“We are guarded by thousands of fears: The fear of being buried alive in a prison, the fear of dying in action, the fear of being left alone without the cheers of the crowd or the fear of being isolated by our own comrades. Overcoming these fears would make us more lucid. Many struggles are built on these fears, they are products of these fears. Fear poisons us; compromise is its toxic fruit. Then, with eloquent words, comfortable theories, convenient long-term strategies, they make sure to embellish the whole humiliation by recommending wisdom and drawing us into political realism. Unfortunately, however, shit, no matter how pink you paint it, is still shit.” – Alfredo Cospito
The Direct Action Cells claim full responsibility for the arson attack on the home of judge Elias Kanellopoulos in the Cholargos area (a suburb in Athens). Our attack is an action of solidarity with the mobilizations of the prisoners in the prisons of the territory. It is also a continuation of the strategy of the personal targeting of those involved in the constant tightening of criminal repression and the repressive management applied in the field of prisons. From the architect of the new penal code, Lambros Margaritis, to the head of the Inspection and Control Body of the Prisons, Spyridoula Presvia, and now to Ilias Kanellopoulos, an appellant seconded to the Ministry of Justice, who was one of the close associates of the former Minister of Justice, Kostas Tsiaras, during whose days the new penal and penitentiary code was created and passed.
Our message is clear. The Direct Action Cells do not forget the people behind bars, the families who are suffering and tormented by the methods of the judges, the police and those prison officers who have the impression that they are untouchable. We do not forget the political prisoners who are paying the price for their choice of joining the revolutionary struggle. The explosions outside the homes of those who, in one way or another, choose to make the lives of prisoners a nightmarish reality, brings home, even if only on a symbolic level, the combative reality of the permanent anarchist threat.
As we previously stated, following the attack on the home of Lambros Margaritis:
“We are not finished with this particular issue. For us, any attack on the rights of prisoners that were won through painful struggles is taken very seriously, and in this regard we will try as hard as we can to keep it high on the priorities of the militant formations acting within the combative movement. We call on them to become a shield of protection for the rights of political prisoners in the prisons and to target those directly responsible for this anachronistic penal code that takes us back many decades.” Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Direct Action Cells Claim Responsibility for Arson Attack Against the Home of Judge Elias Kanellopoulos”
Hunger Strike of Anarchists and Fighting Prisoners in Solidarity with Alfredo Cospito
The 41-bis prison regime is the completion of the prison structure into a masqueraded death sentence. The execution, in this case, does not end in one moment, like with a gunshot, the tightening of the noose, the application of electrical current or the injection of poison into the body, rather it lasts a lifetime in a state of social coma, in a state of non-world. And so, spread through time. Out of this world, the death sentence has evaded history, just like the state pursues oblivion for all the prisoners of the social war who are buried alive in the state of 41-bis. The 41-bis regime has already murdered one fighter, Diana Blefari Melazzi.
The 41-bis regime and the law about “massacre” are the legacy of the european counter-revolution from the time of Piazza Fontana (Strage di piazza Fontana). This civil war never ended. The states, and particularly the Italian one, carry on the counter-revolution so that the flame may never flare up again. All the systems follow, step by step, the examples first introduced as special warfare, e.g. the white cells of West Germany, the F-type prisons in Turkey and the FIES prisons in Spain to the Type-C prisons in Greece or the new high security prison system A.A.; the still active Hitler-inspired law about indefinite extension of one’s sentence on “preventative” grounds, by which comrade Thomas Meyer Falk is being held for another 10 years (25 in total) in Freiburg prison in Germany, to the different methods of extorting declarations of repentance, and from Asinara to Imrali.
Anarchist Alfredo Cospito is fighting for the flame to flare up again. Let’s reassert the fight of the comrade.
It is our duty to defend in deed the battle that Alfredo Cospito is fighting. A struggle for and against time itself. This particular hunger strike does not concern only the comrades in the italian territory, but it is internationalist, and so the star of internationalist solidarity must shine on the side of Alfredo Cospito and all those who are fighting from within a special prison regime. From Greece to every point in the planet – for all those fighting for freedom.
Because defeat is not captivity, but losing one’s faith in the possibility of wining. So, we are collectively going on a hunger strike, according to each one’s capacity, so that we may stand by the side of anarchist revolutionary Alfredo Cospito, but also, against the death regime of 41-bis.
At the same time the struggle against the new prison code in greek prisons is continuing.
Anarchist and Fighting Prisoners
Yiannis Michailedis
(1 day hunger strike)
Dimitris Chatzivasileiadis
(3 day hunger strike)
Thanos Chatziaggelou
(1 day hunger strike)
Iasonas Rodopoulos
(1 day hunger strike)
Kostas Dimalexis
(3 day hunger strike)
Labros Vougiouklakis
(1 day hunger strike)
Panagiotis Vougiouklakis
(1 day hunger strike)
Stathis Nikolouzos
(1 day hunger strike)
Stergios Kalaitzidis
(1 day hunger strike)
Fotis Daskalas
(1 day hunger strike)