Posts Tagged ‘Greece’
Anti-prison demo occurs in Hamilton (Canada)
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
July 19th, 2010
“A noise demonstration took place outside of the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre (Barton Jail) in downtown Hamilton, Ontario. Around 25 people marched around the prison, chanting slogans (the passion for freedom is stronger than all prisons; no prisons, no borders, fuck law and order; they might take our lives away but not our dignity, our hearts will pound against their walls until we all are free; smash the borders, fuck the state, all these walls are going to break; no justice, no peace, fuck the police; etc), shooting off fireworks, and making speeches.
This demonstration was held to continue creating a visible presence and tension against prisons and the world that needs them, as well as to take direct action in solidarity with the insurgent spirit: with everyone who chooses the dignity of struggle above the servility of obedience.
The 19th of July marked the beginning of a hunger strike in Saint Paul’s Hospital (the infirmary ward of Korydallos prison near Athens, Greece). … Solidarity with prisoners in revolt, inside and outside the jails of this prison-world!
Until we are all free!
Destroy all prisons!”
Tags: Canada, Greece, Hamilton, Hungerstrike, Ontario
Posted in Prison Struggle
Anarchists expropriate supermarket in Saloniki (Greece)
Saturday, June 19th, 2010
14 June 2010
“On 14/06/10 we stormed into a super-market of the chain Masoutis on M.Kyriakou street, we took basic need goods (olive oil, pasta, milk etc.) and destroyed the anti-theft systems and the surveillance camera while we also smashed the cash machines and burnt all the money they had inside.
From the beginning we had decided that the goods of the appropriation would be distributed among the comrades who participated, not outside the super-market. With this choice of ours we want to make clear that this, and other practices aim not at promoting some of us as saviours of the society – rather, we want society itself to familiarise itself with such practices and to embrace them without waiting for the “revolutionary” philanthropist/ friends of the poor. Especially in a period like this one, where the rottenness of the present system is pushing it toward collapse. As for the term “Robin Hoodies” (in Greek: Super-market Robins) we believe it consists another typical attempt to twist the meaning of such actions by Mass Media, which present comrades as some sort of elite stealing for the poor. In result, the distribution of the goods is presented in a way that refers to the narcosis and the passivity reflected in the thinking “someone will think-act-take care of us”.
We do not believe in a society of “weak-minded” people who must necessarily be ruled, as is wished by the ruling propaganda. We are happy when people walk on with the belief that their life belongs to them, away from mediators and needless gabble, when they organise under the premise of solidarity, anti-authoritarianism and self-organisation; under the guidance of active negation and attack. When they do not fall for the fallacy of the regime that “by helping each other we will scrape through the crisis”. It is important, finally that when distributing goods you have no way of telling if the recipients are indeed in solidarity, even if that is not active, or if they are just hypocrites taking care of themselves only – and perhaps even, in another case, they would be the first to inform to the police. Of course we applaud similar actions by comrades who distribute the goods: as as we said earlier the aims are the same.
The burning of money is a symbolic action speaking for itself. These little pieces of paper that turned into ashes within seconds have managed, in even less seconds, to destroy lives, relationships, to transform the human and her desires by transforming life into indexes, digitalising feelings and experiences, simplifying the feelings of joy and misery down to the ‘alternatives’ – I have/ I have no money.
As for the action itself it took place exactly as planned. Our getaway was relaxed and with no unexpected incidents. We used bins to block off some roads precautionary while we made sure to know the movements of the cops before and during the action. It is telling that pigs of the Z force (motorcycle cops –trans.) were sitting around confused by the fountain on Egnatia Ave, obviously waiting for reinforcements and tried to approach only when we were already gone.
We are consciously and actively in solidarity with every other action sabotaging capitalism within the urban environment in which we act.
PS 1. A warning toward the “macho Greeks” who might want to become heroes: they’ll receive the treatment they deserve, exactly as it happened when one of them was spotted to be calling the cops – he was chased, along with the bunch who were about to intervene. But as the saying goes, “the mother of the fast one has never mourned”
PS 2. We can only laugh at the misinformation of the media about supposed clashes with repression forces, trolleys filled with goods that we never managed to hand out etc…
PS 3. Of course we support the appropriation of money for the needs of the movement, it is just that we wanted to give a different context to this particular action.”
The thieves’ thieves
Tags: Fuck the Law, Greece, Social War, Supermarket Sweep, Thessaloniki
Posted in Direct Action
Letter by Michal Pawlak from Koridallos Prison (Greece)
Saturday, June 5th, 2010
Update: Michal Pawlak has been released on bail pending trial.
Michal Pawlak is a comrade from Poland that was arrested on December 6th , 2009 during the demonstrations for the one year since Alexis murder and the uprising that followed. He has remained in prison awaiting trial ever since. As is usual he has been accused by the cops based on unsubstantiated and circumstantial evidence, as for example his t-shirt that had some anti-cop slogan written on it. On June 1st Michal stood in front of the board of judges who will decide in the next couple of weeks whether his imprisonment will be continued. At the same time the cops-murderers of Alexis have been set free until the end of their trial as due to a load of legal tricks their 18th month pre-trial detention expired before a court ruling on their case. Even though their imprisonment will in no way give us a sense that “justice has been served” or extinguish our rage against all those who destroy our lives, nonetheless if this example serves as anything it is to remind us who the so-called justice system is here to protect.
(more…)
Tags: Greece, Korydallos Prison, Michal Pawlak, Poland, Repression, Solidarity
Posted in Prison Struggle
About the Social War in Greece
Monday, May 31st, 2010
The interpretations have been given… Time for our desires to speak.
During the trial of the 17th November armed group we witnessed a spectacular performance, which amongst others, attempted with the application of the upgraded law concerning criminal acts- “anti”-terror law- to earn also social legitimization. The law’s elaborately vague and extended framework (with the possibility for DNA testing, with the article on criminal conspiracy… with the depoliticisation of the history, the theory and the actions of the group) appeared to secure in the legal arsenal that necessary method which is able to strike every existent or attempted project of subversion of bourgeois democracy, without having to accept the political status of its enemy. (more…)
Tags: Greece, Repression, Revolutionary Solidarity
Posted in Direct Action, Social Control
Greek Embassy in Prague attacked (Czech)
Friday, May 14th, 2010
27 April 2010
“Anarchist Lambros, A. M. Bonanno, Stratigopoulos, Dimitrakis, Maziotis, Kortetis, Stathopoulos, Gournas, Poupa, Nikitopoulos and many others, whose names we will never learn are marked as terrorists by the media because they fight against such a terrorist system as capitalism.
In a system in which money is always in the first place, human life has no value. Anarchists have different priorities. Money is of no importance to them, human life is more important.
The mainstream media will not tell you the truth, you have to search for other sources of information.
Governments and capitalists make debts which we, the working people, have to pay for.
To show solidarity with the Greek anarchists and the whole proletariat, we have damaged the Greek embassy in Prague.
We chose the day of international solidarity with our imprisoned comrade, anarchist Giannis Dimitrakis.
We demand the immediate release of all our comrades!
We will not tolerate repression by this system! The popular uprising in Greece is our inspiration and proof that we can
take back our lives!
Fight for a fight!”
Angry Brigade
Tags: Czech Republic, Greece, Prague, Revolutionary Solidarity
Posted in Direct Action
Letter from Giannis Dimitrakis, anarchist prisoner (Greece)
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
In a society of deceit and hypocrisy, of backstabbing and betrayal; there where human relationships are molded on personal profit and exploitation, within the narrow limits of involuntary/obligatory choices, the scope of creating honest and sincere ties of social or political solidarity becomes constricted, suffocated. And if in many cases personal interest and vanity create a concrete mass in a common course between those in power, economic elites, political groups and other subgroups thus creating the illusion of a solid front, then in as many other cases it has been proven that when these same are confronted with pressuring and extremely negative conditions with the possibility of a total collapse approaching, the seeming powerful gluing element which created these cohesive bonds retreats in an instant, leaving behind a crowd of subhumans, each one looking to save themselves and not hesitating of handing over into the hands of the until lately common enemy their until recently political-social-economic partner. (more…)
Tags: Bank Robbery, Giannis Dimitrakis, Greece, Solidarity
Posted in Prison Struggle
Explosive attacks in Saloniki (Greece)
Saturday, May 1st, 2010
Gas canister explosions occurred in different parts of the northern Greek city. The two incidents occurred on the early hours of Monday 26/4 against the National Telecommunications Organization and a news agency truck in the west part of Thessaloníki. The following night a Eurobank branch was attacked in Kalamaria, a suburb on the east part of the city.
A communique was sent on Tuesday 27/4 to Athens.Indymedia:
“We all remember, with excessive hatred, from the days of the arrest of Y. Dimitrakis in 2006 the slander of him through the de-ideologication of the act he made. The overextension of the charges from authority, and the
TV-snitches slandering anything about him and other comrades from his close friends.
Through those 4 years, and even before, the persecutor tactics on such cases is always the same according, of course, to the characteristics of the “guilty” ones. Fact is confirmed that when happens to be an anarchist automatically your close environment is criminalized and, thus, the search for participators begins.
Declassification of phone conversations, collection of finger-prints on immobile and mobile objects in houses, arrest warrants, informers willing to give any information they know are some of the basic tools used.
These same ones we find in front of us these last weeks with the case of the 6 detained already comrades that are accused as members of Revolutionary Struggle. All this atmosphere helps the achievement of total and indiscriminatal control from the state’s side. Constraint and daily brainwash through the media has double aiming. On one side to “cover” its mechanisms actions and on the other to separate the resisting parts of
society in violent and non-violent -therefore excepted-, clearly because of fear. For us, seeing these actions of the sovereignty enrages us even more and pushes us even more quickly to search for actions that will bring us
even closer to the end of this rotten world.
We stand opposed to all authoritarian mechanisms and to all snitches that assist their task and we directly take the counter-offensive for now and forever. On the night of 25th of April in Thessaloníki we attacked with fire a news agency delivery truck of “Evropi (Europe)” company in the area of Evosmos and a branch of OTE (National Telecommunications Organization) in Stavroupoli. We continued the next night again with an arson attack on a Eurobank branch in Kalamaria.
Solidarity with Yannis Dimitrakis that passes the doors of the high court tomorrow 28/4 in Athens.
Freedom to all prisoners”
Tags: Greece, Revolutionary Solidarity, Revolutionary Struggle, Solidarity Action, Thessaloniki, Yiannis Dimitrakis
Posted in Direct Action
Solidarity with Giannis Dimitrakis (Greece)
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
It’s been more than four years since the morning of January 16th 2006, when the anarchist Giannis Dimitrakis was arrested, heavily wounded by police fire, after a robbery at a branch of the National Bank in the center of Athens. (more…)
Tags: Athens, Giannis Dimitrakis, Greece, Revolutionary, Solidarity Action
Posted in Prison Struggle
At Two Thousand Kilometres Distance… (Greece)
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010
Written by some anarchists in Belgium
Athens. Greece. At two thousand kilometres distance. A nearly bankrupted Greek state and an economy that doesn’t function anymore. On the advice of the European Union, the ruling socialist party calls for a series of economic measures and restructurings. The ministers swear it will take “blood, sweat and tears”, but “it’s the only option”. Roads, harbours, airports, borders, factories, railroads,… have frequently been blocked since January, blocked by those who know they’re the ones who’ll pay the price. Manifestations follow each other up and not a single politician seems capable of calming down and canalising the protest. (more…)
Tags: Greece
Posted in Autonomy, Social Control
A Moment of Shame, You Scum (Greece)
Thursday, April 1st, 2010
Translated from the Greek original circulating on the streets of Athens, by anarchist comrades.
Silence, Everyone shut up.
Even if just for a second, shut up.
No more screams and dramatic descriptions of terror from you, the slimy “police editors” that feed off the blood of the victims and the police information.
Shut up. (more…)
Tags: Athens, Greece
Posted in Uncategorized
Déjà vu: the frame up against Alfredo Bonanno has begun (Greece)
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
translated from: cette semaine via angry news from around the world
Greece: Anarchist Bonanno suspected of second robbery
Athens, 25 Feb. – Alfredo Bonanno, the Italian anarchist over 70 years old imprisoned last October following an accusation of concourse in robbery of a bank in Trikala, is suspected of being the author of another robbery carried out last July at Argostoli, on the island of Cefalonia. Bonanno’s lawyers contest this accusation.
According to police sources cited by the media, Bonanno, with a false beard and wig, would have been recognised by one of the witnesses on the basis of a cctv video, while he robbed the Bank of Cyprus, pistol in hand, 6 July in Argostoli. The information has been partially confirmed to Ansa by a spokesman of the central police station, according to which “an old Italian is considered author of the robbery at Argostoli, which rendered 26 000 euros”. The spokesman did not give Bonanno’s name directly but implied that it was him.
Joanna Kurtovic, the Greek lawyer of the old Italian imprisoned in Korydallos (Athens), has expressed her doubts concerning the identification on the basis of a video and a critique of the way this accusation was made public. Bonanno, who suffers from diabetes and has cardio-respiratory problems, is one of the main theoreticians of anarcho-insurrectionnalism (sic). He was arrested at the beginning of October with the Greek anarchist Christos Stratigopoulos following the robbery of a bank in Trikala, for 47 000 euros. The Italian was later arrested in an hotel where the police found the proceeds of the robbery. Bonanno’s defence is that he received the bag from Stratigopoulos, without knowing what it contained. (more…)
Tags: Alfredo M. Bonanno, Christos Stratigopoulos, Frame-up, Greece, Repression
Posted in Prison Struggle
Alfredo & Christos denied bail (Greece)
Friday, February 12th, 2010
The two anarchist comrades, Alfredo Maria Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos, accused of being involved in a bank robbery in Trikala, Greece have had their bail refused. Alfredo must come out of the prison now. Alfredo has serious health problems and needs medical treatment.
Alfredo Maria Bonanno remains inside the prison based on his ideas and long reputation as a writer and theorist of anarchism. An anarchism which is not yet dead, which is not yet decaying in the pages of history but is very much alive and growing in ferocity. An anarchism which will tear a hole in the guts of the European Union.
An anarchism long based in the South European ‘Mediterranean Triangle’, of Greece, Italy, and Spain, however finding fertile, rich ground to spread within many more minds not held by any borders, who are receptive to the anarchist vision of a future world without Church, State and Capital. Neither subjugation nor poverty.
This is an anarchism of freedom, joy and solidarity. An anarchism of stones and fire, of subversion and attack. This is the dynamite that explodes against the class enemy in Santaigo, Chile; the broken and smashed banks of countless dead cities of the USA & UK; the burnt BMW and Porsche of Berlin and Hamburg, Germany, which light up the night-sky for a precious passer-by; the gas-canister defence of Thessaloniki and Athens now turned quite deadly.
This is the anarchism of a complicit glance exchanged in a hostile crowd, or in a queue, or at work; sometimes like a smile, a warm expression of joy, sometimes like a friend who picks you up from the dirty punch you took all your life, or sometimes like the bullets which will find themselves periodically in the heads of powerful individuals and their pawns.
Alfredo; a writer who never betrayed his ideas in the pen and ink of conjecture, but wrote his words to express the realities around him, insights which came from the living social struggle that still remains in the hearts of many people, who will never stop dreaming about a beautiful life that has been denied to them by the prison society of capitalism and power.
This is an anarchism which cannot be jailed, cannot be repressed, cannot be put out, because it does not belong to anyone. This is an anarchism, which through the simple methods which people use to defend themselves from oppression, communicates itself through resistance and so finds friends everywhere that people have not given up hope that they can change the conditions that make their life miserable.
Destroy All Prisons – Free Alfredo & Christos.
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Write the comrades :
Alfredo Bonanno
Christos Stratigopoulos
DIKASTIKES FILAKES KORIDALLOS
T.K. 18110
ATHENS
GREECE
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More Information: After Trikala
Tags: Alfredo M. Bonanno, Bank Robbery, Christos Stratigopoulos, Greece, Repression
Posted in Uncategorized
Solidarity to Alfredo & Christos – Greek Consulate visit in Berlin (Germany)
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
On the 3.2 some anarchists paid a short visit to the Greek consulate in Berlin, located at the Wittenberg square. With a banner reading in both Greek and German „The passion for freedom is stronger than any prison – Freedom to Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos“ we raised attention on the situation of the two comrades imprisoned in Greece. (more…)
Tags: Alfredo M. Bonanno, Bank Robbery, Christos Stratigopoulos, Germany, Greece, Solidarity Action
Posted in Prison Struggle
Vassilis Palaiokostas letter to the media (Greece)
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
From rioter.info
A translation of the letter sent to “Eleftherotipia” newspaper on the occasion of Polys (Polykarpos) Georgiades and Vaggelis Chrisohoides jury on 2/2 on the accusations of providing refuge to a “criminal” and being part of his “criminal association”. Vassilis Palaiokostas is on the run, after his escape with a helicopter from Korydallos prison, on Feb. 22/2009, accused for robbing banks and kidnapping industrialists. It is worth to say, he has never harmed human life, not even cop lives to avoid an arrest. On the opposite, he and his older brother (a legendary bank robber and escapee, currently held in prison) are said to have helped many poor people and communities in mainland Greece’ mountains where they come from and are often said to find refuge at, continuing a tradition of “social robbery” that blossom around the Balkans since the decline of the Ottoman Empire.
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“On the occasion of the upcoming jury on the kidnapping of the industrialist G. Mylonas, that begins on Tuesday February 2, I would like to clarify certain issues.
Through different periods of my life I have been a first line fugitive, nearly 12 years in total an escapee (I hope there’s more of that coming) and 8 years a prisoner. (more…)
Tags: Bank Robbery, Greece, Kidnapping, Vassilis Palaiokostas
Posted in Cognitive Liberty
Political revenge against Alfredo Bonanno (Greece)
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Compañeras and comrades,
From within a climate of daily anarchist action and the brutal repression of every aspect of our lives I am taking the liberty of informing you of two important developments concerning the detention of Alfredo Bonanno.
As you already know Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos were transferred to Korydallos prison one day before the transfer of the murderer Korkonea to the prison of Amfissa.
There, the pharmacy refused to grant him his medication for diabetes and severe pain in the shoulder caused by a tumour diagnosed by doctors at the health centre of Amfissa. Following pressure from their comrades a doctor sent by the Italian Embassy visited him in prison where his serious state of health was confirmed.
I would like to inform you that at this time the investigator in Trikala is deliberating the application for Alfredo’s release on bail.
Following the new detention measures of the Ministry of Justice, Bonanno’s advanced age (73 years), his compromised health and his detention for a misdemeanor (given that Stratigopoulos has assumed responsibility for the armed robbery), it is patently clear that his continued detention is an exemplary one of political revenge.
Alfredo Bonanno is a revolutionary anarchist comrade and a writer of many works. That is why he is being held, if it wasn’t him, he would already be free until the trial.
But for us, for whom solidarity is our weapon and who know that in any uprising we will be dynamite, we will not abandon our comrade. We demand the immediate release of Alfredo Bonanno.
Freedom now for Alfredo Bonanno.
Eva Tziutzia
Ps. The following fax has been sent to the Minister of Justice Trasparency and Human Rights, Athens, the Italian Embassy in Athens and the press.
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We wish to denounce the abusive and illegal detention of Alfredo Maria Bonanno in unacceptable conditions in the prison of Koridallos (Athens). The vindictive politic of the State is aimed at the physical and psychological annihilation of the 73-year old comrade who is facing serious health problems. Alfredo Bonanno is an anarchist, who has been involved in the movement for decades, militant in the resistance against the dictatorship of the Greek colonels (1967-1974), and writer and editor of many works.
We demand the immediate liberation of Alfredo Maria Bonanno
Solidarity initiative to Alfredo M. Bonanno
Tags: Alfredo M. Bonanno, Bank Robbery, Christos Stratigopoulos, Greece, Korydallos Prison
Posted in Prison Struggle
