Athens – Page 3 – Dark Nights

December 6, 2008: Video of the first clashes on the night of the murder outside the Polytechnic University

Posted on 2024/12/09 by darknights

December 2008: Footage from the clashes of the first night of an uprising that would follow, just hours after the murder of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by police in Exarcheia. [DN: Athens, Greece]

The first part is from the first night outside the Polytechnic on Saturday, December 6th, the second part is from the shop break-ins on Ermou Street, also the first night, and the third footage is from the first confrontational march the next morning towards GADA, on Sunday, December 7th.

Source: Perseus999

POSTER : REBELLION IS THE EXPLOSIVE URGENCY OF PUTTING OURSELVES ON THE LINE (LONDON,UK)

Posted on 2024/12/09 by darknights

pdf:

OBEDIENCE IS A PROGRAMMED, ORDERED EXISTENCE

REBELLION IS THE EXPLOSIVE URGENCY OF PUTTING OURSELVES ON THE LINE

An untimely blast in an Athens apartment on the 31st of October left an anarchist dead and another seriously wounded. In a millisecond the preparation of a single liberatory attack on one aspect of domination expands into a wide panorama of the social war.

With a resounding blast the struggle is upturned, its hitherto anonymous players thrown into the forefront of the clash. Shock and anguish invade our hearts and minds for the death of Kyriakos Xymitiris and the wounding of Marianna Manoura – well-known, esteemed comrades active in the many-faceted anarchist struggle in Greece and beyond – but so does resolve and unwavering complicity. Immediately an alchemy of rebel love and defiance surges forth, overrunning the borders by which states segment their control over this ruined earth.

Continue reading “POSTER : REBELLION IS THE EXPLOSIVE URGENCY OF PUTTING OURSELVES ON THE LINE (LONDON,UK)” →

Greece: Position of the anarchist prisoner K.K. from the prisons of Kassavetias

Posted on 2024/12/09 by darknights

Our life is

pointless panting

at pre-programmed strikes

stooges and patrol cars.

That’s why I’m telling you.

Next time they’ll let us have it

we shouldn’t run. We should hold our line.

Let’s not sell our asses so cheap, man.

Don’t. It’s raining. Gimme a smoke.

Katerina Gogou ( Κ. Γώγου)

Voices and screams resound from inside the cells, behind the walls and barbed wire. Flocks of birds and warplanes fly over the prisons. No matter how much the morbidity of the times wants us to bow down, there will always be something stronger, the ability to respond with sparkling eyes, the stubbornness of those who fight for a more beautiful world, the fire that burns inside us and refuses to go out.

On 11/10 an explosive device is placed in a police investigation van. Local and not only media shoot with relevant articles. At the end of October, I am informed by my friends that there is a strong and constant presence of plain clothes police in the area where I live. At the same time, information about a 16-year-old boy being beaten up by a student fascist group in a neighbouring village is circulating. I was out of Messolonghi at that time and I returned with the aim of meeting the boy in person, to open up the matter and find ways to face it.

On 7/11 at noon, 100 metres from my house, I was arrested by eight plain clothes police. From the first moment I persistently asked the reason for my arrest. Instead of an answer, I received abuse and sarcasm. They put me in one of the two unmarked vehicles, while they confiscated the bicycle I was riding. They took me to a remote area near my neighbourhood, and there the abuse continues for about an hour and a half until they take me to my house, where two other unmarked vehicles were already waiting. A thorough search is carried out, during which all the electronic devices belonging not only to me but also to my siblings are confiscated, which made it impossible for them to communicate with our parents, as they were out of town for work, and also caused difficulties in my sister’s studies, for which she needs a computer. In addition, various objects that were considered incriminating were confiscated, such as spray cans, paints, brushes, books and printed material from the anarchist space. When they completed the search, they took me to the A.T. (police station) where I was held for many hours in the police station handcuffed behind my back, without being allowed the one phone call I was entitled to and without having contacted a lawyer despite my insistence.

Later, having finally managed to contact a lawyer and my parents, I was taken to the detention centre and remained there until Tuesday 11/12, where I was expected to go through a prosecutor and an investigator. During my stay, there were constant police patrols on all sides of the section, as well as security guards around the perimeter of the area. On Tuesday morning, a huge horror show was set up with two mat riot cop vans, guardrails in front of the courts and cameras recording the ridiculous spectacle. At the end of the procedure, my pre-trial detention was decided, and on the morning of Wednesday 11/13 I was transferred to Kassavetia Prisons.

We live in morbid times, where even books are morally criminalized. This is something that we have observed in many similar cases, as well as something that I experience inside the prison given that any book sent to me has never come into my hands, under the pretext of disrupting the order and security of the establishment.

The plain clothes police and counter-terrorism regulations are well-known, so they do not surprise anyone. The obscene communication circus they are going to set up, the dirty work the media is doing in close cooperation with the cops, the ironies, the threats and the thumping do not terrify me. I owe this in large part to the people I have met along the beautiful trails of the struggle. Their warmth accompanied me during the cold nights in the detention centres of A.T. (police station) Messolonghiou, accompanies me in the prisons of Kassavetia and will accompany me in every dungeon of the republic. I have my head up and I intend to keep that attitude.

The social war is here and it is widening day by day, it is our duty to open wide the social relations and the values of self-organization. Foci of struggle everywhere from Messolonghi to Chile, from theory to practice and back again. Nothing is lost, nothing is over, we continue to march against state, capital, fascism, patriarchy, exploitative relations until our last breath… for a free world.

The support I have received really moves me. No matter how many lackeys they recruit to bend resistance, solidarity will crush them. Our anger is a river and it will drown them.

STRENGTH TO THOSE WHO STAND UP AGAINST EVERY FORM OF AUTHORITY

SOLIDARITY WITH THE COMRADES IMPRISONED FOR THE AMPELOKIPOI CASE

STATE AND CAPITAL THE ONLY TERRORISTS

UNRESERVED LOVE TO ALL COMRADES

K.K., December 2024, Kassavetia Prisons

—————–

Source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1633183/

Via & Translated by Act for freedom now!

——————————–

actforfree notes: ( Messolonggi city Southern Greece ) Explosive Attack on Police Interrogation Van by (Α)

Katerina Gogou (Greek: Κατερίνα Γώγου; 1940–1993) was a Greek poet, author and actress, she lives in Exarcheia area,Athens.

Greece: 6th December / 6H Δεκεμβρή

Posted on 2024/12/05 - 2024/12/05 by darknights

Athens/Αθήνα

Thessaloniki/Θεσσαλονίκη

Heraklion/Ηράκλειο

Komotini/Κομοτηνή

Αθήνα: Προπύλαια 12:00 1 2| Τσαμαδού 16:00 1 | Προπύλαια 18:00 1 2 3 4 5 6
Θεσσαλονίκη: Καμάρα 18:00 1 2 3
Πάτρα: Παράρτημα 12:00 1 | Παράρτημα 18:00 1
Ηράκλειο Κρήτης: Λιοντάρια 19:00 1
Χανιά: Πλ. Αγοράς 18:00 1
Ρέθυμνο: Δημαρχείο 18:00 1
Καβάλα: Πλ. Καπνεργάτη 18:00 1
Κομοτηνή: Παλαιά Νομική 18:00 1
Αγρίνιο: Πλ. Δημάδη 18:00 (πορεία 19:00) 1 2
Λάρισα: Πλ. Ταχυδρομείου 18:00 1

Athens, Greece: Letter from anarchist comrade Nikos Romanos from Korydallos Prison

Posted on 2024/12/05 by darknights

Monday, November 18, was the day when time stopped for me once again. Hooded anti-terrorism officers, handcuffs, holding cells, television cameras, news bulletins, journalistic scripts, police theories. Behind this familiar pattern and the communicative storm of guilt, there is another reality.

They are the wounds that resurface and multiply, shattering families, destroying human relationships, annihilating dreams, hopes, plans of a life condemned once again to the death of frozen time.

Because the language of truth cannot be hidden, I repeat, I deny the indictment in its entirety. An unfounded, baseless, exaggerated, and unsubstantiated indictment that arises abusively, creating more questions than it actually answers. Following the established political logic of the anti-terrorism law, which creates a category of defendants that exists outside the legal system, since everyone is guilty until proven innocent. The language spoken by the system has already issued its verdict. I became a wandering trophy for all kinds of exploitation. An exhibit in the showcases of the museums of lies and oblivion. With the label of “terrorist” hanging on the annex “guilty of all times,” for observation by usually naive, but mainly scared and peace-loving visitors.

For those who gamble with human lives in the dice of a vulgar and shameless political game, for those who believe that the power they hold gives them the ability to crush souls for their own reasons, I will reiterate the obvious.

From the bloodied pedestrian street of Messolonghi, the interrogation offices, the gray corridors of the prisons, the court benches, the slow death of confinement. From the choices I made with all my soul, choices etched in real blood, at great cost and with unyielding knees, I do not yield an inch.

It is part of the history of a generation of people who revolted and on whose backs, large parts of the political system washed away its sins by hanging it out to dry on the lines of repressive and media cannibalism.

But now I am not in prison because I made conscious choices that carried corresponding risks. On the contrary, my life is sold as a political product, on the shelf of the communication supermarket, with the price of the bag charged to me, waiting for prospective voters to shop piece by piece until the next time.

It is truly sad for me (and not just me) that I will be called upon to prove that I am not an elephant, having an impending sentence hanging over my head that will condemn me to live again, for an indefinite period, as a prisoner.

I have lived half of my adult life in prison. I will not passively accept this such an unfair statistic, consisting of much pain and countless loneliness, to cover me in concrete and bars.

I will not accept extreme measures like pre-trial detention without a legal and political battle to win back my life.

In this hasty and necessary initial statement, I want to thank from the depths of my heart those who stood by me with selfless love. The fight for my vindication and my definitive release from this unjust indictment now begins.

In conclusion…

Honor to those who in their lives have appointed and guard the Thermopylae. Never moving from duty; just and upright in all their actions, but with sorrow and compassion; brave when they are rich, and when they are poor, still somewhat brave, again assisting as much as they can; always speaking the truth, but without hatred for the liars. And more honor is due to them when they foresee (and many foresee) that the Ephialtes will appear in the end, and the Medes will finally cross.

Constantine Cavafy

Source: athens.indymedia

Greece: For my comrade Kyriakos X.

Posted on 2024/12/04 by darknights

For my comrade Kyriakos X.

Goodbye comrade,

”You will be ashes, old world.

You’re destined for the path of destruction

And you can’t bend us

By killing our brothers in arms…

And know this

We will come out victorious

And even though our sacrifices

Are heavy”

Nazim Hikmet

Belatedly, I would like to write a few words about my comrade and companion for the past 6 years of my life, K. Xymitiris, who passed away in an apartment on Arkadias Street.

I met comrade Kyriakos in the city of Berlin a few years ago. Our common determination and agonizing for a better world quickly brought us together. In midnight talks in the bar where he worked, in walks through the city’s streets, we exchanged views, and Kyriakos had the most in-depth opinions and knowledge regarding each and every one of my concerns. Our shared vision was simultaneously spreading roots within us, creating a strong relationship based on mutual understanding, comradeship and love.
Together we struggled and shaped our opinions on anything that troubled us. I grew up with him, on a journey of discovering my combative identity. And Kyriakos was always by my side, not in front or in the back, but next to me. Holding my hand, supporting me, with his smile and his perspicacity. Always giving the correct answers while we were all mincing our words, clearing the landscape while we were all feeling lost. With a well-developed sense of solidarity, he always stood on the side of anyone who needed it, regardless of repression, being targeted, and his own comfort. Always first in all the struggles: against repression, gentrification, the labour sweatshops, colonialism, patriarchy, prisons. Indispensable as a comrade and as a friend, wherever he stood he filled the space with his modesty and militancy.

By advocating for unity in the struggle for the revolutionary cause, for confrontation, militancy and counter-attack, always with respect for those next to him, he made space where others suffocated. So he lived, at least by my side, militant and persistent, hopeful and smiling. Ready for everything, taking risks big and small, he gave his daily life to the struggle without a second thought.
Always by our side

to me, to his friends and his comrades, to anyone who needed him for the smallest or the biggest matter.

Always by our sideto take on the most tedious, the most risky role.Always by our side to hold our hand, to accompany us, to open the way.

Always by the sideof the migrant, the abused, the worker, the prisoner.

And always by my sideto support me, to help me, to listen to me, to struggle together with me, to hug me by pushing away the fear, to encourage me by pushing away the second thoughts, to fill the days and nights with comradeship and combativeness.

COMRADE KYRIAKOSNone of the goodbyes are enough. None of the texts can describe the pain of your loss. On 31/10 I was left half, on a path where I wanted you by my side. On 31/10 I lost that smile that only you knew how to evoke. On 31/10 I lost the hopefulness that only you could transmit to me. But on 31/10 I also made a promise to you, to me, to us and to so many others, that you would not be forgotten. On 31/10 I stayed behind to speak about you, about the struggle you gave and about those you did not manage to give. On 31/10 I raised up my fist and with my bloody mouth I vowed to STRUGGLE. On 31/10 I raised my fist and in the rubble of Arcadia Street I said KYRIAKOS XYMITIRIS, ALWAYS PRESENT!

”Our most beautiful days we haven’t seen yet.

And the most beautiful words I wanted to tell you

I haven’t said yet…”

Nazim Hikmet

With unconditional love

your comrade

Marianna M.

Source: athens.indymedia

Realities Behind the Arrest of Nikos Romanos

Posted on 2024/11/27 by darknights

This is an attempt to provide information and context for those outside Greece concerning the recent state abduction of anarchist Nikos Romanos.

On 31 October, 2024, an explosion in the Athens neighborhood of Ampelokopoi killed the comrade Kyriakos X and severely injured the comrade Marianna M.

They were both in an apartment where an explosive device detonated, knocking out one wall of the building. The state claims they were planning to detonate a bomb elsewhere and that it exploded prematurely. Both Kyriakos and Marianna are anarchists, respected participants in the movement.

The press in Greece is owned by a handful of old families who control most of the remaining greek assets– those that haven’t been sold off to foreign investors. The Greek mainstream media exists to disseminate state narratives, and it immediately began slandering the victims of the explosion as well as engaging in wild speculation– such as that the israeli embassy was the intended target. Whether or not that’s true, it is true that israeli mossad agents came to assist the Greek police in their investigations. Since the explosion, the state has made additional arrests of people it claims are somehow connected to the apartment and its lease, sublease, etc.

As the Greek press promoted the propaganda of the state, there commenced activity in some cowardly corners of the left to distinguish the more “guilty” of those accused from the others. This is the question of who to tar with the labels of “anarchist” and “terrorist” — thereby assumed to deserve repression– vs. who is really “innocent.”

The anarchist movement itself, both in Greece and internationally, has rejected such division and remained strong in solidarity despite a chilling increase in repression. There were multiple support gatherings outside the hospital where Marianna was held under guard and when, shortly after her second surgery, she was transferred to Korydallos prison, comrades also gathered there. Kyriakos has been honored with actions, banners, marches, events and memorials, and will remain a beloved comrade forevermore. There has been no “disavowal,” no step back.

Since the tragedy in Ampelokopoi state repression against those suspected of being “anarchists” has become more aggressive, although this is consistent with an ongoing trend since the pandemic. What we have seen now are not new tactics but an increase in frequency: police actions such as stopping and searching people around the neighborhood Exarcheia, early-morning “preventative detention” of targeted individuals (people considered politically prominent) on the days of demonstrations and marches, and an increase in surveillance of those the greek state has a grudge against, including by parking unmarked cars with surveillance equipment in front of their homes.

Few people in the anarchist movement here have been under as heavy surveillance, long-term, as the comrade Nikos Romanos. He was a friend of the anarchist Alexis Grigoropolous, and witnessed Alexis’ murder by police on 6 December 2008. Since that time Nikos has been arrested many times and accused of many crimes, along with false accusations of involvement with the direct action group Conspiracy of Cells of Fire. Continue reading “Realities Behind the Arrest of Nikos Romanos” →

Chile: Molotovs Against Police in Memory of Kyriakos X. and Kevin Garrido and in Solidarity with Marianna M.

Posted on 2024/11/27 by darknights

As part of the call for a Black November in memory of comrade Kevin Garrido, a group of young anarcho-nihilists set up barricades and clashed with police near a secondary school in Chile during the first weeks of November. At the scene they threw molotovs for black memory, in solidarity with the prisoners of social war, in solidarity with the comrades of “INBA”, who were hit by fire while making Molotov cocktails in the toilets of a secondary school in Santiago, Chile. Also, among the molotovs thrown there is a call for solidarity with comrade Marianna M. and in memory of comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris.

The propaganda read:

“MEMORY AND REVENGE FOR OUR DEAD!

Black November for Kevin Garrido

Down with the cages of civilized society

Free our imprisoned comrades in Chile and the world, Joaquín García, the prisoners of the July 6 case, Monica and Francisco, Aldo and Lukas, Ayekan and every prisoner of war, in the streets!

Solidarity with the comrades of INBA, action and mutual aid!

Solidarity and action with comrade Marianna M. who is hospitalized in Athens.

Kevin Garrido, Kyriakos Xymitiris and each of our dead present!”

(Information and photos were collected from social networks)

Continue reading “Chile: Molotovs Against Police in Memory of Kyriakos X. and Kevin Garrido and in Solidarity with Marianna M.” →

UK: From London to Athens Solidarity to the Political Prisoners Marianna, Dimitra, Dimitris, Hands Off Romanos, Fallen Anarchist Kyriakos Forever Alive

Posted on 2024/11/22 - 2024/11/22 by darknights

SOLIDARITY FROM LONDON

On October 31, anarchist comrade Kyriakos X. is killed by a bomb explosion while handling it in an apartment in Athens. The explosion seriously injures anarchist comrade Marianna M., who, along with other anarchist comrades, faces prosecution under charges of forming and participating in a terrorist organization.

On November 18, comrade Nikos Romanos is also arrested in connection with the same events. Nikos Romanos held his friend and comrade Alexis Grigoropoulos in his arms as he took his final breath on December 6, 2008, assassinated by the bullet of a special state officer.

In the years that followed, the Greek anti-terrorist agency repeatedly targeted Nikos and other anarchists, imprisoning them with fabricated evidence in an effort to suppress the blooming anti-authoritarian social movements. Nikos Romanos spent years as a political prisoner, held hostage by the state, before being released in recent years.

NO ONE ALONE / NO ONE IN THE HANDS OF THE STATE

THE REBELLION OF THE EXPLOITED IS NEVER TERRORISM

FROM LONDON TO ATHENS, SOLIDARITY TO NIKOS, MARIANNA, DIMITRA, DIMITRIS AND ALL OTHER PRISONERS OF THE STATE AROUND THE WORLD

FALLEN ANARCHIST KYRIAKOS LIVES FOREVER IN OUR STRUGGLES

Athens, Greece: Claim of responsibility for the incendiary attack on the NTUA rectorate

Posted on 2024/11/21 - 2024/11/21 by darknights

Power means total denial of freedom. Imposition is the quintessential means used by those who decide to dominate. So we are talking about a world that was built on this fundamental aesthetic choice. This choice of the ruling class calls upon its servants to implement it. The rectorship of NTUA (National Technical University of Athens) is yet another cog in the machine, one of the threads in the institutional fabric of the state, whose ideological role is sterilization, increased productivity, and the creation of an “excellent” specialized worker who only raises their head when it comes to a better career choice. In short, the ideological role of the university in the neoliberal urban state is to present “governance of science” as the only way societies have to organize themselves. The means by which the university fulfills this role is the monopoly on knowledge, or rather the cultivation of the illusion that it indeed monopolizes knowledge.

In reality, the excellence of NTUA lies in master’s programs in collaboration with TERNA, research on military drones, a close collaboration with police for evictions and arrests, targeting, prosecutions, and the imposition of fines on students. The latest chronological reference point, and after failing to achieve their goal with the successive eviction operations in 2023-24, is the issuance of an ultimatum for all occupied spaces on 31/10/2024. The state and social cannibals rush to stifle any attempt to build an alternative to the prevailing social decay by evicting spaces and intensifying repression, thinking they are terrorizing us. But we do not bow our heads, because we know we are right. The early manifestations of this counter-proposal are the squats, and as long as you do not let us build our own reality, we will destroy yours. After all, the goal is not to build on the existing foundations, but on their ruins. However, destruction does not come on its own.

Fire has always been a weapon of society. So we take responsibility for the incendiary attack on the administration building of NTUA in Zografou, on Friday 08/11/2014.

HONOR FOREVER TO THE ANARCHIST FIGHTER KYRIAKOS XYMITIRIS

SOLIDARITY WITH THE INJURED COMRADE MARIANNA M. AND

TO THE PERSECUTED COMRADES D.Z. AND D.

SOLIDARITY WITH COMRADE K.K. FOR THE CASE IN MESSOLONGHIOU

Incendiaries