Athens – Page 18 – Dark Nights

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the arson attack on a company vehicle of UNISON Facilities Management in Exarcheia

Posted on 2022/02/25 - 2022/02/25 by darknights

Regenaration, development, gentrification. Concepts that have become embedded as spikes in the discourse and action of the antagonist movement, must be seen as another aspect of the attack of the ruling classes against the oppressed class. Capital aims at subordinating the whole of life to its exploitation and reproduction, and therefore organizes more and more aspects of human activity in this logic.

The process of enclosing community/public spaces for the purpose of capital’s reproduction is a process as old as capitalism. In recent decades we have experienced the long deconstruction of social democratic management, with the mediation of the state receding, giving more room for the defensive subordination of activities of social life to capital. In this sense, a concerted attack has been launched in recent years on public spaces, squares, parks in the metropolises, transferring their management from the state to private individuals, with the aim of creating new fields of profitability for capital.

This is exactly the condition of the sale of a series of public green spaces by the Municipality of Athens to the company UNISON Facilities Services, such as the hills (Strefi, Filopappou, Lycabettus, Turkovounia), squares (Protomaya, Victoria, Kypseli, Attiki, Ameriki, Drakopoulos, Agios Panteleimon), parks (Platonos Academia, Kyrpo, Patision, Goudi) and pedestrian streets (Agia Zoni, Fokionos Negri). UNISON (formerly ISS), belongs to a category of a new type of company that, through contractor privatisations, is simultaneously financed by state-taxed, collectively produced surplus value, and at the same time intensifies the exploitation of its workers through miserable wages, flexible working hours and violation of workers’ rights. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the arson attack on a company vehicle of UNISON Facilities Management in Exarcheia” →

Greece: Direct Action Cells – Responsibility claim for a barrage of incendiary attacks in Athens and Thessaloniki

Posted on 2022/02/20 - 2022/02/20 by darknights

Revolution or Barbarism

In recent years our days have been filled with news of deaths, with numbers of dead, with the words of “experts” who command arrogantly and boastfully from the power they have been given. They are filled with unreasonable orders and outrageous government impositions. We do not intend to extensively analyze positions on the health crisis. The tragic shortages of medical personnel, equipment and infrastructure, the “stain” of 100 deaths a day, i.e. the dire consequences of decades of privatization of public health care. The provocative strengthening of the private sector, exemplified by the big pharmaceutical companies and health giants, whose profits have reached historic highs. The re-emergence of the ‘strong’ state model to restore capitalist equilibria. The strengthening of centralised powers and the emergence of a new caste of all-round technocrats, with the role of abdicating and covering up the responsibilities of the state apparatus and shifting the responsibility for the spread of the virus to the individual. These are just some of the points that shape the management of the pandemic by the capitalist states.

Throughout the pandemic, the key issues that have dominated the public debate have been around public health, mental health and the effects of incarceration, the social exclusion of increasing segments of the population, growing class inequalities, the wider capitalist division of available resources, the role of science and technology, civil rights and the diminished role of bourgeois democracy in emergency situations.

The health crisis has affected in a universal way the relations constituting the social reproduction of capital. The inability of the social formation to reproduce the formed conditions of capitalist production led to an ideological crisis of the applied model of neoliberalism, while at the same time, following the dictum that “for capitalism every crisis is an opportunity”, it served as a key tool for the organised transition to a new era. The capitalist restructuring under way is the huge-scale operation to rescue a system that is plunging into chain crises of a structural nature. It is also the attempt to move capitalism into a new phase, something that its apologists of all kinds openly admit. It is a given that the contradictions that are developing within societies, states and big bosses will be on a trajectory of bloody conflicts in the coming years. The emergence of a powerful bloc within the imperialist bourgeoisies, consisting of the owners of the great technological giants, with the decisive potential for extracting cultural hegemony, is shaping a historical intersection in which the passage to the new capitalist formation will universally determine the lives, habits and lifestyles of the social majority. In the new totalitarian capitalist world that is emerging, the possession of information (data) will be (to an even greater extent than now) only one of the many fields of profitability of these oligarchs, who, in addition to the sharp increase in their profits, will concentrate even greater powers in their hands. On the other hand, those who live within the hyper-connected metropolises will literally become fully exploitable commodities, as they will not only sell their labour power, but every field of social, personal, consumer, recreational interest will be a profitable process for capital, they will constitute an uninterrupted flow of data. Every click, every piece of information unlocked by the algorithms on their screens will fill the pockets of their provider with profit in an endless game of exploitation and total control of every aspect of human activity. Continue reading “Greece: Direct Action Cells – Responsibility claim for a barrage of incendiary attacks in Athens and Thessaloniki” →

Athens, Greece: Letter of Panos Kalaitzis from Korydallos Prison

Posted on 2022/02/20 - 2022/05/18 by darknights

Letter of Panos Kalaitzis

On Tuesday 08/02 at 19.00 I was arrested by the anti-terrorist squad outside my comrade’s house in Ano Polis. The reason for my indictment was the arrest that same morning of Thanos Xatziagkelou and Georgia Voulgari accused of placing an incendiary device in the Foundation for National and Religious Reflection. I was taken to the General Police Directorate of Thessaloniki, where hours later I was informed of my arrest on felony charges and membership of the Anarchist Action organization. I remained in custody for two days in the basements of the GADTH, on Friday 11/02 I passed through the interrogator and the prosecutor where I was notified of my pre-trial detention.

Being now in the throes of a comic process that is taking place against me, I declare myself unequivocally and categorically innocent of all the charges against me. I am currently in custody without a shred of evidence linking me to any participation in the charges against me, without a single mention of my name in the statements of the anti-terrorist police in connection with the activities of the organisation. The only attempted connection is through the house I rented next to the shop I ran with my associates as well as next to my comrade’s house (where I actually lived), which I reserved as a quarantine and recovery space from covid-19.

I am making an effort to stand up to this conspiracy that has been set up to deprive me of my freedom. I am trying to keep my mind alert and clear so that I can resist this injustice that wants to strangle me. I am trying to stand up to this arbitrariness that sees my life as a pawn on an invisible chessboard.

Against those who take human relationships and use them as they want and as it suits them to compose whatever puzzle they design.
I’m going to make it.

Solidarity to my friend, colleague and comrade Thanos Hatziangelou and to comrade Georgia whom I met a few days ago in the basements of the ΓΑΔΘ (Thessaloniki Police HQ cells)

Panos Kalaitzis
Korydallos Prison
15/02/2022

————-

Source: athens.indymedia.

Via & Translated by Act for freedom now!

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the burning of the Exarcheia Police Station on 4.2.22

Posted on 2022/02/12 - 2022/02/12 by darknights

We take responsibility for the burning of the Exarcheia Police Station on 4.2.22. The attack was carried out by a group of comrades who, armed with the weapons of comradeship and organization, defied police state and succeeded in destroying the myth of omnipotence that the police systematically cultivates in this area. We attacked with more than 10 Molotov cocktails at the outpost and the entrance of the police station, driving the cops outside into disorderly flight.

A few words about the incident

The tragic management of the pandemic, the sweeping changes it has brought about and the developments of the period are revealing of what it has brought about to the social base. Inflation, poverty, energy poverty, the daily deaths from COVID-19 which reach 24,000 are the results of capitalist management in order to recover the profitability of capital.

At the same time, the indirect reduction of wages against the government narrative, the ever greater devaluation of the Ε.Σ.Υ. (National Health Service) are increasingly impoverishing the social base. On the other hand, the cynicism of the rulers is reflected in their statements showing how indifferent they are to the lives of the impoverished.

The recent statements of Mitsotakis: “we may have had 16,000 dead but we saved tourism”, the admission of Plevris: “we have no communism and everything that is commanded is paid for” and the reference of Skertzos that it is a luxury to support the Ε.Σ.Υ. , leave no room for doubt.

At the same time, Development Minister Adonis Georgiades announced the end of the pandemic, at the same time that patients continue to die in beds and the medical and nursing staff, being understaffed, is collapsing from the workload. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the burning of the Exarcheia Police Station on 4.2.22” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attacks in solidarity with comrade Haris Mantzouridis

Posted on 2022/01/30 by darknights

Comrade Haris Mantzouridis has been a prisoner of the state and its mechanisms for 4 months. On 13 October, uniformed masked men of the police kidnapped him from his house in front of his family and took him to the GADA (police HQ). There he is accused of involvement in a robbery of a safe deposit box in Zografou in 2018 with the only evidence being an “orphan” DNA sample found in adjacent premises after the suggestion that an “anonymous citizen” seems to have made to the cops.

The use of DNA as evidence of guilt while scientifically perverse and false is used extensively by the state and its repressive mechanisms to hostage and trap militants. At the same time, the existence of an “anonymous phone call” clearly shows the orchestrated effort of the state mechanism to trap the comrade.

The state crime and the vindictiveness towards Haris because of his long-time participation in the anarchist space continues and goes beyond any limit as while he has applied for release due to his serious mental health, the prison prosecutor prosecutes him for false self-harm with the purpose of attempting to escape, which sends him to the disciplinary court. At the moment, the comrade is being held in the psychiatric hospital of Korydallos prison with conditions there further discrediting his charged mental health. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attacks in solidarity with comrade Haris Mantzouridis” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for arson attack on Hertz dealership in solidarity with Haris Mantzouridis & Steki Biologico

Posted on 2022/01/23 - 2022/01/23 by darknights

“The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ we are now living in is not the exception but the rule. We must manage to grasp history with this awareness.” – Walter Benjamin.

The Greek state is in the process of strengthening and intensifying its repressive mechanisms and under the umbrella of the doctrine of “law and order” is further arming its defences. It creates and nurtures daily bipolar and tactics of social division (vaccinated-unvaccinated) and at the same time focuses on the narrative of the enemy within, with the anarchist space and its militants at the forefront. It applies a doctrine of shock, with the regime’s peak being terrorism, this time through the virus, the external threat from neighbouring countries, the projection of “violent” incidents in university campuses and the simultaneous silencing of the revaluations, impoverishment and poverty of the largest population of the country, the resisting parts of society becoming the recipients of the state’s vengeance. The aim of the current government of the New Democracy is to consolidate impoverishment by completing the work of the social democracy it succeeded. At the same time, faithful to its historical rendezvous with revisionism, the Greek right aspires to put a tombstone on the struggle against impoverishment by intensifying repression against the resisting parts of society and trying to delegitimise the memory of the struggle against the state and capital.

For more than 3 months now, the latest episode of this attack has been unfolding, the prosecution against comrade Haris Mantzouridis, who currently remains in custody in the psychiatric hospital of Korydallos prison. The case is based on a trumped-up indictment, which, in addition to the classic tactic of the “anonymous phone call” that pointed him out as a suspect, is reinforced with the last tool the repression has at its disposal, the “genetic material mix”, accusing the comrade of robbing a money transport company in 2018 and setting fire to a car dealership in 2009. After being kidnapped outside his home by security guards in October, the comrade was initially taken to Korydallos. There he had a first panic attack, which resulted in a head injury and his transfer to the psychiatric hospital in Dafni. During his hospitalization in Dafni he made two suicide attempts, for which the prosecution authorities vindictively and sadistically charged him with disciplinary misconduct, accusing him of “false self-harm with the purpose of escape”. Their goal is obvious: The physical and psychological annihilation of the comrade. At the same time, the attack on Haris Mantzourides sends a message to the wider antagonistic movement. The concerted persecution is part of a broader context of intensifying the use of genetic material for the construction of persecution against the anarchist space. The state has the ultimate goal of spreading fear in the ranks of the militants, showing that at any moment it can collect a sample (in cases even for petty charges) and through a mixture of matching, fabricate indictments, detain and torture physically and psychologically the people of the struggle. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for arson attack on Hertz dealership in solidarity with Haris Mantzouridis & Steki Biologico” →

Athens, Greece: A few words about the intervention to Professor A. Drakos

Posted on 2022/01/23 by darknights

The age we live in finds us trapped in a spectacular, imposing but at the same time fragile normality, the normality of the “aristocrats” and their slaves. Sitting behind their seats, with wide smiles and over-inflated bank accounts, the ‘excellent’ are the dream of every petty bourgeois. However much they may communicate this image, the pervasive rot and stench that pervades them is everywhere, infesting the space where they stand and breathe.

This image is usually accompanied by a high social status and perhaps a high-ranking position in the academic, artistic or political world. We do not forget the case of the serial rapist, pedophile and involved in shelters for underage refugee children, D. Lignadis, a ‘renowned’ actor in the eyes of the shaky Greek society, whose political contacts were and are so strong that he was appointed president of the National Theatre. Another shining example of ‘excellence and ethics’ is Nikos Georgiades, MP and political planning secretary of the New Democracy party. In 2016 this scumbag was found involved in a pedophile ring in Moldova. We apologize if the above names made you sick but there is a follow-up and that is the associate professor of financial management at the Athens University of Economics and Business, Anastasios Drakos.

On Tuesday 11/01/22 we coordinated a storming of the auditorium A of the Athens University of Economics and Business during a course taught by A. Drakos. His abusive attack, the writing of slogans on the walls of the auditorium and the physical violence we used were our main means of highlighting an issue that has been buried around powerful acquaintances.

Two anonymous complaints against A. Drakos have been made public, having in common his paedophile habits. More specifically, the first complaint comes from a former partner of A. Drakos-also a professor at the OPA-with whom he coexists in a loan sharking case and it is reported that A. Drakos was caught in the act of having sexual intercourse with underage children in their joint company in Romania in 2016. As for the second complaint, which was made public in 2019-also by two of his university colleagues who are not related to the aforementioned case-it says that in a meeting in a faculty room, A. Drakos disclosed his close friendly relations with the pedophile N. Georgiades, admitted that they share the same pedophilic tendencies and did not hesitate to show off his motives. All this in the same place where the subject in question continued to teach undisturbed for another four years. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: A few words about the intervention to Professor A. Drakos” →

Exarcheia: THIS IS NOT A MUSEUM, THIS IS WHERE WE LIVE!

Posted on 2022/01/21 by darknights

As you may have already understood, on the buses, in the streets, in the shops, cameras are watching and recording our every step. The social media industry has made us accustomed to the presence of cameras at events, in marches and in our daily lives (in workplaces, schools, etc.), so that our resistance to them is diminishing. It seems as if there is no other way and this leaves us no room to breathe.

The state is installing cameras to protect its infrastructure, to record demonstrations and to monitor its citizens. On the other hand, the petty bourgeoisie use them to protect their sacred property while their visual material is always available to the cops and is used as incriminating evidence in court cases. Under the pretext that this system of surveillance and control will create greater security, it shields the system of domination.

Cameras have never prevented any “crime”, nor have they ever “protected” anyone. The goal of surveillance is to create a sense of constant monitoring of our every step, every social media post is recorded and creates profiles with data that can be used against us.

Then we start to think twice, where we go, what we say, who we talk to and what we do. This superstitious obedience is part of repression and self-censorship. When we are not anonymous we do not act and speak as we would like, but according to what is socially acceptable.

Gentrification is also related to the expansion of surveillance. Continue reading “Exarcheia: THIS IS NOT A MUSEUM, THIS IS WHERE WE LIVE!” →

Athens, Greece: Claudio Lavazza – A whole life dedicated to the struggle

Posted on 2022/01/21 by darknights

Our anarchist comrade Claudio Lavazza has been in prison since 1996, having already completed 25 years of continuous detention. He is one of the longest serving political prisoners in Europe. Claudio was one of the militants who took up arms to oppose capitalist rule politically and militarily.

An insurgent proletarian who participated in conflicts and expropriations in the early years of joining the movement in the dynamic 1970s in Italy. Armed fighter of the revolutionary movement of the 70’s-80’s afterwards. Member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism, a horizontal guerrilla group with strong ideological influences from workers’ autonomy. Participant in the coalition of groups under the name ‘Organised Communists for Proletarian Liberation’, an armed project to support fugitives and free comrades and comrades-in-arms from prison. Accomplice to the 1981 attack on the prison in Frosinone where imprisoned militants were released.

At a time when the meaning and content of words had not been surrendered to museification, revisionism, and boundary activism. Instead, it found meaning through the practical cultivation of hope in those imprisoned and “exiled” from the legal order by the relentless repression of the state and the parastate. That words like freedom and solidarity would be put into practice with guns in their hands. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Claudio Lavazza – A whole life dedicated to the struggle” →

Athens, Greece: Incendiary attack on the house of the president of the Youth Organization of New Democracy, Pavlos Marinakis

Posted on 2022/01/19 - 2022/01/19 by darknights

08/01/2022

On December 15, in the evening, we attacked with an incendiary device the house of the president of ΟΝΝΕΔ (Youth Organization of New Democracy), Pavlos Marinakis, at 29 Ariannou Street in Pagrati.

Another act of direct action that is deliberately concealed by the mainstream media, aiming to protect, first of all, the target, but also to safeguard the overall prestige of power that wants the rulers to be immune away from the hands of their “impoverished subjects”. But nevertheless, we are here to refute this false security that they diligently seek to present as the privilege of the powerful.

So we too have sought out and found this particular subject who lately, apart from being outrageously provocative with his audacity and statements, seems to be on an upward trajectory in New Democracy. This is anything but coincidental, of course. This party has invested in the profile of a popular right-wing party that clearly leans towards the far right, while at the same time launching an image of sophisticated “excellence” through the universally controlled media in order to cover as large an audience as possible.

So let us say a few words about this gentleman in order to illustrate the rot that he carries and serves. Part and parcel of the vanguard of an alt right, he has given credentials of political compatibility with the obscurantism of New Democracy quite early on. A servant of a rhetoric that wants “national interest” to be identified with a creeping fascism in all aspects of social life. A nationalism of ‘everyday life’, accessible and palatable to the whole of the constituency, an extraction of political discourse through the constant promotion of social media. An outgrowth of this covert nationalist dimension is his macho statements with references to the civil war.(Tsipras if we lived in the civil war by me you would “go”) Of course we have no desire to take a position in this verbal dispute as we are sure of the role both of them would have had during the civil war. But we would like to point out to the much heavier Marinakis that he would most likely have had the end that fate had in store for his like-minded and fellow countrymen in the Meligala well.* Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Incendiary attack on the house of the president of the Youth Organization of New Democracy, Pavlos Marinakis” →