesday July 1st, we suspend the mass pan-hellenic hunger strike we had begun against the legislation for the high security prisons. We suspend the hunger strike, but we do not end our mobilization. On the contrary, we are regaining our powers and warn the ministry that we will not accept the functioning of the greek Guantanamo in Domokos or anywhere. We remain suspicious towards the improvement propositions of the ministry that will be deposited on Thursday and we are ready if necessary to fight with EVERY MEAN to cancel the legislation-abnormity for the high security prisons.

       We know that nothing would have been improved if we did not do the hunger strike. But the ministry should know that against the organized silence imposed by the Mass Media by hiding the BIGGEST HUNGER STRIKE ever (4500 prisoners on hunger strike), from now on, we change the means of struggle and if necessary we will continue with stronger forms of resistance. An intelligent being will understand.. initiative commission of prison struggle

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Solidarity Has No Borders.

      The hunger strike by thousands of prisoners in prisons all over Greece, is still ongoing. One of the prisoners on hunger strike has been removed to hospital and more are joining this nation wide protest. The full horror of the Greek prison system, the overcrowding, degrading inhuman conditions of the prisons and prison hospitals should be shouted from the roof tops. Prison governors are refusing to take any more prisoners, due to gross over-crowding. These are middle ages conditions, in so called developed democratic 21st. century Europe. 

 A photograph smuggled out of a Greek prison hospital.

Governors are refusing to take any more prisoners due to overcrowding.

This update on the hunger strike from Contra Info:

      As of June 27th (5th day of mass hunger strike), more inmates have joined the hunger strike in the prison of Corfu, taking courage from the warm supportive intervention outside the extermination centre.
On the same day, the network of imprisoned fighters called for solidarity with the ongoing struggle in Greek prisons, referring also to the case of hunger striker Nicolò Angelino, hostage of the Italian State.
       In the night of the 27th, the inmates in all wings of Koridallos men’s prison refused to be locked up in the cells for one hour (until 10pm), protesting because there is a huge lack of doctors, nurses and other medical personnel, like stretcher bearers, in the prison and its ‘hospital’ in particular, but also due to the fact that the screws have declared a ‘work stoppage’, thus actually blocking visits between the prisoners and their lawyers or relatives.
Since the 28th of June (6th day of mass hunger strike), protest mobilizations have intensified ahead of voting, on Thursday, July 3rd, 2014, of the new draft law on maximum security prisons.
       In the morning of the 28th, five incarcerated comrades currently on hunger strike were moved to the infirmary in Koridallos men’s prison, namely Yannis Michailidis, Argyris Ntalios and Nikos Romanos, as well as CCF members Michalis Nikolopoulos and Panagiotis Argirou. Meanwhile, over 30 hunger strikers have been transferred there already. As expected, the prison director Maria Stefi (whose car was blown up by anarchists in 2013) has demonstrated a total disregard for their health condition sending most of them quickly back to the wings.
       On June 29th (7th day of mass hunger strike), more hunger strikers reportedly had a fainting episode at Koridallos.
ACTIVE SOLIDARITY WITH THE PRISONERS’ STRUGGLE

Solidarity has no borders.

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Democracy Under The Financial Mafia.

         I recently posted an article about the mass prison hunger strike in Greece, a protest against an extremely repressive system and proposed draconian legislation. Here is an update with the hunger strike now in its forth day. It is now wide spread across all the Greek prisons. with more than 4,000 prisoners now taking part in the hunger strike protest. By the 23rd. June those participating in this protest against cruelty and repression were: 

Koridallos, Athens: 1,300 inmates 

Patras: 550 inmates 

Grevena: 400 inmates 

Larissa: 300 inmates 

Chania, Crete: 280 inmates 

Domokos (where the Greek State intends to establish the first maximum security prison): 4 wings; that is, 240 inmates 

Amfissa: 200 inmates 

Corfu: 120 inmates 

Trikala: 120 inmates 

Malandrino (one of the toughest prisons; also where Ilir Kareli took the life of a miserable torturer-guard): 120 inmates 

Avlonas (juvenile prison): 100 inmates 

Nigrita, Serres (where prisoner Ilir Kareli was recently murdered by torturers-guards): 80 inmates 

Nafplion: 50 inmates 

On the evening of June 24th – 2nd day of mass hunger strike of over 3,900 prisoners across Greece 

         To date that figure is is now 4,180. For so many people to take such desperate action, tells you something is rotten at the heart of the system. We owe them all the support and solidarity that we can muster. More information HERE.

— nearly 60 anarchists made an anti-prison intervention outside the house of Antonis Samaras, Prime Minister of Greece, in the northern suburb of Kifissia, Athens. Comrades threw anti-repression leaflets in the streets and shouted slogans such as:

Read the full article on Contra Info HERE 

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