Greece – Page 28 – Dark Nights

Event updates for the hunger strike of anarchist comrade Giannis Michailidis

Posted on 2022/06/01 - 2022/08/03 by darknights

27th July

URGENT Athens, Greece: Occupation at ADEDY (Civil Servants’ Confederation) in solidarity with the hunger striker G. Michailidis

– Thessaloniki, Greece: Occupation of the Thessaloniki Labour Centre for G. Michailidis by Assembly of solidarity with the hunger striker G. Michailidis (Thessaloniki)

– Greece: Statement of support to hunger striker G. Michailidis, by prisoner students at the Malandrinos SDE

TO: MINISTRY OF JUSTICE

SUBJECT: SUPPORT FOR GIANNIS MICHAILIDIS

We request that the requests of Giannis Michailidis be accepted. Immediate release.

Giannis Michailidis is deprived of this basic right of freedom. As a protest, he has been on hunger strike since 23 May 2022 and is now on the verge of death.

THAT HIS DEMANDS BE IMMEDIATELY ACCEPTED

26/7/2022

Malandrinos Second Chance School students

– Athens, Greece: Slogans at the town hall of Nikaia in solidarity with the anarchist hunger striker G. Michailidis

26th July

– URGENT: Critical health condition of 65-day hunger striker Giannis Michailidis

– Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for an arson attack on a porsche by ‘Children of chaos’

– Patras, Greece: Responsibility claim for arson actions in solidarity with the anarchist hunger striker Giannis Michailidis

– Agrinio, Greece: Intervention for Giannis Michailidis at the concert of Giannis Angelakas.

Video of intervention

– Heraklion, Crete, Greece: The occupation of the Heraklion Town Hall continues in solidarity with G. Michailidis. The occupation of the Heraklion Town Hall continues for a second day with a book baazar at the Loggia site and with an assembly scheduled for today at 6 pm to organize the next actions.

– Greece: End of the hunger strike of Dimitris Hatzivassiliadis (in solidarity with comrade Giannis Michailidis)

Today Tuesday 26 July I am ending my hunger strike as a way of solidarity with my fellow hunger striker Giannis Michailidis.

Giannis is lying on the wings of Hitchcock’s birds.

UNCEASING STRUGGLE FOR ANARCHY BY ALL MEANS

Dimitris Hatzivassiliadis

25th July

– Athens, Greece: Multiple direct actions claimed in solidarity with anarchist hunger strike Giannis Michailidis

– Lamia, Greece: 150 comrades hold a rally outside the Court of Appeal in Lamia. The decision for whether the comrade will be released is delayed until Friday 29th prolonging the hunger strike and making it clear the state’s murderous intentions on the comrade’s life.

-South London, UK: ‘Life means intervention, decision, struggle, not to be a battery for the machine to work.’

– Heraklion, Crete, Greece: Occupation of Heraklion Town Hall in solidarity with hunger striker G. Michailidis

Since early this morning the Heraklion Town Hall is under occupation in solidarity with the hunger striker Giannis Michailidis, who has been on hunger strike since 23/05. The space is accessible and people are invited to support it.

– Chania, Crete, Greece: Occupation of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Chania, in view of the meeting of the Judicial Council of Lamia.

Immediate release of the anarchist Yannis Michaelides, hunger striker from 23 May 2022

After more than 60 days of hunger strike, today 25 July, the Judicial Council of Lamia is meeting once again to request his release. After the previous rejections of his request, comrade Giannis Michailidis is now in immediate danger of serious permanent damage to his health. We have no illusions about civil justice and its role. For our part, as a minimal act of solidarity, we proceeded to occupy the Chamber of Commerce & Industry of Chania.

The struggle for the freedom of one is a struggle for the freedom of all, until the last cage is torn down.

Occupation of the Chamber of Commerce, Chania 25/7/2022

– Xanthi, Greece: Spray at the courthouse for G. Michailidis

– Amorgos, Greece: Banner of solidarity with Giannis Michailidis, hunger striker since 23/05

Continue reading “Event updates for the hunger strike of anarchist comrade Giannis Michailidis” →

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” →

Berlin, Germany: Discussion about the perspectives of revolutionary anarchy

Posted on 2022/05/21 - 2022/05/23 by darknights

Discussion about the perspectives of revolutionary anarchy Starting from the call „International Campaign for Revolutionary Anarchism and Solidarity with Revolutionary Prisoners“, which was published last winter, we want to discuss common perspectives with you. This call was written from solidarians in Athens to the case of Dimitris Chatzivasileiadis and his conviction to sixteen years in prison for participation in the Organization of Revolutionary Self-Defense. 30.05.2022 at 19.00, New Yorck at Bethanien Mariannenplatz 2A, 10997 Berlin

Discussion about the perspectives of revolutionary anarchy

Starting from the call „International Campaign for Revolutionary Anarchism and Solidarity with Revolutionary Prisoners“, which was published last winter, we want to discuss common perspectives with you. This call was written from solidarians in Athens to the case of Dimitris Chatzivasileiadis and his conviction to sixteen years in prison for participation in the Organization of Revolutionary Self-Defense.

Revolutionary Self-Defense was a revolutionary anarchist organization active from 2014-2017. During it’s years, the organization took responsibility for five armed attacks: against the headquarters of the greek political party PASOK, the Mexican Embassy in Athens, the French Embassy in Athens and two attacks against the greek riot police (MAT) in front of PASOK offices in the neighborhood of Exarchia. The group claimed to „put all its strength into the construction of the broad armed social resistance and is struggling to construct a mass internationalist revolutionary movement, by strengthening militant resistance on the entire spectrum of class antagonism.“

After the robbery of a betting office in Ocrober 2019, in which he was injured, Dimitris Chatzivasileiadis was on the run for almost two years. With his arrest in Thessaloniki last year, the period of armed resistance in Greece seems to have been interrupted for the time being. That not only the armed struggle can have a revolutionary potential is obvious and so the above call poses some questions, the answers to which are one of the aims of our event.

Where do our movements stand faced with the immense challenges and demands of our epoch?

Can we retrace our revolutionary roots?

Can we become the creative force that can effectively abolish the cannibalistic authority of the rich few over the many?

In the event, the positions of Dimitris from jail will exchange with ours and hopefully with yours to develop a common ground for the creation of a revolutionary practice. We do not intend to organize an information event about anarchy in Greece, but we want to find out with you the necessities and possibilities in our region. The framework are further questions about the effects of repression and the meaning of solidarity, the meaning of social tensions and the question of the legitimization of self-defense by society. What can be the trigger for a revolutionary movement and do we need a ground like Exarchia or squats? Is the anarchist movement missing a theoretical base or agenda like Maoism or Marxism offers?

Source: de.indymedia

Thessaloniki, Greece: Responsibility claim for arson attack on BRINKS security vehicle

Posted on 2022/05/21 by darknights

Our lives are daily subjected to the devaluation and the all-out attack of the state in all areas of socio-political reality. Understaffed hospitals where people are dying without even having the possibility of a decent hospitalization, labor sweatshops where workers are murdered as security measures are non-existent, uniformed scumbags chasing and shooting unarmed minors because they are Roma in the name of property and security, arrests with inflated charges linking people to organizations because of friendly relations. These are all examples that display the dystopia that the rulers want to establish.

In this effort, therefore, we feel the need to set up mounds of resistance and to fight back by all means and in various ways against the enemy, while giving the answer that nothing will end with arrests and detention of militants. One of the ways we use and consider an important tool in the overall struggle against the state and capital is direct action. In various places in the urban fabric there are targets waiting to be visited in order to break in practice the sense of security that the rulers try to maintain.

We take responsibility for the arson of a BRINKS security company vehicle in the Triandrias area on the evening of 16 April.

OUR IDEAS ARE NOT IMPRISONED

SOLIDARITY TO ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS

Anarchists

Source: athens.indymedia

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

Thessaloniki, Greece: Communique for an arson attack upon mayor Dimitris Demourtzidis’ car by ‘Nightriders of the Flame’

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

Life in the metropolises is suffocating. In recent years, we have seen the urban beast growing larger and sucking life into its path. Cops and snitches lurk around every corner, poverty and deprivation are reflected in every aspect of daily life, oppression (labour, sexual, racial) is a brutal reality, while the circle of ‘freedoms’ and ‘breaths of life’ are getting narrower and narrower. In this suffocating grip, capitalism comes to remind us that we are expendable materials for its machines, which produce endlessly and thirst for profit.

The gentrification projects are the blunt admission by the state that we exist simply to produce for them. Squares, parks, neighborhoods that were once appropriable by their inhabitants are being gentrified by labor and handed over to tourists and urban bourgeois. Expensive cafes, airbnb, surveillance cameras, increasing tourist population, overall increase in the cost of living are some of the consequences of redevelopment. Consequences that result in the displacement of people who once lived in these neighborhoods as they can no longer cope with the new existing situation. So the so-called ‘gentrification’ thus creates ‘fortress’ (urban) areas with increased social control and repression while other urban areas are ghettoised and impoverished. The segregation of neighbourhoods within cities and their so pronounced differentiations, clearly facilitates the work of the cops in terms of mapping and surveillance.

We see such a project unfolding before us in the Pavlos Mela military camp. A huge space within the confined metropolitan prison, freely appropriable by all and sundry, has been included in the redevelopment plans of Mayor Dimitris Demourtzidis. Continue reading “Thessaloniki, Greece: Communique for an arson attack upon mayor Dimitris Demourtzidis’ car by ‘Nightriders of the Flame’” →