International Solidarity – Page 23

France: “I know that there, somewhere, other comrades continue the struggle.” Letter from Ivan, anarchist comrade arrested in Paris

Posted on 2022/08/30 - 2022/08/30 by darknights

“I know that there, somewhere, other comrades continue the struggle.”

Letter from Ivan, anarchist comrade arrested on June 11 on the outskirts of Paris

15 VI 22

My name is Ivan, I am an anarchist.

I was arrested by the Sous-diréction anti-térrorisme [SDAT] of the French police on Saturday, June 11, around 3:30 a.m., near my home (suburbs of Paris), on my way home.

I am accused of six vehicle fires, in Paris and Montreuil, between January and June, often in solidarity with anarchist prisoners (the last one, an embassy car, was set on fire in the 17th arrondissement of Paris on the night of my arrest).

The cops followed me for months, listened to my phone calls, installed a camera in the entrance of the building where I live, intercepted my mail (especially letters from imprisoned anarchists) and looked at my bank account.

Another person (we know each other only by sight, but to him all my esteem) has been followed, listened to, etc., but has not been challenged. Courage friend!

The SDAT investigation began in late February 2022 on the orders of prosecutor Louise-Anne Belanger of the Bobigny prosecutor’s office. They also pulled from their drawers another archived investigation, which had been done by other cops, into some 50 arson attacks against vehicles, all in and around Paris, between 2017 and 2021. SDAT “merged” the two investigations, but the judge (Stéphanie Labarge [?], of the Bobigny court) retained only the last six attacks. For the others, I am an “assisted witness” [the equivalent of “person informed about the facts”].

In addition to “destruction by dangerous means,” there is also the charge of endangering the lives of others, refusal to give my DNA, refusal to have my photograph taken, refusal to give fingerprints, refusal to give passwords to computers and phones.

Right now, I am in pre-trial detention at Villepinte Prison. I am fit, I am fine, although I miss my loved ones very much.

Normal, it’s prison, and you have to put it on the line when you are an enemy of this society.

Here, the hardest time is when we come back from the walk. The door closes and we stay here until the next day. But I turn to the window and look out. I know that there, somewhere, other comrades continue the struggle.

As soon as I get more information on this story, I will write more (I don’t have much else to do!).

My thoughts go out to the anarchists in prison everywhere in the world: to Damien (in prison in Draguignan), to Alfredo, to Anna, to Juan, to Toby, to Giannis Michailidis on hunger strike… to all/all of you out there!

Solidarity is the attack!

Long live anarchy!

Ivan

Source: Il Rovescio

France: Update on Claudio Lavazza

Posted on 2022/08/30 by darknights

On May 17, 2022, a hearing was held which, at the request of Claudio’s lawyer, was to allow his release on the basis of the principle of accumulation of the sentence, a principle applicable in his case, according to European laws, given that he has already served more than 25 years in prison.

On June 21, the court rejected the lawyer’s request and agreed with that of the prosecutor, who claims that Claudio still has five years left in France plus those he has already spent in Spanish prisons. Her “legal” reasons for this insistence have not yet reached Claudio’s lawyer, who will in any case appeal.

Once again we will have to wait for the slowness of the penitentiary system and it seems that the answer will not arrive before September. This means another months of imprisonment for Claudio, who, we remind you, should have been released on December 11, 2021, according to the calculation of the years already deducted and the consequent accumulation of sentences provided for by their codes. It is not surprising if the State, not content with making Claudio pay the maximum sentence, goes so far as to contradict even its own agreements and its own laws in order to keep locked up a comrade who claims his own ethics, his own ideas and his own path of struggle with his head held high.

To act, so that Claudio is definitively free.

Act, so that the repressive fury of the State against anarchist prisoners finds a just response.

To act, so that all may be free.

Some anarchists in solidarity

Source: Anarquia

France: Some news on the situation of the anarchist Ivan

Posted on 2022/08/30 by darknights

August 16, 2022

Here is some news about the situation of Ivan, the anarchist comrade arrested on June 11 near Paris for arson and currently in pre-trial detention in the Villepinte prison.

He is well. After two weeks in a cell on his own between late July and early August, he is back in a cell with another detainee.

While Ivan was in detention, the SDAT (Sous-Direction Anti-Terroriste of the Central Direction of the french judicial police) interrogated his partner. A few weeks later, they also summoned his daughter (who is 12 years old) and mother for questioning. The cops wanted to question the girl, but the mother refused to leave her alone.

The comrade has not yet had access to the investigation files. The magistrate standing in for the judge in charge of the investigation explained the refusal by the fact that Ivan did not say anything during the interrogations. The lawyer will appeal against this decision.

Since July 19, the comrade no longer receives mail (there was only one exception). Maybe because the judge is on holiday? So do not be surprised if your letters remain, for the time being, unanswered. In any case, Ivan has always answered every letter he has received.

We continue to write to him and show our solidarity, through any means necessary.

Long live the fire, long live the attack!

The address of the comrade:

Ivan Alocco
n. d’écrou: 46355
M. A. de Villepinte
40, avenue Vauban
93420 – Villepinte
France

Rome, Italy: 10 cars are not enough…

Posted on 2022/08/06 by darknights

Rome, 10 cars are not enough…

In the early hours of May 27, we carried out an incendiary action against the Enjoy carpooling vehicles belonging to the multinational ENI s.p.a. (national hydrocarbon company) in the Tuscolana-Cinecittà area of Rome. According to local newspapers, 10 cars were completely destroyed, while four others were seriously damaged.

ENI has always been one of the pillars of Italian capitalism, and its interests coincide with those of the State and, consequently, of the governments that succeed one another in administering it, whether they are of the right or the left, because its profits and infrastructures are strategic insofar as they strengthen the State in which they are located, being fundamental for the preservation of economic power, in the contemporary configuration of the capitalist productive system.

ENI is present in many countries where local and international conflicts are active for the control of energy resources: Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Kazakhstan (note that not a word was heard against the oligarch Putin when he sent his troops to quell the uprisings that broke out in that country), to name but a few. In these places, energy in the form of fossil fuels has been extracted from the earth for decades to feed the energy needs of Western industry, in a pattern that takes the form of true neo-colonialism. These extractive activities, it should be remembered, carry great risks for the environment and indigenous populations, especially in countries where controls and safety systems are consciously minimized in order to maximize profits, as in the case of the Niger Delta, an area severely devastated by continuous crude oil spills and the dispersion of gases and combustion residues resulting from extraction activities into the air. Continue reading “Rome, Italy: 10 cars are not enough…” →

Call for International Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners 2022 // 23 – 30 August

Posted on 2022/08/06 by darknights

The fact that capitalism does not focus on our needs but on profit, is demonstrated with all its brutality in times of climate crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic and the collapse of socioeconomic systems all around the world. Those who profit from capitalism enrich themselves through times of disaster. But with ongoing crises we are also experiencing a new era of uprisings from below.

Resistance to the war in Ukraine, Sudanese protests against military rule or the social revolt in Chile are some examples that not only show us the possibilities of organizing and collective struggle. They also highlight how important it is for social movements to learn from each other and support each other in these times. Not only outside the walls but also behind them.

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve seen fierce struggles against imprisonment, reminding us that incarcerated people are the ones most affected when everything goes down. Breakouts from Brazilian and Italian prisons, people in jail setting fire to a prison in Thailand and ongoing hunger strikes like those we see in Greece or in polish refugee detention camps are examples of the courage people in prisons are showing to smash the walls.

In all of these struggles, anarchist ideas and values are the fuel for collective resistance. Unsurprisingly the repression against anarchists is increasing and solidarity is needed more than ever. The capitalist system of domination can function because of the continued isolation between people, endless competition, and overlook our real needs and desires. We need solidarity within our friendships, at work, in the neighborhood, in our communities. Those outside and those inside their walls.

Let’s break out together! That is why we are calling again for International Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners. Do some action of solidarity! Write letters, organize speeches or film screening, make our comrades visible on the streets with a banner drop or a graffiti and let them show that they are in our hearts and that we are fighting together.

Let’s remember those who fought against this injustice and payed with their lives.
No one is free, till all are free!

If you have any questions or comments, if you would like to send us a picture, a short text, a recording of your event or action, please write to us.

Poster download: Poster2022_en

Source: solidarity.international

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

Posted on 2022/07/26 by darknights

This morning 25.7.22, some anarchists interrupted a commuter train on the Docklands Light Railway, connecting the (rapidly transforming) ghettoised districts of Newham and Lewisham to London’s financial centre.

Words from the heart were sprayed on the exterior of the train, especially the name of Giannis Michailidis. A banner carrying a quotation from his public letter from 2013 (‘Tracking my journey in the world of insurrection resistance and solidarity’) was hung from the rail bridge over the central junction of Deptford.

The following text was distributed by throwing hundreds of flyers into the train carrige and off the railway bridge:

Freedom is not an array of consumer choices and ‘experiences’. It consists in the living choice to take your life into your own hands in the struggle.
We can see what happens when, for years, each project of power is left to expand its tentacles over us.
– Neighbourhoods are wrecked to construct vacuum-sealed palaces for the pleasure and profit of the beneficiaries.

– “Economic Strategies”, like raising the prices of food and fuel to discipline everyone back to work post-lockdown, are greeted meekly like a natural law and, accordingly, accumulate astronomical profits for global corporations. Continue reading “South London, UK : ‘Life means intervention, decision, struggle, not to be a battery for the machine to work.’” →

Rome, Italy: Banner at Greek embassy on 22/7/2022 – 59th day of hunger strike of the political prisoner Giannis Michailidis

Posted on 2022/07/24 - 2022/07/24 by darknights

“THE ONLY STRUGGLE THAT WAS LOST IS THE ONE THAT WAS NEVER GIVEN”

(Banner in Greek embassy in Rome on 22/7/2022 – 59th day of hunger strike of the political prisoner Giannis Michailidis.)

“The struggle for the freedom of one, the struggle for the freedom of all.”

To stand in solidarity and support to the fight for freedom that Giannis Michailidis has embraced against a putrid system is to support the yell of one for many, for all those who are subjected to state oppression and its vengeance, against preventive imprisonment.

Despite having served the necessary terms for his release, preventive imprisonment is still decreed for him, in a totally arbitrary way, because he is not ‘sufficiently correct’ since he has not surrendered, he is insubordinate to their mechanism of maintaining and reproducingpower, he has taken up arms and turned them against the banks and the base of the capitalist system. His struggle is an active struggle within the conflict, using his life as a weapon against the vindictive attack of the state. They want to drive him to physical extermination, killing him slowly and torturing him.

“Freedom or Death” is his yell

In Greece as in Italy, selective repression against the revolutionary anarchists is at a height of their vengeful power. The state would like to label the liberating violence as slaughter but, today as yesterday, the only slaughterer is the state. In Italy, Anna Beniamino and Alfredo Cospito, are accused of attempt of a massacre with political incentives for an attack attributed to them, which caused no injuries, at the Carabinieri school in Fossano. If the charge is confirmed, they could be sentenced to life imprisonment. Alfredo Cospito was recently transferred to the Bancali prison (Sardinia) where the 41 bis regime, a real form of torture, is in force. Juan Sorocche, after an initial charge of massacre, as he was held responsible for planting a bomb at the gate of the racist NorthernLeague party, again without any injuries, was sentenced to twenty-eight years for terrorism.

We will always respond to state terrorism with solidarity and without any surrender.

Freedom and victory for Giannis Michailidis.

Freedom for all the prisoners and the political prisoners.

Anarchists

Source: athens.indymedia

Chile: From Chile’s jails to the dungeons of the Greek state, the same voice and fist against the jailers of the rebellious youth

Posted on 2022/07/18 by darknights

From Chile to Greece, the same struggle to free political prisoners…

From the San Miguel Prison (Chile) to the dungeons of the Greek state, the same voice and fist against the jailers of the rebellious youth

Last Wednesday 07/13, a rally was held outside the women’s prison in San Miguel (Chile) demanding that the minimum conditions of health care be met, due to the prohibition of using the patio during the hours that correspond to the female prisoners, etc. Thus dozens of fighters, activists and fellow militants from the October 18 Coordinator were present to denounce this situation that is being experienced in the women’s prison.

On the outskirts of the latter, the bars of the gates were banged loudly so that the political prisoners of this damn government of Boric and the Chilean Communist Party could hear from inside. Likewise, a letter from the political prisoner Monica Caballero was read; from the Coordinator for the Freedom of Political Prisoners on October 18, words were also expressed and from the International Network for the Freedom of Political Prisoners and Justice for Our Martyrs we were as well part of this demonstration carrying the brave voice of Giannis Michaidilis, a Greek political prisoner who has been on a hunger strike for more than 40 days fighting for his freedom against the bourgeois state and the damned justice of the Troika.

The reason is the bourgeois states, their damned justice, whether it is the Pinochetista one or the imperialist Troika’s one, are there to persecute, condemn and intimidate the workers in struggle, the rebellious youth who fight against this capitalist system and all those who face governments and exploitative regimes.

The fight to free Giannis, all the young Greek and Chilean rebels, and all the political prisoners in the world must be one and the same fight.

Immediate freedom for Giannis Michailidis and all political prisoners in the world!

The rebellion of the slaves is not a crime, it is JUSTICE

International Network for the freedom of the world political prisoners

London, UK: 11/07/22 Intervention at the Greek embassy in London for G.Michailidis and the struggle of the migrants in Elaionas

Posted on 2022/07/12 - 2022/07/12 by darknights

Intervention at the Greek embassy in London for G.Michailidis and the struggle of the migrants in Elaionas in Greece.

the text given out:

FREEDOM TO HUNGER STRIKER GIANNIS MICHAILIDIS

SOLIDARITY TO MIGRANTS IN GREECE

Giannis Michailidis is an anarchist prisoner on hunger strike since 23/5. He has served 8.5 years in prison and, while he fulfils all formal conditions for his release, he is kept in preventive detention. The Greek judges backed by the Greek state refuse to release him on the pretext that he does not meet the substantive conditions of release. This additional detention is being used at will to punish him for remaining unrepentant and maintaining a militant stance within the prison walls. This is not the first time Michailidis faces the vengeance of the Greek state. His heavy prosecution began in 2011 when an arrest warrant was issued against him for involvement in the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, for which he was later acquitted. He chose the path of illegality and was arrested in 2013 in Velvento Kozani, after expropriating a bank together with 3 other anarchists, where he was tortured by the police. Continue reading “London, UK: 11/07/22 Intervention at the Greek embassy in London for G.Michailidis and the struggle of the migrants in Elaionas” →

South London,UK : Discussion event in solidarity with anarchist prisoner Giannis Michailidis on hunger strike in Greece

Posted on 2022/07/11 by darknights

pdf

DISCUSSION IN SOLIDARITY WITH ANARCHIST PRISONER GIANNIS MICHAILIDIS ON HUNGER STRIKE SINCE 23/5/22

South London: 6PM WEDNESDAY 13TH OF JULY 2022

At The Field, 385 Queens Road SE14 5HD

Anarchists in solidarity

Source: Act for freedom now!