Europe, a supposed leader in democracy, yet in every country in Europe we have police brutality on the streets and in those dark rooms of the "security services". Sometimes it against demonstrators, and other times it is against individuals. Here in the UK, probably the worst in recent times was the savage treatment inflicted on the miners during the 1984 miners' strike. It is still a bleeding wound in the history of working class struggles.
This case from
Act For Freedom Now, is of a particular vicious attack on an individual, an immigrant, in Athens, by those obedient dogs of the state, the police. Despite all this going on, there are some misguided individuals who seem to be deluded into thinking that "we need more police on the streets". They seem to be under the delusion that the police are there for the benefit of the ordinary people, when they should wake up to that fact the the police are there to keep control of the ordinary people, and protect the power, wealth and privileges of our lords and masters.
State terrorism: Torture on the back streets of Athens.
On Thursday 27th of July around 2 in the morning in Athens, on
Bouboulinas st. in Exachia neighbourhood, a squadron of greek cops
kidnapped and tortured an anarchist immigrant. Straight away they began
to torture me with a barrage of kicks, using racist and fascist insults.
Meanwhile, the police stated that my offence is that I am an anarchist
and belong to a known political group of Exarchia. Then the squadron of
riot cops forced me into a dark alley. They laid me on the ground and
they tried to break my ribs by kicking; I placed my hand on my ribs to
protect them. They took away my hand from my ribs and tried to break my
fingers with their shields. In order to protect my fingers, I pulled my
hand under my belly. At that moment, they hit my ribs again to break
them. This action lasted a long time, until one of the cops proposed to
break my wrists. So they placed my hands on the curb stone to break them
with batons, but I managed to pull my hands away. This escalated their
anger, and by saying fascist and racist insults, they all started to
beat me.
They beat me for more than one and a half hours.
All the while they were taking several photos of me getting beaten up,
as well as when I was lying semi conscious on the street. When cops
realized that my body had been seriously damaged and I was not able to
move, they started to play a game with me, telling me “you have ten
seconds to leave from here, if we catch you again, we will kill you”,
and two cops moved a little bit ahead of me to catch me again. They hit
my knee several times with batons to make sure that I can not escape.
When one of them turned to look behind him, with all of the pain that I
had, I started running. One of the cops tried to catch me again but I
could escape by running up Tositsa and seek help at a nearby house of
comrades.
Solidarity paramedics came immediately and after
examination, told me I should go to hospital. There they found that
aside from severe bruising all over my body and head wounds, I aslo had a
fructured spinal joint.
Exarchia, as an area with
self-organized projects and revolutionary struggle, is under constant
attack from the state because it is part of international social
struggle against capitalism, mafia, terrorism and generally the system.
Exarchia is a zone of defence where different groups exist together to
fight for freedom and equality against the oppression of the system. By
mutual cooperation we can meet the needs of each other without any
authority. For this struggle the state beats us.
The state
by placing permanent police forces in the perimeter of Exarchia has
made a kind of border between us and the rest of Athens, so it is as if
they put us in a kind of prison. At the moment we have no other way to
resist this prison except riots against the military check points. One
of the reasons that the cops wanted to break my wrists is because as
they said, I am one of those who participate in the riots. Many persons
usually participate in these clashes with the police forces, because
they do not want to be in prison, because they do not want control from
any authority.
As an immigrant anarchist I understand that
the struggle for freedom is common between locals and migrants. For this
reason I work towards unity and making collective body between locals
and migrants. We will not fight only for immigrants but for everyone,
because we understand that our pain, our problems are the same.
Immigrants are under constant attack from the state and facists and it
does not matter what kind of government is in power, whether it is
ultra-right or leftist government. SYRIZA present themselves as
supporters of immigrants but the reality is they imprison migrants on
mass scale, every day they deport and kill people at the borders. We
know that all authority is our enemy.
In Exarchia today
immigrants are under increasing threat of repression. Recently they
began to make police sweep operations on the square arresting any
migrant that is there. At the same time there are groups in Exarchia who
act like police, using the same tactics, like pogroms on the square
against migrants. Such as a group known as security team, military part
of the political group “Anti-authoritarian Movement” (AK), who have
relation with the government and present themselves as supporters of
immigrants, but instead they use immigrants as a cover for their mafia
business. As an immigrant I have to say to such groups: stop using our
name for your dirty business.
It is clear that cops and mafia work together for the same purpose: control and the crushing of resistance.
The message of this violent attack by the pigs was: to terrorize
immigrants, anarchists and those who actively resist and fight the
police. We shall not kneel down. The state’s violence make it more clear
that our struggle is just.
Visit ann arky's home at
radicalglasgow.me.uk
