Showing posts with label hunger strike. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hunger strike. Show all posts

Saturday 26 January 2019

A Savage, Callous, Vindictive System.

 
        Life inside prison is an alien world to those on the outside. Those large buildings, in most cases with their small windows, conceal from the eyes of the general public, a world of vindictive authority, arbitrator violence, and degradation of the individual encased within its inescapable confines. They are an anomaly to civilised living, a scar on the face of humanity, but a necessary tool to the  authoritarian system that governs us all. Prisons are the threat hanging over the head of anyone who would dare to bring an end to this system of injustice, inequality and authority that protects those in power in their ivory towers of opulence. All those who find themselves entrapped within this tool of state repression, deserve our solidarity and support. No civilised society should tolerate, let alone support arbitrary violence and vindictive authority. No one is free while one prison stands.
     The following is an extract from a letter from a prisoner in Italy, that doesn't mean that it isn't happening in these abominations all across the globe. It is what they are designed to do, attempt to break the human spirit.
This from Act For Freedom Now: 
        Well: on 8/11 what I wrote at the beginning takes place; after they handcuff me and continue to mistreat me, they call a doctor and ask him if I’m fit to go to court, and he also, frightened only at looking at the situation, sees lumps and bruises (but he won’t write it down) and asks me “You want to go?” I say yes, especially as I had prepared a declaration to read in court, which I’d changed at that point, and add that they beat me up in prison before the trial; a rather bland declaration, where I wanted to stress the reason why I was asking for a transfer.
      In court, the judge doesn’t allow me to read my declaration as he states that the place is not suitable, but I manage to let the others in court know that the screws beat me up and that I’ve been on hunger strike for 4 days. So they take me out of the court and a zealous screw, which continues to hit me, handcuffs me so tightly that my wrists go purple and I almost faint. They take me to the basement, and after a while they bring me up again, even if only we 3 defendants are left, besides lawyers, judges, cops, and I tell the other 2 that I’d like to stay to show my lawyer the signs [of the beatings] on my body and delay my return to La Spezia as long as possible, as I foresee another beating on the way back. I also try to have the obvious signs [of the beatings] included as evidence but there’s nothing about them. The two following days I try to have that piece of evidence again but “I can’t write about things that cannot be seen”. As the visit ends they put me back in cell1on the ground floor, the one I had slept in the first night here in Spezia. Strict regime, my things had already been prepared and put in the cell by guards. At least the following day they allow me to take the rest of my things and give me a disciplinary report with 15 days’ confinement.
       This is what led me to push the guards and my experience in La Spezia: nothing out of the ordinary, guards who provoke you in a know-it-all way and then smash you with beatings while you are on the floor with kicks and punches to your head and back, a governor who covers the beatings thanks to doctors’ complicity (out of 4 visits to 3 different doctors, maybe one of them wrote down about the aching parts of my body the second time he saw me), and guards who threaten to report you for insult, a judge who doesn’t let you read a declaration relating to this and has you taken out of court.
       Everything is normal. It’s for this reason that I can’t find myself in the normality of society, which justifies authority, abuse, harassment, and which covers them. It’s for this reason that I’ll continue the hunger strike as long as I can, and I’ll continue to demand a transfer to another prison; and if De Andrè says you can’t breathe the same air as that of a screw in the exercise yard [this is a reference to a famous song], I really will always want to avoid sharing it with the guards who beat me up here, with blind and complicit doctors, with a commander who justifies her men by saying I made it all up and with a governor who hides the rot under a carpet of falsity.
ALWAYS WITH MY HEAD HELD HIGH, PASKA

Hunger strike: initial weight 5/11: 108.4 kg; weight on11/11: 101.8
       To realise the full extent of the savage brutality within these establishments, please read the FULL LETTER HERE:
  
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Monday 11 December 2017

More On The State's Brain Washing Factories.

      Germany, Greece, Italy, Uruguay, UK, it makes no difference, the state's brain washing factories are busy trying to keep the lid on dissent, all using the same physical and psychological weapons against resistant individuals.  This latest update on the savage treatment of Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis, is just another display of the state's many acts of inhumane brutality. See, Savage Brutality Of The State, for previous report.
This from Contra Info:
        On December 5th 2017, Revolutionary Struggle members Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis were forcibly removed from Koridallos prisons (both were subjected to headlocks, holds, etc.) and were involuntarily admitted to the General State Hospital of Nikaia. The prison prosecutor pressed physicians to force-feed the two hunger strikers. The hospital doctors refused to treat the prisoners against their will, and solely reported that Nikos Maziotis has lost 14.6% of his initial body weight, while Pola Roupa has lost 12.8% of her initial body weight.
        On December 6th (on the 26th day of their hunger strike), Roupa and Maziotis were finally discharged from the hospital and returned to Koridallos prisons, determined to continue their hunger strike until their demands are met (among other things, they request extended visits with their six-year-old child).
      Maziotis was informed that he would be placed in a disciplinary segregation unit, until damages at B isolation section in the basement of Koridallos women’s prison are repaired. This means that the comrade is being punished for having completely destroyed the solitary confinement wing where he has been held for over 5 months, and is now facing appalling conditions, even worse than the previous ones.

Saturday 18 March 2017

The State Is The Antithesis Of Freedom.

          Cry "Freedom" and the state will take a dislike to you, act on that cry, and the state will try to crush you. It's the same story the world over, you are free to be obedient and subservient. You are given World Cups, Olympic Games, shopping malls, limitless TV channels of trivia, bubble-gum and candy floss, what more could you want?  Break that mould, and you face the wrath of the state, with its many tentacles it can reach into your life and slowly strangle you. Our history is a litany of names who sought freedom and who have perished at the hands of the state and its binding laws, all there to protect the powers that be. So the sad tale goes on, yesterday, today and tomorrow, unless enough stand up and cry "Freedom" and as one body in solidarity, start to act on that cry.
From Insurrection News:
      17.03.17: Erdoğan Çakır, imprisoned in France for membership of the DHKP-C (Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front), has been on an indefinite hunger strike since February 15, 2017. The reason for this is that he began a one week hunger strike in solidarity with revolutionary prisoners in Turkey on February 13 and was attacked two days later by the guards at Villenauxe prison.
       In a report from the revolutionary press, it stated that on February 15, dozens of guards entered his cell and attempted to subject him to a degrading body search. Erdoğan Çakır, who resisted the search, was stripped naked under duress and locked in an isolation cell. He then extended his hunger strike indefinitely following this incident.
       On March 4, his daughter Gülcan Çakır went on a solidarity hunger strike which she carried out in her home. There have also been protests in front of Villenauxe prison.

Erdoğan Çakır N ° d’écrou: 10255 EA 2BC B209 CD de Villenauxe Route de Sezanne 10371-Villenauxe la Grande France
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Wednesday 7 December 2016

Tear Down The Walls.

      Our capitalist, so called democratic society, simply comprises of two types of prisons, there is the one occupied by the vast majority of people, the open prison with its illusion of freedom. However, you are still confined within its framework of CCTV cameras, wage slavery, consumerist and subservient adherence to the established order of inequality. For the majority of people this means that your quality of life is inseparably linked to you market value on any particular day. Then there is the other prison, the closed prison, with its total surveillance, bars, guards, brutal repression and total control. This one is reserved for those who can't, or won't, play by the rules laid down for the smooth running of this unjust exploitative system. If you are a threat to the established order of this society of inequality, then you are very likely to end up in the closed prison. The human spirit being what it is, most of those the state deems "a threat", and condemns to the closed prison, continue their fight for freedom from within these barbaric cages of repression. The methods and tactics of their struggles comprises of many imaginative and courageous variations and should always demand our solidarity and support. The hunger strike is one such avenue of struggle, and should be seen as a barometer of the inhumane barbarity within the prison system. This is the ultimate sacrifice, and can only be carried out by a principled individual, for they are laying down their life for those principles. No system can be included in a civilised society that pushes an individual to take such a step. There is no place within a civilised society for prisons, freedom can only flourish when all the prisons are rubble, and a dark memory from our distant past.
PDF : HUNGER STRIKE AS A MEANS OF STRUGGLE TEAR DOWN THE BASTILLE VOICES FROM INSIDE THE WALLS GREECE ISSUE 6 – APRIL 2016
http://actforfree.nostate.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Tear-Down-the-Bastille.pdf
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
         The “publication of tear down bastille” is in the frames of the functioning of the Solidarity fund for imprisoned and prosecuted fighters and is distributed in- side, as well as outside the walls. The main activity of the fund is to contribute to the livelihood needs of the people who are in- carcerated for their subversive actions and participation in social struggles. Within its capabilities, lies also the support of people whose constant and persistent attitude within the daily prison life has been identified with dignity, solidarity, and the struggle. However, one of its additional main priorities is the contribution to the spreading of the words of the prisoners and the overcoming of its barriers, posed by their incarceration.
          Those of us who take on the publication of this issue are limited to its technical processing and distribution. The texts come exclusively from fighting prisoners – not always only from those who are materially supported by the fund, but also others who decide to stand tall against authority and the devastating condition of incarceration. This present issue is an exception, because it has fulfilled the subjects it’s called to cover. In this case, besides the letters from imprisoned comrades there is also a historical review which was written by the funds’ assembly. Through publishing the thoughts and experiences of prisoners, through the spreading of their words, we seek to make them as present as possible in the daily processes of the fighters outside the walls, we want to shake the barriers of silence, fragmentation, the division among the oppressed, we chose to incarnate the projects of struggle and solidarity in one more way.
       This specific issue refers to hunger strike as a means of struggle, a matter that has intensely concerned not only those directly involved but also those in solidarity, as well as a large part of Greek society. A hunger strike, as a means of struggle, was never a desperate move, or simply a “peace- full” protest in order to project the victimization of the hunger striker and extract sensitivity and charity. It is a conscious struggle, where the coordination of those inside and outside is a necessary condition in order for there to be a result, but also to maintain the strengths of those fighting. Despite all this, we realize that the hunger strike is the ultimate means that a prisoner could choose, we think it is of imperative need to cultivate a bidirectional struggle dynamic inside and outside the walls, that will prevent the condition of someone placing their own body as a mound.
The struggle for revolution and the tearing down of very prison still remains open.
Solidarity Fund For Imprisoned And Persecuted Fighters
http://tameio.net/
For Communication:
tameio@espiv.net
Tear Down The Bastille:
Voices From Inside The Walls
Read the PDF HERE: 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
 

Saturday 15 October 2016

Acts Of Repression, In Fancy Gowns.


      The state and its strong arm team love fancy names for their various operations of repression. From Spain to the UK, from the US to Italy, it is operation this, and operation that. In Italy the latest attack on liberty, mainly against anarchists, is the academic sounding “Operation Scripta Manet”, but no matter how you dress thuggery up, it is still thuggery. All those who find themselves at the receiving end of these fancy sounding operations of brutality, deserve our unstinting solidarity, remember, "First they came for the anarchists-----"

 Italy – Anarchist Comrades Anna and Alfredo on Hunger Strike and Updated addresses for the 8 comrades:
        As of 11th October the comrades arrested as part of the operation “Scripta  Manent” have been transferred to 4 different prisons and are all in High Security AS2 sections – all in isolation. They are all subject to censorship in prison – 7 of the comrades have official censorship – but they have all received at least some post and telegrams. As far as we know, they cannot write to each other but we know that Anna received a telegram from Nicola. The comrades inside have asked to receive books, communiqués and as much news as possible.   
Updated addresses for the 8 comrades:  
BISESTI MARCO: Strada Alessandria, 50/A – 15121 San Michele, Alessandria (AL)
MERCOGLIANO ALESSANDRO: Strada Alessandria, 50/A – 15121 San Michele, Alessandria (AL)
BENIAMINO ANNA: Via Aspromonte, 100  –  04100 – Latina LT
CREMONESE DANILO EMILIANO:  Str. delle Campore, 32  –  05100 Terni TR
SPEZIALE VALENTINA: Via Aspromonte, 100  –  04100 – Latina LT
ALFREDO E NICOLA – are both still in Ferrara AS2
CORTELLI DANIELE: Str. delle Campore, 32  –  05100 Terni TR
 Comrades Anna and Alfredo on Hunger Strike
       Since 3rd October, Alfredo is on hunger strike against isolation and the restrictions that have been placed on his contact with Nicola. He was put in isolation over one month ago due to his act of solidarity with the CCF and for the operation Scripta Manent. Since 10th October Anna Beniamino has also begun a hunger strike against isolation inside.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Saturday 3 October 2015

The State Can Be Beaten.

 
      To all those who showed support and solidarity for Evi Statiri, while she was imprisoned for being a relative of a prisoner, and voiced their anger at her need to go on hunger strike to seek justice, good news, she is soon to be released.
      According to an update we received from the ‘Relatives–Friends of prisoners and prosecuted fighters’, Evi Statiri (currently hospitalised) is soon to be released from prison, though with the provision of the strictest restrictive conditions.
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Thursday 1 October 2015

State Repression Continues.

        As the vindictive Greek state sticks to its inhumane policies, the life of Evi Statiri ebbs away. She is being held in prison simply because she is the relative of a prisoner. However, protests continue, but need all our support and solidarity. 

Poster reads:
FREEDOM FOR EVI STATIRI WHO CONDUCTS HUNGER STRIKE SINCE SEPTEMBER 14TH When the Power fail to make subversive prisoners bow down to them, they target their close and supportive environment, seeking to punish what goes beyond the polarity between innocence and guilt: solidarity.
      As of today, September 30th 2015, we participate in the mobilisation of prisoners throughout Greece (at the prisons of Trikala, Domokos, Grevena, and the women’s and men’s prisons of Koridallos in Athens) for the immediate RELEASE of Evi Statiri, wife of political prisoner-member of the Cells of Fire Gerasimos Tsakalos.
      Evi has already been admitted to the General State Hospital of Nikaia, having entered her 16th day on hunger strike.
     Solely responsible for her life are the justice minister — who enacted an amendment-scrap of paper for the cessation of prosecution against relatives of inmates, which nevertheless remains inactive — as well as the judicial council where the request for Evi’s release has been filed – who are procrastinating at the expense of her constantly deteriorating health.
      Until Evi is released from prison, we refuse the midday lock-up and count in our cells.
       Initiative of Political Prisoners
Koridallos Prisons Underground Annex [*]
September 30th 2015

        [*] basement in Koridallos women’s prison, a special high-security unit for men where those convicted as members of armed revolutionary organisations, including anarchist comrades, are being held separately from the general population of inmates
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Monday 14 September 2015

No Government, The State Still Kills Freedom.

      At the moment Greece has no government, as the Prime Minister resigned and called for another election. So, on the 20th. September, Greece will hold another general election, in an attempt to cobble together a bunch of careerist politicians who will willing back the financial Mafia's austerity plundering of the people of Greece, and selling off of the people's assets. While this farce goes through it usual theatre of tomfoolery, the state apparatus continues its repression and its continuing battle to wipe out any resistance to its power. Government or no government, the state apparatus proceeds with its anti freedom agenda.
      Evi Statiri, held hostage by the Greek state at Korydallos Prison for no other reason than being the life companion of imprisoned Conspiracy of Cells of Fire (CCF) member Gerasimos Tsakalos, has announced that she will commence a hunger strike on September 14th.      The announcement came not long after Evi's latest appeal to be released was rejected by the judicial council.       Here are some roughly translated excerpts from a text by Evi announcing her hunger strike that was posted on Athens Indymedia website...       "The latest refusal from the judicial council in consideration of my release has only confirmed what I already knew from the first day that I found myself in the cells of counter-terrorism. My imprisonment is not just a personal matter. My imprisonment is the reflection of an overall repressive strategy aiming to dominate via fear and to satisfy the vengeful fury of law enforcement against political prisoners and all those whose values are not consistent with the culture of power."       "I still find myself in prison for the unique 'incriminating' element that I am the wife of political prisoner and member of the CCF, Gerasimos Tsakalos. I am still in prison because I refused to sign their 'certificate of social conscience' and refuse to disown my partner and our relationship."       "Anybody standing beside political prisoners may find themselves in the adjacent cell...Anybody who refuses to bow their head, silence their voice or lower their gaze towards the idols of power can be dragged in handcuffs and detained by the courts and their investigation offices. But the solidarity actions carried out last week showed that fear can rule, but it cannot reign in the hearts and minds of free men and women. I send a big thank you to all those who by their actions expose the dictatorship of lies and hypocrisy of justice that keeps me locked in it's cells. Now a new battle begins...The dismissive ultimatum of the judges leaves me only one answer - the last resort of the captive human - a hunger strike for my release."
"Monday September 14 I begin a HUNGER STRIKE against fear and injustice."

SOLIDARITY AND STRENGTH TO COMRADE EVI STATIRI!
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Tuesday 10 February 2015

State Repression Is World Wide.


      Operation Pandora targets anarchists in Spain, and Dorset police target anarchists in UK, there are similar actions by various states across the globe. In the US the case of anarchist Sean Swain has been going on since 1991, and now Sean is putting his life on the line. He needs support and a show of strength and solidarity.
       Sean Swain is a hostage held by a lawless rogue-state calling itself “The State of Ohio.”1    He has been held without legal conviction or sentence since 1991 for the self-defense killing of a court official’s relative who broke into Sean’s home and threatened his life. In fall of 2012, prisoners calling themselves the Army of the 12 Monkeys (A12M) got rowdy at Mansfield Correctional, and the prison authorities assumed “that anarchist” Sean Swain must have been behind it and threw him in supermax isolation. Sean denies any involvement or affiliation with the A12M and is in the process of suing the ODRC for targetting him based exclusively on his ideology and political speech.
      Sean is the only son of a retired auto worker and stay-home mom. He has renounced his high school diploma, his college degree, and his honorable discharge from the U.S. military. Before being taken hostage, Sean worked as a newspaper columnist and as a union organizer.
From 325:
Via ABC Hurricane:

      With fascist fuckweasels ignoring his hungerstrike, anarchist prisoner Sean Swain has vowed to refuse his blood pressure medication, beginning February 9. This medication keeps his blood pressure regulated. To stop taking this medication “cold turkey” is extremely dangerous, as it could cause a spike in blood pressure which can lead to heart attack, stroke or aneurysm.

      “Freedom or death,” Sean said. “I’m not fucking around.”
Fuckweasels have engaged in a concerted, provable pattern of harassing every element of Sean’s communication, waging a war against anarchist expression.
Within 48 hours of suspending his medication, Sean will be in serious danger of medical problems and anticipates he will soon be held incommunicado in a torture cell, in a fuckweasel effort to break his will and cut him off from the outside world. But, as he pointed out, that will not stop his blood pressure from spiking.
How to help Sean, and read the full article HERE
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk



Saturday 6 December 2014

State Brutality.



       The campaign of solidarity with Nikos Romanos is growing in strength and on a wider front as acts of solidarity and support are happening across the globe. His case highlights the vindictiveness of the state apparatus, not just in Greece but in states across the planet, the same brutal repression happens somewhere every day, whether it be Ferguson US, or Athens Greece, it is the same vicious reprisals to keep hold of their authority over us.
Nikos being arrested.
       In the case of Nikos Romanos, some people may not be familiar with the facts behind this case. Behind this vicious brutality of the Greek state, there is a young man who at the age of 15, saw his 15 year old best friend shot and die in the street, at the hands of a thug in a uniform, called a police officer. This after what was a verbal confrontation, the uniformed thug drew his gun and fired to kill the youth. The state shaped Nikos Ramanos's life in a brutal fashion, and the state will willing let him die. This, in what is supposed to be developed, democratic Europe, an illusion that has evaporated like mist in a wind.
Nikos after his arrest, and the photoshop image issued by the police.
       Nikos Romanos was only 15 years old when his name first became known to the Greek public. Romanos was close friend with Alexandros Grigoropoulos, the unarmed pupil who was shot dead by a policeman in the Athens neighborhood of Exarheia. Romanos watched his friend die in front of his eyes after being shot through the heart.
      Not the happiest way to set of into on adulthood, this was a brutalisation by the state machinery of a young man with all the potential of youth, friends and family, beside him. Now some 6 years after that incident, the state is still vindictively brutalising one of our own, with a callousness that defies belief.

       Last spring while in prison, Romanos studied for and took the pan-Hellenic high school exams earning high enough marks to gain a place at a top Athens polytechnic university in business management.
       At the time, the Justice Ministry had praised him and other inmates for their academic success and was to award Romanos a prize of 500 euros. However Romanos refused to attend a ceremony to accept the prize from the Justice Minister, saying that doing so would violate his principles.
      Regardless, at the time the Justice Minister Charalambos Athansiou stated that, “the state does not make distinctions on the issue of studies. He is praiseworthy for following the advice of his teachers and working hard to gain a place at an institution of higher education.” However despite this praise, the door subsequently was shut on Romanos’ putative academic career when the relevant prison council denied his application for prison leave to attend classes.
Read the full article HERE:
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk


Friday 5 December 2014

To Watch Your Friend Die On The Street!!


      Another report on Nikos Ramanos, on hunger strike since 10/11/2014 and the massive support he has from the people of Athens. What effect does it have on you if at the age of 15, you see your best friend shot by a police officer and watch him die there on the street?
 
      Tuesday December 2, 10,000 – 15,000 people marched in solidarity with anarchist hunger striker Nikos Romanos.
     Romanos has been on hunger strike since 10/11/2014 fighting for his right to furloughs. He is entitled to these furloughs in order to be able to attend classes at the University School in which he was accepted after successfully sitting the national exams from inside the prison.
     Nikos Romanos has been in prison since February 2013 when he was arrested for armed robbery along with Dimitris-Andreas Bourzoukos, Yiannis Michailidis and Dimitris Politis. They were all so badly beaten and tortured by the police that their photos were photoshopped before being released to the press.
     Yiannis Michailidis has been on hunger strike since November 17 while Dimitris-Andreas Bourzoukos and Dimitris Politis also went on hunger strike on December 1 in solidarity with their comrade.
Nikos Romanos is also the best friend of Alexis Grigoropoulos who was killed by the police on December 6, 2008 sparking massive riots in Greece. He was there during the murder and he saw his friend die in front of him when they were both 15 years old.
      The solidarity demo ended in riots in Exarchia. 31 people were detained, 12 of which were finally arrested and charged. Many of them were severely beaten by the police. Syriza MPs that visited the Police HQ report that there was blood on the floors.
     You can read Nikos Romanos’ letter declaring his hunger strike here. Nikos Romanos’ second letter from hospital, after the news broke out about the rejection of his demand for leave, here.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Monday 17 November 2014

The True Face Of Capitalism.


      The people of Greece are still experiencing the deepest and most rapid decline in social conditions of anywhere in Europe, with all its attendant miseries. The average salary in that unfortunate country has shrunk to a miserly £17,000 per annum. That is of course if you are working, and that is certainly no guarantee, with unemployment running at 25.9% and youth unemployment at 49.3%. With this economic disaster heaped on the people of Greece, under the dictate of the Troika, (EC, European Commission, ECB, European Central Bank, IMF, International Mankind Fuckers), unrest and crime grows rapidly. In parallel with this, state repression increases and so the prison population grows, and in Greece it grows at a staggering rate.
      The Greek prison system is by far, the worst in Europe, and could compare unfavourably with some Third World countries. Overcrowding is away beyond anything acceptable in any civilised country, and is not going to be resolved any time soon.
     With many prisons already at double or triple capacity, hundreds are stuck in police holding cells, many in pre-trial detention, which has an 18-month limit under Greek law. These detainees have no yard access and are kept locked up for months as their cases wind at a snail's pace through the overburdened justice system.
     The Council of Europe's latest annual penal statistics, published in May and covering 2011, show Greek prisons were at 151.7 percent capacity on September 1 that year, with 12,479 inmates crammed into 8,224 available places. The number of inmates has increased steadily. In January 2010, Greek prisons held 11,364 inmates, according to the Justice Ministry's website. On Nov. 1, they reached 13,147, according to Greek prison system figures obtained by the AP. That doesn't include those, like Aslanis, held in police stations.
       Recent Greek prison system documents from late 2013 list a higher capacity number of 9,886 places across the country, but the number is deceptive as it includes at least five prison wings in two prisons that remain shut due to budget cuts.-------

        Bad as the prisons are, the prison hospitals move into a category of their own, somewhere close to the seventh circle of hell in Dante's Inferno.


      — Inmates held in Greece's only prison hospital are refusing food and medication as part of a protest campaign against their severely overcrowded living conditions.
      The Korydallos prison hospital west of Athens is designed to hold 60 men but currently houses more than 200, rights groups and prison staff said Monday. Most are HIV positive and many others suffer from communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, hepatitis and scabies.
      Protesters posted statements on Facebook and Twitter saying at least 178 of the inmates have been refusing prison food for the past week, while some HIV positive inmates are refusing to take antiretroviral drugs to draw attention to their plight.-------

       It is in the face of this barbarity that we have seen a wave of hunger strikes in Greek prisons. On one recent occasion it was a hunger strike that stretched across the entire Greek prison system. Today their are still individuals on hunger strike, attempting to draw attention to the injustices that they suffer.
      This is the price that the people of Greece are paying as the Troika carries out its experiment to turn Europe into a Western sweatshop, to compete with its rival, the Eastern sweatshop bloc. Greece is capitalism with the gloves off, it is the true face of capitalism.
     A doctor who examined the comrade at Koridallos prison on Thursday morning, November 13th – during the fourth day of hunger strike – reports that 21-year-old Nikos Romanos has lost 3.2 kg of body weight and feels intense weakness and fatigue even after very mild exertion, such as walking from the cell to the prison infirmary. His blood glucose level (measured by finger stick) was 64.
Between the 13th and the 14th of November, 75 prisoners in the Ε wing of Koridallos men’s prison abstained from meals in solidarity with their fellow inmate Romanos.
Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
 
 

Monday 30 June 2014

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.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk


Friday 27 June 2014

The Hell Holes Of Greece.

       The latest on the nation wide prison hunger strike in Greece, this from Contra Info:


Counter-info gathering in Larissa, Greece (June 25th, 2014); the top banner reads: “Maximum security prisons, concentration camps…
Crush the new totalitarianism. Fire to the hellholes”;
the other banner reads: “Invisible and visible prison bars…
The prison society smiles at you. -Anarchists’ Assembly of Larissa”
      Draft bill on new Type-C maximum security prisons will be put to a vote within a week. The Greek parliament is in summer recess; the recess section (consisting of one third of the total number of MPs) is scheduled to vote the bill on Thursday the 3rd of July 2014.
Below are the hunger strikers (per prison) who continue to participate in the nationwide mobilization against the operation of a Greek Guantanamo in Domokos prison:
Koridallos (Athens): 1,480 prisoners
Patras: 550 prisoners
Grevena: 400 prisoners
Larissa: 330 prisoners
Domokos: 300 prisoners
Chania (Crete): 280 prisoners
Nigrita (Serres): 200 prisoners
Amfissa: 200 prisoners
Corfu: 120 prisoners
Trikala: 120 prisoners
Malandrino: 120 prisoners
Avlonas: 100 juvenile prisoners
Kos: 60
Corinth: 50
Nafplion: 50 prisoners
In Alikarnassos (Crete), all inmates abstain from prison food.
     Also, on June 26th, another court session at Koridallos was interrupted, because all of the CCF imprisoned members on trial are currently on hunger strike against the fascist bill of the ministry of Justice.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Tuesday 26 November 2013

Don't Let Isa Fly!

      Day and daily, no matter where we live, we see the state's inhumanity. In most cases our own babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, don't report that inhumanity in its own back yard, but is quick to point the finger at foreign regimes. It is usually up to the general public to hold their particular state to account.

      This is one such case of the state's inhumanity and it is up to us to call them to account. An appeal from Unity:

Don’t let Isa fly!
      Isa Muazu (Home Office Reference A1464395) came to the UK in 2007 on a visitor’s visa. He was detained and put on the Fast Track process in Harmondsworth Detention Centre on July 25th 2013, when he applied for asylum. Isa cannot return to his native Nigeria: hard-line Islamist group Boko Haram have already killed several members of his family and he fears that if he returns his life too would be in danger.
      Isa has been on hunger strike in protest at his treatment whilst in detention for almost three months. He is now dangerously ill. Last week a judge refused to release him from detention because the Home Office had issued him removal directions even though Isa is too sick to move from his mattress on the floor. The Home Office plan to forcibly remove Isa on Wednesday 27th November at 22.20 on Virgin Atlantic flight VS651.
    The Home Office are refusing to release Isa because they believe he is deliberately starving himself for trivial reasons. Last week they drew up an “End-of Life” plan with Isa including helping him to write his will. The Home Office have hardened their stance towards hunger strikers in detention since releasing four men on medical grounds earlier this year.
      Isa has been clear- he started his protest because the food he was being given in the detention centre exacerbated several related medical conditions he suffers from. Since then he has widened his protest to include the way he has been treated within the detention centre since beginning the strike. Members of Unity have been supporting Isa since before he started his hunger strike. The Home Office have now issued Isa removal directions to return him to Nigeria before he dies in the detention centre.
       Isa is not fit enough to survive being returned to Nigeria. He is extremely weak from not eating. He is finding it hard to see or to walk. If he is returned to Nigeria there is a strong possibility that he may die. The Home Office have acknowledged this fact by stating they will deport him with a medical team if necessary.
What you can do:

1. Lobby Virgin Atlantic.
We need to put pressure on Virgin Atlantic not to fly Isa. Please politely ask Virgin not to co-operate with the Home Office’s plans to remove Isa to his potential death in Nigeria.
Virgin Atlantic, The Office, Manor Royal, Crawley, West Sussex,RH10 9NU.
Email: special_assistance@fly.virgin.com
Tel: 0844 811 0000
https://www.facebook.com/virginatlantic
Comment on their Blog at
http://blog.virgin-atlantic.com/t5/Blog-Home-Page/ct-p/Cat1#.UpOb4cSGp-g
To leave a comment you’ll need to sign into the blog using Facebook Connect.

2. Contact Theresa May, Home Secretary.

Ask her to exercise her discretionary powers to stop Isa Muazu’s flight. You can write a polite letter please add your address, and do please remember to include Isa Muazu’s Home Office Ref A1464395, and the Virgin Atlantic flight number VS651 from Heathrow and the flight’s date and time- Wednesday 27th November 22.20hrs.
     Teresa May is already under pressure from MPs and members of the House of Lords for the new hard-line stance being taken by her department.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/theresa-may-could-face-mps-over-failed-nigerian-asylum-seeker-isa-muazus-hunger-strike-8962102.html
http://politics.co.uk/news/2013/11/23/hunger-strike-theresa-may-ignores-appeals-for-mercy-from-mps

Tel: 020 7219 5206
Fax: 020 7219 1145
By Email:
mayt@parliament.uk Or: public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk - UKBApublicenquiries@UKBA.gsi.gov.uk

3. Contact your own MP and ask them to do something Please contact your   MP to ask them to contact Teresa May and the Home Office on behalf of Isa.
http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=fd4245447a04e2631f21f7786&id=00982b3c5e

4. Join the protests
    On Wednesday afternoon at 3pm supporters of Isa will gather outside the Home Office Reporting Centre in Glasgow to protest at Isa’s treatment.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1415794365321522/?notif_t=plan_user_joined
      Over the weekend there were protests outside the Harmondsworth detention centre near Heathrow where Isa is being kept in the medical centre.

UNITY!
Unity Centre Glasgow
30 Ibrox Street
G51 1AQ
0141 427 79 92

info@unitycentreglasgow.org
http://www.unitycentreglasgow.org

Practical support and solidarity to all asylum seekers and migrants in
Scotland.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk