“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”