Athens – Page 15 – Dark Nights

Athens, Greece: Intervention at ΕΣΗΕΑ (Athens Daily Newspaper Editors Union) in solidarity with the hunger strike of anarchist comrade Giannis Michailidis

Posted on 2022/06/02 - 2022/06/02 by darknights

10th DAY OF THE HUNGER STRIKE OF GIANNIS MICHAILIDIS

Update from today’s intervention at ESIEA

The assembly in solidarity with the hunger striker Giannis Michailidis, who has been on hunger strike since 23/5, held an intervention today at the ESIEA building, in order to give visibility to the struggle of his comrade. As soon as the intervention started, the vice president of ESIEA was negative even with the hanging of the banner. We made it clear to him that we had come with the specific purpose of highlighting the hunger strike and that we would leave when we felt that the comrade’s hunger strike had been sufficiently highlighted. He threatened us that he would call the police and we replied that we would not leave the building until we had left safely and had achieved our purpose. He ordered all the telephone lines and computers in the building to be shut down to prevent the propaganda of the action.

We are not in a position to know if the vice president ultimately called the cops or if they came on their own. Two Delta groups (Motorcycle cops) came to the scene and even without any legitimacy they entered the ground floor and threatened us with arrest. We re-stated that we would not leave unless the police forces left.The determination of the solidarity groups to remain in the building made it clear to the president that in order to end the intervention the cops had to leave.

The banner was hung from the rooftop and leaflets were thrown.

About the choice to intervene in the ESIEA

We have no illusions about the mainstream media. However, against the constant tactic of the state apparatus to silence the hunger strikes, we had to intervene in order to make the demand for the immediate release of Giannis Michailidis heard. The regime media that wrote about the intervention did not post the text. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Intervention at ΕΣΗΕΑ (Athens Daily Newspaper Editors Union) in solidarity with the hunger strike of anarchist comrade Giannis Michailidis” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for explosive attack at house of 2nd Lieutenant Evangelos Kaisis of the ΟΠΚΕ police unit by Group “Revenge Guerrillas”

Posted on 2022/06/02 - 2022/06/02 by darknights

ΟΠΚΕ during a raid in the Exarcheia neighborhood of Athens

Nowadays, the state apparatus and its minions think they are immune. They act against all those who do not accept the miseries they impose on us and who dare to stand up to the vindictive regime. Cops, investigators, prosecutors and journalists have created a regime alliance with the sole aim of repression and the disappearance of dignity. This must stop immediately and these scum must understand that their actions will have the expected consequences. We can come into your homes, your businesses, and attack whenever and however we want without you being able to stop us. Get this through your heads. We take responsibility for the explosive device in the house of 2nd Lieutenant Evangelos Kaisis in Melissia, who was the head of the ΟΠΚΕ team, on 18/3/22, during the transfer of our comrade Fotis Tziotzi to the interrogation room, after his arrest for the bank expropriations in Athens this summer. This cop, after the adventure with the attempted snatching of his gun by the comrade that happened outside the interrogator’s office, ran to testify against the comrade, thus charging him with additional charges.

Try as you might, you will only succeed in strengthening the flame that burns within us for armed action against you. This is a small piece compared to what will follow, and you will lose sleep over it.

P.S. Ilisia. Thalia C. Kyriakides, interrogator. You may have been lucky this time, or we may have been unlucky that the explosive device did not explode in your apartment building, but next time it will be with bullets that will surely find their target.

STRENGTH AND FREEDOM TO ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS.

FIGHTING GREETINGS TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE CHOSEN THE PATH OF FREEDOM.

LET US ALL ATTACK TOGETHER.

GROUP “REVENGE GUERRILLAS”

Source: athens.indymedia

Athens, Greece: Intervention at the Athens Bar Association for the anarchist hunger striker Giannis Michailidis

Posted on 2022/06/01 by darknights

27-05-2022

This morning, comrades held an intervention at the Athens Bar Association in solidarity with the anarchist hunger striker Giannis Michailidis. A banner was hung from the floor, banners were thrown, and texts were distributed to inform about the comrade’s hunger strike.

“The comrade’s demand for his immediate release is a struggle to break the vindictive practice of preventive incarceration and acquires special weight because political prisoners, due to their political choices, are the frontline of the social – class war. The struggle of the comrade for his release is therefore not a narrow struggle that concerns him exclusively. It is a militant choice as a whole against a regime of exclusion arbitrarily and abusively imposed against any prisoner who has a decent attitude, but more specifically against the regime of exclusion against political prisoners, anarchists or communists. It is an integral part of the struggle for a world without prisons and barbed wire, without borders and concentration camps, without the plundering and destruction of the planet by the multinationals, without class exploitation, without rich and poor, without gender and racial oppression.

THE INDEFINITE DETENTION OF THE HUNGER STRIKER MUST BE ENDED IMMEDIATELY

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF THE ANARCHIST HUNGER STRIKER FROM 23/5 GIANNIS MICHAILIDIS

GIANNIS STAY STRONG UNTIL LIBERATION

Assembly of solidarity with the anarchist hunger striker Giannis Michailidis

Source: athens.indymedia

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the incendiary attack in Pefkis-Lykovrisi – To burn the beast of gentrification to the ground by Thousands of Suns of the Night

Posted on 2022/05/27 - 2022/05/27 by darknights

On 27/04 we placed incendiary devices in the offices of the Nea Dimokratia (New Democracy) Pefkis-Lykovrisi, burning them completely outside and a large part inside, essentially closing the office.

We hold this party accountable for a series of actions that form the backbone of the Greek state’s agenda.

Redevelopment-Regeneration-Repatriation-Suppression

From the beginning of its term of office, ND as a government has shown its intentions on the issue of the city. The Athenian centre is constantly being shaped as a luxury showcase for global and European tourism. This process started and accelerated already in the years of the covid-19 boom when hundreds of thousands of euros were given for the construction of the Grand Walk (pet gentrification project of Athens mayor Kostas Bakoyannis). Public space is increasingly occupied by goods and consumers. Universities and spaces that once seemed to be meeting points for movements and collective processes are now being cleared, controlled and mapped with cameras and cops (ΟΠΠΙ, university cops). The state’s attempt to turn the Gini polytechnic into a monument in a move of gentrification is also characteristic. At the same time, student movements are subjected to extreme repression, with typical examples being the pressure in other universities such as the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, as well as the case of the 14 students who are being persecuted under the umbrella of manipulating DNA files. In continuation of the pressure on the anarchist movement with reference to meeting places is the continuous repression of the occupations in the centre of Athens and Thessaloniki.

Of course, along with all the above comes the redevelopment of squares, parks and hills. The criminal collaboration of the state with capital leads to the appearance of construction sites and dust in the squares, security barriers, blocking of work sites, extra security with security and cops and as expected: displacement of the poor, the marginalized, migrant women. Even the few places that the poor, the people from below, the people of our class had to catch their breath, are being forcibly taken away from them. This plan is being carried out all over the centre, from Galatsi and Pagrati to the most migrant neighbourhoods, Kypseli Square, Protomaya Square and soon Exarcheia Square. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the incendiary attack in Pefkis-Lykovrisi – To burn the beast of gentrification to the ground by Thousands of Suns of the Night” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim – Incendiary attack on General Post Office vehicles

Posted on 2022/05/27 - 2022/05/27 by darknights

For more than a decade we have been experiencing the invasion of capital on our lives, through the neoliberal restructuring of the relations of production. The cycle that opened during the period of the memoranda has never closed, but instead the state and the bosses are upgrading and deepening their domination and exploitation to this day.

The present condition should not be superficially assessed by the movement as a setback in relation to a social democratic period of a different balance of forces, workers’ conquests and gains. In fact, the previous period finally prepared the ground for the current selection. Social democracy, as the last political stage of the capitalist model of production, aims at securing the necessary consensus needed by the political system to validate the continuous and intensifying capitalist restructurings. The social and political assimilation of the working class has taken place decades ago since the radical and subversive movements retreated by surrendering to the welfare states, institutional trade unionism and finally abandoning the revolutionary perspective.

The mosaic that composes the contemporary reality in Western societies places the proletarian struggle in a symbolic position of workers’ mobilizations and demands. By recognizing the workers as the only subject of its conduct, they exclude those most affected by the capitalist juggernaut, that is, those excluded from the capitalist means of survival, labour, as well as those who are even lower down. As long as this body is excluded from the class struggle the threat of privatisation and individualisation of a struggle, which inevitably takes the form of resistance and simple survival and the dissipation of our misery, takes on flesh and blood. Solidarity among all the oppressed is a necessary ingredient for overthrow and emancipation. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim – Incendiary attack on General Post Office vehicles” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim – Arson of a National Technical University vehicle

Posted on 2022/05/27 - 2022/05/27 by darknights

ANNOUNCEMENT – CALL FOR A CAMPAIGN OF ACTION AGAINST THE UNIVERSITY POLICE

WHY WE BURNED THE OFFICIAL CAR USED BY THE RECTOR ANDREAS BOUDOUVIS FOR HIS INTERNAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN THE UNIVERSITY PREMISES

On May 12, the Council of State effectively upheld the law on the University Police since, as stated in its decision, neither academic freedom nor the autonomy of Higher Education Institutions is violated. The Council of State’s decision argues, inter alia, that there are important reasons of security and public order according to which it is deemed necessary to have the universities guarded by the police. Is the Council of State competent to admonish and defend values such as freedom and morality? Would the Council of State do well to resolve its internal issues first and foremost and leave aside the public security issues at a time when its former Vice-President and President of the Third Department, Panagiotis Efstratiou, is involved in a case of cocaine use and trafficking among minors? We do not expect anything different from the Council of State, the Supreme Court and their courts, which are rife with corruption and scandals, which wash away businessmen, politicians, big business and other scoundrels without a trace of shame at the same time as society is sinking into poverty and misery. The most recent and striking example, moreover, concerns the – beyond all provocation – cover-up of the rapists of Georgia Bika, where the scum of the well-known multinational rushed to cover up in the most blatant way the rape of the militant Georgia. Words are superfluous. An instrument of cynical execution of governmental dictates, the judiciary is humiliated in the courtrooms, the corrupt system rules them undisturbed and the fairy tales about separation of powers just make the big picture even more provocative.Surely the answer for the University Police Corps will not be given by the Council of State. The best and most targeted answer will be given by the student movement itself, the world of struggle, the anarchist and radical space, the parts of the militant left and the part of the progressive space that must finally put a brake on arbitrariness and authoritarianism. We are convinced that a mosaic of actions will unfold in the coming period, from symbolic actions to more dynamic actions that will cancel this bill in practice and why not put on the table the issue of self-organization and subversion not only within the universities but also in the whole society as a whole. Let all the schools be closed with occupations, let students and teachers with basic self-respect abstain from classes, let mass demonstrations take place all over Greece, let all the cops who will staff the new body be targeted. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim – Arson of a National Technical University vehicle” →

Athens, Greece: Political text by Anarchist Georgia Voulgari, a prisoner in the women’s prison of Korydallos

Posted on 2022/05/23 - 2022/05/23 by darknights

Political text by Georgia Voulgari, a prisoner in the women’s prison of Korydallos.

We are in a daily war, a war with the status quo, with every form of power that eats away at our lives, and in this war I realized where I belong. In a world where patriarchy rapes and kills us, where capitalism crushes us, impoverishing what we call life, in this world where humanity itself dominates nature and animals, perpetuating anthropocentric thinking and speciesism. So I chose sides. For the power complex will not destroy itself, no social change will come about unless our action transcends reformist logics, having a will to believe and a commitment to our ideas, putting theory into practice.

I proudly declare myself anarchist, proud that in this rotten society, the society of submission and spectacle, I did not bow my head before exploitation and power and chose to stand next to comrades who, by supporting the multiform struggle, also wrote their own page in the revolutionary historical memory. So far, living my new life next to them, in squats, through their common struggles for freedom, I learned what solidarity and comradeship is, what it means to give everything for what you believe in even if you are going to lose your freedom. I take the political responsibility that is due to me for my complicity in the incendiary attack that took place on 8/2 at the Foundation for National and Religious Reflection. A fragmentary action, which was not carried out by an organisation, namely the Anarchist Action organisation of which I am accused as a member, but was motivated by the desires and anger of two people against religious obscurantism, patriarchy and state power. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Political text by Anarchist Georgia Voulgari, a prisoner in the women’s prison of Korydallos” →

Greece: Thanos Chatziaggelou – ‘Don’t ask if we will win or if we will be defeated – Just fight!’

Posted on 2022/05/16 - 2022/05/19 by darknights

Solidarity message of the imprisoned member of the Organization Anarchist Action to the unrepentant anarchist Claudio Lavazza, in response to the appeal of his 25-year-old sentence which is to be examined on the 17th of May.

While being imprisoned in the most dystopian Hall of tyranny a combination of a few words on a piece of paper could never vividly describe the ideal of revolutionary intransigence. How could anybody fit a moment a life of disobedience, complexly devoted to the relentless struggle without leaving out any important detail.

Until today, there are only few people who wholeheartedly attempted to build a bridge filling the gap between a life and survival. These people who devoted their whole existence to the bright direct actions of the revolutionary base against the fierce doctrine of tyranny for the “end of history”, laid down their lives in the wholehearted hostilities of the revolutionary base. They enlisted sternly and unyieldingly on the fractious front of subversion, bled while comrades were perishing in battle, but imprisoned in the face of the danger of repentance and legitimacy, they chose ironclad pride.

Comrade Claudio Lavazza belonged to the same mixture of figures of struggle that divided them by a very important “particularity”: injustice and exploitation, social decay and tyranny were not just statements but issues that concerned them individually and collectively. They did not adapt ideology and politics to their lives; they devoted the absoluteness of their existence to vital and militant resistances. Enlisted in the armed ranks of the Italian Autonomy, he chose very early on the path of illegal freedom in the face of repression and political degeneration from statements of repentance. Continue reading “Greece: Thanos Chatziaggelou – ‘Don’t ask if we will win or if we will be defeated – Just fight!’” →

Athens, Greece: Incendiary-explosive attack upon cop’s vehicle in solidarity with anarchist prisoners Vaggelis Stathopoulos & Dimitris Hatzivassiliadis

Posted on 2022/05/14 - 2022/05/18 by darknights

For 3 years now, the far-right government of the ND has intensified state repressive action against those who fight and stand against its brutal capitalist plans.

The repressive attacks and frame-ups and persecutions against militants are countless. In these 3 years we have witnessed demonstration bans, torture of protesters and prisoners, informal hostage-taking of anarchists under harsh restraints, mass arrests, intimidation with non-existent DNA and detention. The purpose of all these state practices is to completely cut off and isolate militants from social resistance and physically eliminate them.

The basic premise of this repressive policy is to put the management of everyday life in the hands of the police, which, with the chariot of the pandemic, has been largely conquered by placing uniformed men everywhere like an army of occupation to decide who goes out and who does not.

Police impunity and police state repression has so far resulted in hundreds of incidents of beatings, torture and arrests, even murders, as in the case of Nikos Sampanis who was gassed for not stopping at a checkpoint.

One of the first state frame-ups is the prosecution and imprisonment of the anarchist comrade Vaggelis Stathopoulos, who has been locked up in state cells for two and a half years for showing his practical solidarity with the wounded anarchist comrade Dimitris Hatzivassiliadis.

In a mock trial with a tailor-made indictment by the anti-terrorist police, held in March-April 2021, Vaggelis Stathopoulos was sentenced to 19 years in prison.

On the night of 21 April we placed an incendiary-explosive device in a cop’s vehicle in the area of Ampelokipoi, destroying it completely, in solidarity with the anarchist prisoner Vaggelis Stathopoulos, whose appeal trial begins on 18 May.

It is our belief that state framing and trumped up charges are overturned through diverse solidarity actions.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF ANARCHIST VAGGELIS STATHOPOULOS

FREEDOM TO THE ANARCHIST DIMITRIS HATZIVASSILIADIS WHO IS BEING PROSECUTED FOR THE SAME CASE AND TO ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS

FOR FEAR TO CHANGE SIDES

THE ANSWERS ARE GIVEN IN THE STREETS OF FIRE

Anti-State Saboteurs

Source: athens.indymedia

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attack on ‘airbnb StrefiHomm’ in Exarcheia

Posted on 2022/05/14 - 2022/05/14 by darknights

Last week we chose to disrupt for a while the now dystopian normality of the neighbourhood of the Exarcheia. The tourist industry is stepping on our bodies, displacing the local population, the poorer classes, the immigrant(s), grabbing more space from the hands of the antagonistic movement. A very important example of the ruthless march of capital into the neighborhood is the real estate firm, Homm.

This Greek company manages, buys, sells, rents apartments, villas and all kinds of properties in Athens, Mykonos, Evia and other areas. By browsing their site, one can see the luxury apartments they manage in “run-down” areas such as Patissia, but also in classic neighborhoods where gentrification has been completed such as Koukaki. Exarcheia seems to be their preferred neighborhood as they operate many properties such as luxury apartments and airbnb. Many of these are being targeted in protests in Exarchia. In fact, one can distinguish them by the paint people throw on their facades and the slogans they write.

The company has 135 properties on booking.gr and its offices are located at 83 Poseidonos Street in Glyfada. It is neither the first nor the last company that camps and does business in Exarcheia, but it is a main agent of gentrification that, despite the hostile climate it receives, insists on expanding more and more, opening more properties. We will not tolerate another one of them making fun of us right in our faces, investing at our expense, selling alternativeism, head-butting the struggles and the history of the movements in the region. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attack on ‘airbnb StrefiHomm’ in Exarcheia” →