Tuesday 16 February 2016

A View From The Inside.

     Wouldn't be nice if you could have a wee peek inside the police database, a preview of all the going-ons, cover-ups, data on instructions, and treatment of those arrested, who is being targeted and why. Well it looks like you might get a view inside the Turkish police apparatus, thank to Anonymous.
Anonymous hacks Turkish National Police server and leaks “huge” database

February 16, 2016news

       As the Turkish state continues its daily bombings and massacres against Kurds and other dissenters, hackers from “Anonymous” have attacked the Turkish National Police and released a “huge amount” of data (available here). Article below reposted from hackread.
     The online hacktivist Anonymous hacked Turkish National Police and leaked a huge amount of data
        The year 2015 was a difficult year for Turkey due to the uncertain situation on the ground and cyber attacks conducted by Anonymous on high-profile targets such as banks and national domain registrar. Now hacktivist collective Anonymous claims to have dumped online a huge database belonging to Turkey’s General Directorate of Security (EGM) in response to “various abuses” by the Turkish government in recent months.
        The person who uploaded the database Monday said he received it from a hacker who had “persistent access to various parts of the Turkish government infrastructure for the past two years.”
      The compressed file is expected to weigh in at some 2.8GB, and the uncompressed version at around 17.8GB.
      RELEASE: Turkish National Police https://t.co/V7Obbml4tQpic.twitter.com/pAu9f8KaxO

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) February 15, 2016

        The files were released “in light of various government abuses in the past few months” in Turkey, as the activist “decided to take action against corruption,” the activists added.
       EGM is the civilian police force in Turkey, tasked with preventing crime, keeping the peace and protecting citizens and their property.
     Data leak coming soon, stand by pic.twitter.com/LESY9JaczY

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) February 15, 2016

        The state of Turkey has been accused of aiding and buying oil from the Daesh terrorist group. Some also accuse Turkey of being a safe passage for the groups recruitment in Syria.
        Stay tuned, the leaked data is being scanned and HackRead will reveal what’s inside the leaked files.
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Real Or Spectacle?

         Is capitalism the master of sorcery, the great creator of illusions, the weaver of falsehoods, where is reality, is it consumerism, or some other -ism, is it hidden somewhere unreachable in our deep consciousness, or is it all very personal, is reality nothing more nor less than our own personal existence, no matter what that might be? Who is the arbitrator?
This from The Collective:
          As anarchists living in an consumer-driven industrial world where so much of our lives is dominated or facilitated by the State or what we may call Capitalism, what can we consider to be real in our lives, if anything? Are we truly in a Society of the Spectacle, or perhaps lost in the depths of post-modernity or some similar state of extreme alienation that makes the real impossible? Are we truly separated from nature, or are these all simply labels and empty theories that can only attempt to frame the chaotic and complicated world around us? What sort of actions, relationships, projects, discussions, experiences, ideas, group or family dynamics (or anything else) seem to feel genuine or authentic to us? Is it the way you eat or obtain food, have sex, meet strangers or form connections, face enemies, create things you love, destroy things you despise, or something else entirely? What gives those things real qualities or drives you to engage in them as anarchists? Or is anything that could be considered real reserved for revolutionary moments or aspirations, and how would such moments or ideals be obtained?

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Let's Not Be The Frog!!!

 
         Sometimes somebody can just get it right in explaining something, a few words, a few illustrations and you see it quite clearly. Following on from the theme of the last post on this blog, the surveillance society, here is another gem from comrade Loam at arrezafe. A simple but brilliant short video of why we should stand up and question what we are apparently sleepwalking into, or are we already there? English spoken word, Spanish subtitles. Look, listen, learn.


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Monday 15 February 2016

Snitching, Snooping, Surveillance Democracy??


            How deep have we sank into the fascist world of Orwell's 1984? More and more legislation stopping you from doing this, more and more legislation stopping you from saying that, more and more surveillance, a polite word for snooping, ever greater encouragement for people and institutions to snitch on people's idiosyncrasies, if you don't fit into their straight-jacket, you're a threat. Always the bogey man of terrorism is dangled in front of you, seeking your acquiescence in this avalanche of fetters on your freedom. 
            The recent case of school boy, Rahmaan Mohammadi who had a visit from the police after his school reported him under the government's “Prevent” scheme, gives us some idea of how this snitching, snooping, paranoia permeates our society. What was Rahmaan's heinous crime, he wore a “Free Palestine” badge, what narrow minded, paranoid member of the school staff thought that supporting the cause of the people of Palestine, merits a police investigation? Rahmaan also alleged that the police warned him not to talk about Palestine in school, and further claimed that staff members put pressure on his 14 year old brother, telling him to get Rahmann to ”stop being radical”. This is an outrageous assault against the individual's right to voice their opinion on whatever matters to them. You and I know, this is not an isolated case, this cancer is everywhere. The government is spending £40 million on the snitchers program, “Prevent”, while continually cutting budgets to health, education and all other social services. Under no stretch of the imagination, would you call this democracy.
        Our millionaire friendly state now plans to go further, 
under new government legislation Local councils, public bodies and even some university student unions are to be banned by law from boycotting “unethical” companies, as part of a controversial crackdown being announced by the Government.
        Under the plan all publicly funded institutions will lose the freedom to refuse to buy goods and services from companies involved in the arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco products or Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
        So you elect your local council, they are supposed to do your bidding, you instruct them to stop handing your money to industries that ruin your kids health, tobacco, industries that gain from bloodshed, the arms industry, and those millionaire shareholders sitting the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, say, no you can't do that, we might lose if the share prices go down. According the millionaire Bullingdon Club boys that walk our corridors of power, the boycotting of such vile, destructive, money making concerns is responsible for, “undermined good community relations, poisoned and polarised debate and fuelled anti-Semitism”. 
       So, where is our “democracy” that illusion that the state has created by means of smoke and mirrors, that same illusion the state used to get millions to shed their blood, supposedly defending, when in fact they were participating in an imperialist land and power grab, defending the wealth and power of those who control that state. Democracy can only be found outside the state, the state is authority, democracy is anti-authoritarian, the two are totally incompatible. If you want freedom and democracy, the state has to crumble and the system that it spawns must be destroyed.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk


Sunday 14 February 2016

Capitalism Has No Human Side.

        During this recent "refugee crisis", in Europe, (it should really be named a "Western imperialist war crisis"), Germany is seen as the good mother hen, welcoming more refugees than other countries, it would have us believe it is showing the human face of the capitalist system. However, Germany needs lots of young workers, as it is facing a fast shrinking working age population. According to recent statistics, Berlin estimates its working age population will shrink by 6 million people by 2030 as the number of deaths outstrips births, making it hard to keep the economy growing.
 Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel speaking recently in the German parliament:
"If we manage to quickly train those that come to us and to get them into work, then we will solve one of our biggest problems for the economic future of our country: the skills shortage,"
        So, not so much humanitarian as economics of the corporate world. Germany is set to spend $10 billion on the refugee situation in Germany, but more or less refuses to spend on helping the "refugee crisis" that is swamping Greece. No, the refugees have to make the miserable and dangerous journey across Europe on their own, with cases of young and old dying in the process. Not so much the face of humanity in that situation.
      Another incident that shows the true face of the German state, is how it treats those of its own citizenship that choose to live their lives different from the desired government state of subservience, those who choose not to be hypnotised by consumerism.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

      Following an attack of a police officer nearby, a 500-strong anti-riot team backed up by special forces, dogs and helicopters stormed into the so-called “occupied house” at 94, Rigaer Strasse (or “R94”) on Wednesday night. Police raided the two houses next door the following day and kept up a heavy stop-and-search presence till now.
      Taking place at one of Berlin’s best-known anarchist project, the raid has sent shockwaves through the city, sparking a heated debate on whether it was a case of necessary public safety or unlawful police overreach. For the police and their defenders, the raid was an inevitable consequence of continuing disorder and antagonism coming from the squat. For their critics, the assault on the officer was an excuse used by the police to launch an only quasi-lawful attack on people who they disliked.
       The incident nonetheless has more resonance than as a local street battle alone. While they’ve been in retreat for years, Berlin’s squats were long a high-profile part of the city’s fabric, forming a cornerstone of the city’s alternative mythos. The raid on Rigaer 94 suggests that the city’s authorities are no longer prepared to to let their pigs eat stones in this area, as it happened many times.
        Berlin police say that the four assailants that attacked their colleague were seen escaping into Rigaer 94. When backup officers arrived and entered the building, they found the courtyard and basement massed with potential weapons including metal rods, fire extinguishers, gas cylinders, and a shopping cart filled with cobblestones—a horde they immediately shared via photographs on Twitter. In the interests of public safety, the police returned in greater numbers five hours later, clearing the building and making arrests of supporters outside.
Read the full article HERE:
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
 









Saturday 13 February 2016

The Vanishing Country!!!


        How much longer will the world tolerate the ongoing callous and brutal genocide of the Palestinian people. Since 1967, when the state of Israel occupied the Palestinian lands, it has carried out a continuous land grab and a savage repression of the Palestinian people. It has been 49 years of vicious humiliation, inhuman harassment, deprivation of dignity, and death, for the people of Palestine. Families have been torn apart by death and deprivation, the result of endless military adventures by the Israeli state. Over those years the land of Palestine has all but vanished from the maps of the world, it now consists of two small enclaves, which are no more than two open-air prisons, cruel and brutal prisons, operated and maintained by the sadistic Israeli state. All this has been done, not by unavoidable accidents of fate, but by deliberate policies of the Israeli state. It is attempting to realise its dream of a “greater” Israel, by laying claim to this land on the say-so of their man in the sky, who they claim, gave them these lands 2,000 years ago. On that very dubious claim they believe they have no alternative but to drive out or exterminate the unfortunate people who have lived there for thousands of years. 
       The shrinking map of Palestine and the expanding map of Israel. Click on the date and see the extent of the land grab.



        Religious insanity inspired by the airy-fairy invisible man in the sky, spewing violence and hatred, being allowed to run rampant over the lives of others of a different “faith”. A claim with no legal bases on earth is the foundation of the policies of the Israeli state, resulting the the genocide of the Palestinian people, and the purloining of their land and homes. After 49 years of this crime against humanity, the so called democratic West still turns a blind eye, looks the other way, and worse, supports and funds this religious based killing machine.
         Israeli state claims it is at war, if, by any stretch of the imagination, it could be called a war, it shows a deliberate policy of over kill. Figures for Israeli/Palestinian deaths for 2014 show 2262 Palestinians were killed and 86 Israelis. Another interesting set of figures from the year 1914, just before the start of the first world war, the population of of Palestine broke down as 84% Muslim, 11% Christian, 6% Jews. However thanks to the double-dealing duplicitous ways of the West, that was to dramatically change to the horror of the genocidal promise of a land for the Jews. 
         Shuhada Street, in the West Bank city of Hebron, has remained almost entirely closed to Palestinians for the past 21 years. While illegal Israeli settlers move freely and carry arms, Palestinian residents face an apartheid system of pedestrian only traffic, checkpoints, military closures, humiliation, arrests, and vicious attacks from Israeli settlers and soldiers.
      Jewish settlers began occupying Hebron shortly after its occupation by Israeli forces in June 1967. In 1994 Brooklyn born settler Baruch Goldstein opened fire in the Ibrahimi mosque, killing 29 Palestinian worshipers and injuring 125 more. Following the massacre, systems of increasingly restrictive measures for Palestinians have been implemented, including the closure of Shuhada Street. Palestinian homes on Shuhada street have had their front doors welded shut, forcing residents to climb down from neighbors' roofs or use only back doors. Patients in need of urgent medical care often wait hours while ambulances are delayed at the checkpoint.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk



Friday 12 February 2016

Tourist-Terrorist, Interchangeable?

       Day and daily we come across examples of the Spanish state's lip-sealing, action freezing, draconian anti-terrorist legislation. How it engenders an element of fear in the public and allows the police to take extremely violent action in mundane trivial matters, while the public look on, usually with a mixture of fear and confusion.
       Of course the Spanish state is not alone in this continuous repression of people's right to protest, it is an ever tightening noose around our necks in an attempt to breed total subservience, allowing them to get on with the plunder of our wealth.
       The following is a rather poor translation from the Spanish, but you get the picture of what is going on in that beautiful, sunny land of our neighbour.
 From arrezafe:
     "I'm a tourist, a tourist!" - I protested somewhere in the dungeons of the Guardia Urbana, discreetly situated on La Rambla.
"No way!" Replied the policeman shouted, shaking his finger. "Terrorist!"
       On the street, right above me, just minutes after the alleged terrorist act, all the other tourists sauntered, ojeaban postcards and tapas menus, threw out posts mounted books for the festival of San Jordi 23 April or watched artists who always line the walkways typical of Barcelona. There was no stampede of panic, just everyday agglomeration always flooded the city. But now he was not exactly arguing with the voice of reason. The police were sure that I was a terrorist because he was sure it was a squat, and I was sure I was a squatter because he thought he had looked so (wearing a shirt with a political slogan and some slogans scribbled on shoes ).
      The truth is that it was the Assembly Squatters which had organized the little protest from La Rambla. They had a sign with balloons in which one could read in Catalan: "A city without squats is a dead city" and distributed leaflets against gentrification in which the reasons were explained to occupy. The small ceremony ended with the explosion of a firecracker of those throwing leaflets into the air. Did a tremendous, perhaps more than what was intended noise, but after all it was just that: noise. The police, however, always trained for the worst, he came and worse. They loaded the act screaming and incorporated the element of panic that the firecracker had not provided. I was in the area and saw the police running-in that currently pursuing one of the demonstrators, and did what I would have done in the United States: follow the cops to see if they arrested someone, if that someone needed help or was hit. A couple of blocks away, the police had thrown into one of the protesters against the wall. I kept watching until ordered the crowd to disperse, but when he returned to La Rambla, a cop looked at me suspiciously and asked me a question. I explained that I did not speak Spanish very well and showed him my passport; He picked it up and took it. I had to go after him to the police station where he was told that he was arrested on charges of participating in an illegal demonstration and public disorder. And since they argue that the disorders were carried out with explosives, he faced a sentence of between three and six years in prison.
        After two days in police cells, I was privileged to shout me a judge who described the protest as "urban guerrilla" and at the same time, as a "paramilitary" action aimed at attacking La Rambla when more people I was in it, thus releasing the message that the squatters were a military force. At one point during my statement he interrupted me to yell that in the United States and such an action, it would have killed my bones at Guantanamo. I set bail at 30,000 euros (a secretary later told me that, in the 25 years he had worked there, she had never seen a bond and on charges that accused me) and sent me to the Model.------
Read the full article HERE:
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
 

Zagreb Anarchist Bookfair.

       Anarchist bookfairs are a wonderful way to meet old friends, make new contacts, expand your ideas, get insight into new ideas, link up in projects, start new projects. They are richer than the input of the individual participants, the are a focal point, a coming together, a creator of solidarity and a wonderful way of expanding our ideas. Every large city should aim to have one, they can be our shop window to the general public. 
Twelfth Anarchist Bookfair
       The Twelfth Anarchist Bookfair in Zagreb will take place on April 8th to April 10th, 2016.
      Anarchist Bookfair in Zagreb (ASK - Anarhisticki sajam knjiga) is annual anarchist event and first eleven bookfairs went well, and we hope to bring in more and more people every year as participants, publishers, groups, projects - whoever is interested in what the bookfair has to offer.
     For discussion part everything is open, as every year, so all suggestions, ideas, etc are welcome, as well as texts that you find interesting for further debate.
       ASK takes place in Zagreb every spring, as a local resource for anarchist and libertarian books and other publications. We also aim to open discussion on subjects that are important for the anarchist movement, or for our local community.

       The idea for such a bookfair is not new, but is based on the positive experience of other Anarchist Bookfairs. In many different situations, these bookfairs have proven to be important events and meeting places on both local and international levels. This is why we need your help - come and support this event with solidarity and participation! If you can't come to our bookfair, you can consider sending some free publications, posters and other material. Also, you can consider sending books and other publications for sale, we will organise stall for all of you that can't come, but would like to present your work at the bookfair.
Contact us at anarhisticki.sajam.knjiga@gmail.com about details, address to send stuff to, etc.--------
Read the rest of the article and full information HERE:
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
 



Thursday 11 February 2016

Bound To The State.

          An other interesting one from comrade Loam at arrezafe. Are we bound to the state without choice? The video has English subtitles.


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

Elections And The Rise Of Fascism.

Support Your local ANTIFA, the latest from SubMedia TV:

       This week we look at the growing fascist movement in Europe and what the antifa are doing to fight back. On the break we have Sindicato Latino, a hip hop collective based in Europe and made up of Latinx migrants. We wrap things up with an anti-election rant and an interview with American anarchist Scott Crow.
TRIGGER WARNING: cursing, street fighting, blood, politicians.


Listen to the full interview with Scott Crow, HERE:
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
 

Wednesday 10 February 2016

Surreptitiously Herded Into Silence.

         Here in our Western "democracy" terrorism is the bogeyman, and to counter that will-o'the-wisp, what freedom of speech we still have, is being shut down. Added to the restrains on our rights, political correctness throws in its demands. There are certain groups against which you have to be very careful how you criticise them, a joke could be a joke too far. What can place you under the heading of a terrorist, can vary from country to country. In Spain recently it was a tattoo and owning a particular book, no bombs, no plot to maim or kill. This erosion of our rights, is like a creeping cancer, as each part of our freedom of speech is shut down, it is one helluva fight to try to get it back. Control and subservience is the aim of the state and it will use every opportunity to that end. Freedom of speech is the enemy of authoritarianism, conversely, authoritarianism is the enemy of freedom of speech. What type of society do we want to live in, one under total control of the faceless bureaucrats, or one in which we can all express our beliefs and thoughts openly without the fear of repression? We can only have the latter if we are vigilant and fight tooth and nail for that right of freedom of speech.
         It is difficult to grasp just how far down the road to state censorship of our words and deeds we have been surreptitiously herded. It happens under many guises, protection for certain religions, individuals and institutions, placing them beyond criticism, but criticism is my right if I disagree with any on the list. In a true democracy we should not have to fight for the right to express our opinion  openly and freely, it is a given, if we have to fight for that right, we do not live in a democracy. 
      Received the following article from comrade Loam, it is a must read and worth spreading widely. So read, think and share.
Notably, police also found “small sign” with the slogan “Gora Alka ETA” on one of the men. The judge adopted a curious interpretation. “Gore ETA” is a common meaning of “Long live ETA”, but the judge concluded it was meant to refer also to “Long live Al-Qaeda-ETA.” Putting aside the interpretive approach, finding a sign on one of the men is a problematic aggravator, let alone a basis, for a criminal case. This concern is magnified by the court noting that a “cover of a book called ‘Against Democracy’, by the Coordinated Anarchist Groups” had been found among their possessions.
And:
We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in France (here and here and here and here and here and here) and England ( here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). Much of this trend is tied to the expansion of hate speech and non-discrimination laws. We have seen comedians targeted with such court orders under this expanding and worrisome trend. (here and here).
The full article can be read HERE:

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

Tuesday 9 February 2016

Workers Grasp Your Future, Kropotkin.


      We should always remember our own, they are our history and our future. Though a day late with this one, better late than ignore. 
Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin born in Moscow December 9th 1842, died on this day, February 8th. 1921, aged 78. He left behind a legacy of writings, ideas, dreams and hopes. 
Kropotkin aged 57.
      Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between workers. He wrote many books, pamphlets and articles, the most prominent being The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops, and his principal scientific offering, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. He also contributed the article on anarchism to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition.[10]-------

------Kropotkin died of pneumonia on February 8, 1921, in the city of Dmitrov, and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery. Thousands of people marched in his funeral procession, including, with Vladimir Lenin's approval,[35] anarchists carrying banners with anti-Bolshevik slogans.[36] It was to become the last public demonstration of anarchists, which saw engaged speeches by Emma Goldman and Aron Baron. In 1957 the Dvorets Sovetov station of the Moscow Metro was renamed Kropotkinskaya in his honor.
Read his works HERE:
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk


Monday 8 February 2016

Let's Roar.


 


        Today approximately 1% of the world's population hold roughly 50% of the world's wealth and their share is growing, while the other 99% have to make do with a 50% that is ever shrinking. However, the total 100% of the world's wealth is not created by that 1%, it is all created by the 99% that see their share flow steadily up towards that 1%. Unjust, insane, unsustainable and totally unnecessary.

         As an individual the situation seems impossible to change, how can you are I make a difference, how can we as individuals take on the czars of the corporate world, and hope to win? The answer is we can't, not as individuals, we have to realise that we are in a class war, and the other side is well organised and show solidarity within their class. We have to do the same, organised solidarity, our only real weapon is our solidarity with each other. We have to link up in solidarity within our work places and across our work places, come together in solidarity in our communities and across our communities, we have to link hands in solidarity across those imaginary lines drawn by power mongers on the planet's surface, called borders, whose only purpose is to divide us into opposing camps, for the benefit of that 1%.
        It is only by the combined and unified will of all our people, that we can brake the chains of this dehumanising, degrading and greed drive system, that is responsible for racism, wars, poverty, and the destruction of our planet.


LET'S ROAR.

The problem's too big
the perpetrators unknown
you can't beat the system
all on your own.
So it's easy to withdraw
find your own little cage
turn a blind eye to the suffering
stifle your rage,
but the greed goes on
the poverty's still there,
you can't just leave it
for your children to bear.
Others feel as you do,
eager to put things right
but locked in isolation
it's a hopeless fight,
so don't sit in silence
behind a closed door,
your voice can help raise
a whisper to a roar.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Again, Solidarity Wins The Day.



        On Saturday the 6th. of February, the good people of Dublin kicked the arse of the fascists hoping to hold a march and rally in the fair city's streets. Best to kick their arse before they get a chance to kick yours,
  Published on 6 Feb 2016
On February 6th 2016, an anti-racist demonstration faced up to PEGIDA in Dublin and won.
       
PEGIDA’s much-publicised event was called off at the last moment. Our photographer caught up with their supporters on Abbey Street as they left. Meanwhile at their appointed venue by Dublin’s General Post Office hundreds of anti-racist demonstrators from every aspect of Ireland’s diverse society gathered in a collective show of solidarity.
       A group of about 15 East European fascists on Cathedral St. were spotted looking for protection from the (Irish Police) Gardai, in the process of a street crime arrest. They declared they were there to counter “illegal Communism” before getting aggressive with our photographers. At this point, a large crowd from the counter demo arrived. The fash realised the game was up and legged it down Talbot St, some made it around to Marlborough St. and escape, some sought refuge in EuroWorld, presumably to buy some out of date toothpaste.
        The Public Order Unit (police) arrived with their dogs, reminiscent of Rossport, swinging batons wildly, not giving a shit who they hit, journalists included. The Gardai cordoned off Talbot St, protecting the fascists from the growing crowd from the counter demo.
      Word got around that four of the fascists were in hiding in Brannigan’s pub, a Gardai cordon was placed around the pub for their protection, they were escorted out, handcuffed an hour later.


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

Sunday 7 February 2016

Democracy and The State, Opposite Sides Of An Unbridgeable Divide.



      Another couple of examples of how democracy works in the Western world. We preach democracy across the world, bomb countries into submission and call it democracy. While at home we keep locking up more and more of our citizens, and the treatment delivered to those unfortunate to be confined within its cages, can be brutal in the extreme. 
This example is from Contra Info: 
Athens: Beatings inflicted on anarchist prisoner Panos Aspiotis for refusing to give DNA sample

      Anarchist Panagiotis (Panos) Aspiotis was wanted since March 2013 on firearms possession charges (“violation of the Arms Act”). In October 2015, he appeared voluntarily before the authorities. He was remanded and sent to a prison located far from Athens (his former residence). During these months in prison, he has refused to give the police a DNA sample.
       On Saturday, February 6th 2016, Panos Aspiotis was transferred from Nafplion prison to Athens, where he is scheduled to appear before the investigating judge Eftichis Nikopoulos (special appellate judge against terrorism) on Monday the 8th. The comrade was expected to be moved to Koridallos prison, but was brought to the Prisoner Transfer Division instead. He was separated from other prisoners and taken into a cell without surveillance cameras, where he was attacked by hooded cops of the anti-terrorist unit, who tried to take a sample of his DNA by force. He was beaten and kicked repeatedly in the head, ribs and body. The comrade resisted their first attempt by swallowing the DNA swab. The cops continued beating him, even after they forcibly took DNA sample from him.

SOLIDARITY WITH ANARCHIST PRISONER PANOS ASPIOTIS.
       This video from US, is extremely sickening as we know that this sort of thing is all part of the violence the state inflicts on its own citizens, through the medium of its trained keepers of the cages.


Published on Apr 5, 2013
        "You're never going to win... Bottom line is the house wins every time." That's what Maine Correctional Center Captain Shawn Welch said to a prisoner who was strapped into a restraint chair, his face coated with pepper spray and his legs shaking in pain and fear. The entire ordeal was captured in a disturbing video that recently hit the internet. After Captain Welch pepper sprayed prisoner Paul Schlosser in the face, Captain Welch ignored Schlosser's plea that he could not breathe; at one point, Captain Welch responds to Schlosser's pleas for help with the taunt, "Last I heard, I was as useless as tits on a bull."
        A former military medic, Paul Schlosser has received treatment in prison for both bipolar disorder and depression. After being held in solitary confinement for two months, he began to cut himself -- a common response to such long-term isolation. On June 7, 2012, Schlosser pulled off his bandages and refused to be treated. He was then strapped to a restraint chair and confronted by Captain Welch.
       In the video, we see Schlosser immobilized in the restraint chair and surrounded by officers in riot gear. Schlosser remains compliant until one of the officers pins Schlosser's head to the back of the chair; Schlosser responds by squirming and then spitting at the officer. Without warning, Captain Welch suddenly coats Schlosser's face at close range with pepper spray from a canister only intended to be used on large crowds from a distance of twenty feet or more, according to an investigator's report. Schlosser chokes and fights for breath. He pleads, "I can't breathe, Captain," but Welch does nothing. Instead of following accepted professional standards and rinsing away the liquid, Welch puts a spit hood on Schlosser, effectively trapping the pepper spray against the man's face. For over 20 minutes, Welch, with canister in hand, paces in and out of the small area where Schlosser is being restrained, and refuses to let him wash the burning spray from his face and eyes.
        Sadly, this is one of many examples of corrections staff abusing restraints and pepper spray, at times with deadly results: • Nick Christie died in 2006 after being pepper sprayed twelve times and spending six hours naked in a restraint chair. There, too, guards placed a spit hood over Mr. Christie, ensuring that he would breathe the liquid as long as he wore it. The case was later ruled a homicide. • Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio discontinued the use of restraint chairs in 2006 after three wrongful death lawsuits. • Jesse Lee Williams, Jr. was restrained when guards sprayed an entire can of pepper spray into a hood before putting it over his mouth as part of a savage beating. He died two days later.
      Openness and accountability are two of the strongest bulwarks protecting prisoners from abuse. This is true whether the abuse occurs in a matter of minutes, such as when Arizona guards beat, tased, stripped, and left Marty Atencio to die in a cell, or days, like when Michigan guards strapped Timothy Souders to a cement slab until he died of hyperthermia and dehydration.
       Unfortunately, instead of promoting openness and accountability, the Maine Department of Corrections has closed ranks to protect one of its own. Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte ignored the recommendation to fire Welch despite an internal investigation which found that Welch acted on a personal vendetta against Schlosser and not for any legitimate security reason. Now, the Department has focused its attention on ensuring no more videos are leaked, instead of ensuring no more torture happens.
        Paul Schlosser is lucky to be alive. The next Paul Schlosser might not be so lucky.
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