Repression – Page 15

Italy: Statements of Alfredo Cospito & Anna Beniamino at the hearing on June 19, 2023 at the Turin Court of Appeals

Posted on 2023/06/25 by darknights

We are circulating Alfredo Cospito’s statement at the June 19 hearing in the court of appeals in Turin on the calculation of sentences against Alfredo himself and Anna Beniamino as part of the Scripta Manent trial. The comrade was connected via video-conference from the Bancali prison in Sassari (as known, the regulations do not require in-person presence). Replications and sentencing against the comrades are postponed to a later hearing scheduled for Monday, June 26, at 12 noon, also at the Turin court.

Alfredo Cospito: Statement at the June 19, 2023 hearing at the Turin Court of Appeal

This statement of mine is closely related to the trial because it goes into the merits of the sanctioning treatment you imposed on me. Sanctioning treatment that is unconstitutional and contradicts your own laws. Sanctioning treatment, 41 bis, that distorts the very meaning of my imprisonment, imposing on me a senseless censure that limits my right to defense.

It is obvious to all how my trial affair has been used as a sort of cudgel by one political party, “the government,” against another political party, the so-called “opposition.” My last-minute transfer from one section to another in anticipation of the arrival of PD parliamentarians is a striking example. Which shows how the DAP and 41 bis have been exploited for political purposes.

These facts are closely related to this trial because they are the product of past political dynamics that led to our disproportionate prosecution and conviction for political slaughter. To shut my mouth now, at the only time I can defend myself would mean endorsing this dangerous and totalitarian drift. Before talking about Fossano and the so-called “massacre” (although there is little to say, it would be enough to look at the images of the damage of the tremendous explosion) for just two minutes I will have to mention three deaths, two of which I am somehow responsible for, the third death that of Cosimo occurred at the clinical center of Opera, ward 41 bis. Continue reading “Italy: Statements of Alfredo Cospito & Anna Beniamino at the hearing on June 19, 2023 at the Turin Court of Appeals” →

France: All fire, all flame. Interviews with former members of the Revolutionary Cells (RZ) Germany, 1973-1993 FR/EN

Posted on 2023/06/25 - 2023/06/25 by darknights

Tout feu, tout flamme. Entretiens avec des anciens des Cellules Révolutionnaires (RZ) Allemagne, 1973-1993

Tout feu, tout flamme
Entretiens sur la résistance armée avec des anciens des Cellules Révolutionnaires (RZ)
Allemagne, 1973-1993

En 1973, deux attentats à la bombe contre une multinationale des télécommunications en République Fédérale d’Allemagne marquent les débuts de ce qui allait devenir les Revolutionäre Zellen (RZ, « Cellules Révolutionnaires »). Inspirées par les mouvements de libération armés dans le dit tiers-monde et portées par l’agitation subversive qui secoue les métropoles occidentales, les RZ réalisent des dizaines d’attaques, ciblant plus particulièrement le complexe militaro-industriel. Au début des années 1980, elles définissent un angle plus social-révolutionnaire avec le foisonnement d’importantes luttes offensives contre la construction de centrales nucléaires et d’autres nuisances industrielles, de conflits contre l’OTAN et le militarisme, de combats contre le patriarcat et les nouvelles technologies, ou encore de révoltes d’une jeunesse enragée. Dotées d’une solide logistique souterraine décentralisée, les RZ revendiquent près de 200 attentats, principalement explosifs et incendiaires, jusqu’en 1993.

Dans ces entretiens, trois anciens des RZ donnent leur vision du parcours historique de cette organisation de résistance armée. Avec une disponibilité au débat encourageante, ils dressent des bilans critiques, s’interrogent sur l’action offensive, réfléchissent sur les difficultés qu’implique une structure organisationnelle décentralisée mais permanente, questionnent les rapports au sein des groupes d’action souterrains et reviennent sur les péripéties de vies ayant une dimension de combat clandestin.

« Notre objectif est et a toujours été la diffusion de la résistance armée, était et reste le soutien d’un réseau de groupes autonomes qui, en tant que tendance armée au sein du mouvement, sont capables d’agir par eux-mêmes dans leurs villes et régions, qui y poussent plus loin les contradictions. »
(RZ, 1981) Continue reading “France: All fire, all flame. Interviews with former members of the Revolutionary Cells (RZ) Germany, 1973-1993 FR/EN” →

$hile: In response to the repressive onslaught of the state against the comrades imprisoned in Santiago 1 and San Miguel. Words from Monica, Joaquin, Marcelo, Juan and Francisco.

Posted on 2023/06/24 by darknights

Prison reality is constituted by a permanent tension where our convictions and the certainty of our position at all times come into play, inevitably.

This reality implies always bearing in mind that the jailer can dispose of our lives at any moment and that our strength lies precisely in having the certainty that we will face each of these adverse situations always with dignity.

Increased restrictions, transfers and sanctions are part of these impositions that today affect our comrades locked up in the prison-company Santiago 1 and comrade Itamar in the CPF of San Miguel.

The comrade today in the punishment zone is faced with threats of transfer and the crafty tricks of a jailer with pretensions of making a name for herself. It is necessary to emphasize that this situation is due to the fact that the comrade, together with other prisoners in Tower 5, has spread the word about the abusive practices of the jailers during the raids, in a clear attitude of struggle and confrontation.

The comrades, for their part, are fighting for their regrouping after they were removed from Module 1 with the excuse of dismantling it and were distributed among different units, and today several of them are in Module 88 of punishment. Continue reading “$hile: In response to the repressive onslaught of the state against the comrades imprisoned in Santiago 1 and San Miguel. Words from Monica, Joaquin, Marcelo, Juan and Francisco.” →

Thessaloniki, Greece: Responsibility claim for arson attack on COSMOTE van in solidarity with Giannis Michailidis & anarchist prisoners

Posted on 2023/06/04 - 2023/06/04 by darknights

VICTORY IN THE HUNGER STRIKE OF GIANNIS MICHAILIDIS

Once again dystopia is dangerously close to us. The state is constantly inventing new ways to undermine more and more our living conditions. Labour rights are now a thing of the past as partial employment contracts, the daily dismissal of trade unionists, often fatal work accidents, wage cuts, and the repayment or non-payment of bonuses under extortionate conditions are the status quo. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly shamelessly obvious how expendable our lives are to the state apparatus. The 57 murders in Tempe, the daily deportations and repatriations of migrant women on equally murderous terms, and the more ‘indirect’ method of the state’s death policy by raising the prices of everyday products, electricity and gas, as well as rents. Of course, even if you have to pay for all this, no one can guarantee that the next day you will still have a house to live in, since there is no longer any protection of the first home and the cops and prosecutors may appear one day in your living room and literally throw you out on the street within a few hours with all the things you have managed to collect.

To enable this condition to be established, a lot of money was spent on hiring cops from every service and buying official vehicles, placing them in ‘key’ places like squares, universities, hills and playgrounds. Apart from their physical presence, the state is more present than ever before through the installation of cameras on every corner, illegally or legally placed, and through the microphones and cameras on our mobile phones. No longer is the ‘big brother’ a fictional character from a novel, but the terrifying everyday life in which we live and grow up, where social control is brutal and universal.

The context of modern totalitarianism could not fail to include the further “upgrading” of the prison system and prisons. The state and those in power, known for their fetishism in punishing and torturing anyone who opposes them, are constantly reinforcing the dungeons of democracy, aiming at the complete annihilation of the imprisoned militants. Thus, in the winter of 2022, in a more comprehensive attempt to fortify the state against the social upheaval that prevailed, the new penal code is passed. According to it, type C prisons were reintroduced under the name of ”maximum security prisons”, disciplinary procedures were tightened, the conditions for granting leave and for the temporary dismissal of those prosecuted under 187A or accused of robbery and drug offences were changed, thus discrediting the position of political prisoners. It also introduces a ban on the transfer of certain categories of prisoners to rural prisons. Continue reading “Thessaloniki, Greece: Responsibility claim for arson attack on COSMOTE van in solidarity with Giannis Michailidis & anarchist prisoners” →

U$A: 2023 Statement from Marius Mason for June 11 EN/ES

Posted on 2023/06/04 - 2023/06/04 by darknights

Dear Community, Family and Friends,

Thank you for the work you are doing to make the change we need to make into the world for our collective survival. Your dedication, support and love are a constant source of inspiration and motivation for me; and I am betting for other prisoners, as well.

This has been as eventful year and a half here at FCI Danbury. My transfer to a male facility had been viewed with great trepidation both by those supportive of trans people and by those who are adamantly opposed to our existence. I’ve had many memorable experiences; some humiliating, some merely annoying and awkward. But, also several that have been rewarding and deeply affirming.

There has definitely been a sense of working things out as we go—the way strip searches have been conducted has been all over the board. Sometimes they have been done by one male staff person, sometimes by one female staff person and several times by several male staff people. Strip searches occur before and after visits, before and after medical trips out, and also when going into the SHU (I had to go there before a medical procedure to fast).

I missed one that was conducted down at the Rec when a fight between inmates was suspected. For the most part, as embarrassing as strip searches can be (they definitely trigger my dysphoria), most staff have been professional about them. There have been some unprofessional remarks made on occasion, though, that have been dehumanizing and dispiriting, but actually have happened a lot less often than I was expecting. A nice surprise. Continue reading “U$A: 2023 Statement from Marius Mason for June 11 EN/ES” →

U$A: Eric King Statement for June 11, 2023 EN/ES

Posted on 2023/06/04 by darknights

Greetings comrades. Let me tell you about this prison, the federal supermax ADX [in Florence, Colorado]. In this joint there are different levels and units with varying levels of physical isolation and communication, but there are things we all experience. Everyone is locked down at least 21 hours a day, at max 24. When you have inside rec you are by yourself in a room without a pull up bar. Outside rec cages are 8 x 10 foot dog kennels surrounded by concrete walls and a chain link roof — a cage within a cage. Unless you are in the pre-release unit (K-A) or long-term elder unit (K-B), you will never be in the same room as another person. And even in those units you only come around your ‘group’ — which is one to four other people — for inside rec. The other 22 ½ hours are in your cell by yourself. I have been in C-unit, the discipline unit and K-A; there is one other person in my group.

The cells are sparse. Concrete walls and double doors make any communication between convicts very difficult. Cells feature a low concrete beed, an oddly shitty mattress, a concrete desk, concrete stool, and in some units, a shelf above the desk. You never have solo interactions with staff — you are always double-manned with one of them carrying a steel baton, and you’re always cuffed behind your back. Depending on the unit, you can get 4–10 calls per month. I’ve made two ‘live-monitored’ calls in the past 10 months, but I’m being told that by participating in psychology programs I’ll earn a few calls per month. Time will tell. We’re allowed five visits per month, all non-contact in a concrete booth over the phone. All visits have to be scheduled in advance, which can be difficult with such restricted communication. I’m the only Anarchist here, but I’m definitely not the only political prisoner. Within this prison there is a group of prisoners the US government has attempted to bury. The general abolitionist community has consented to this, and it’s devastating.

The most restrictive unit in the most restrictive prison in America is H-Unit, which is for people on SAMS (Special Administrative Measures). These restrictions are placed by the Attorney General, and they are sickening. SAMS vary per captive, but all entail only being allowed to write to direct blood family and your lawyer. The FBI must read and approve all letters, magazines, and books. Calls are severely limited, live-monitored by the FBI, and reviewed by magistrate judges. These convicts get three showers per week. The vast majority of people on SAMS are Muslim and foreign born. Because their families are in Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, or in Africa, it is nearly impossible to get visits, calls, or mail. These people will never see their families or home countries again. Their children will get married, have kids, grow old, and they will never know it. If that doesn’t make you sick, I don’t even know what we’re doing here. Continue reading “U$A: Eric King Statement for June 11, 2023 EN/ES” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for incendiary attack on a Volkswagen dealership

Posted on 2023/05/14 - 2023/05/17 by darknights

The future dystopia of a fully controlled life by smart cities, 5G, where your fridge communicates with your mobile phone or a street lamp, and supermarkets offer you everything you ask for in the (anti)social media is already here. Everything is increasingly connected and everything is being monitored. It’s a future where people will be controlled by the artificial intelligence of big capital – big data and machine learning. Whatever information capital collects is shared with the state. Technology means repression, blackmail and total social control.

At the same time, the ecological war for plutocratic resources called green energy is nothing but a new form of slavery on other continents, allowing Western capitalism to be as independent as possible from Russian gas or oil-producing countries. All this is another new great stage of capitalism – green capitalism. It is the exploitation of the climate crisis and biological extinction by capital and the state.

When the New Democracy government came to power, it began an unprecedented upgrade of the repressive apparatus in numbers and technical equipment. The cops are used as a solution to every “problem”: the pandemic, the universities, demonstrations and protests of all types, the gentrification of Athens. The cops are the number one remedy for everything.

All of the above are condensed in the memorandum of understanding between the government of the New Democracy and Volkswagen with the aim of turning Astypalaia into the first smart island, a laboratory that leads the inhabitants to become guinea pigs of the dystopian future. The contract began in September 2021, and aims to gradually replace the island’s conventional vehicles with electric ones. The project is being portrayed by the mainstream media as a technological leap that will benefit the environment and residents. In reality, of course, the memorandum of understanding is nothing more than another way of increasing profitability and repression at the expense of the natural environment and the inhabitants. VW will be able to test autonomous vehicles on the island on terms outside the strict EU legislation, gaining the upper hand against competition. At the same time there is talk of installing hundreds of wind turbines on the island, turning it into a hub for electricity generation and completely destroying the natural environment. Finally, one of the first moves of the project was the donation of electric vehicles from VW to the murderous assault battalions of the cops and the coast guard.

The cooperation between the bloodthirsty New Democracy government and VW is not unprecedented. VW has a long history of supporting fascist and oppressive regimes. From Nazi Germany in the 1930s, to the military dictatorships in Brazil and Argentina, to Franco’s Spain, VW has always been and continues to be at the forefront of capital profiting on top of harsh oppression.

For all these reasons, at dawn on May 10, we visited the VW dealership on Alexandras Avenue. Our intervention resulted in the destruction of several new electric vehicles and the destruction of the front of the dealership, without endangering passers-by or residents of the area. We consider it an integral part of anarchy to recognize those who profit on oppression, misery and exploitation and it is our duty to return the violence they cause.

We dedicate our action to the prisoners of the social war, Fotis, Iasona, Panos and Lambros, who are being prosecuted for the attack on the Piraeus traffic police.

Solidarity with our wounded comrades Boris and Serge from the militant ecological defence on the territories of the French state.

Solidarity to Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar whose trial against them starts in a few days.

For a Black May, in memory of comrade Mauricio Morales, who fell in battle 14 years ago.

Anarchists

Source: athens.indymedia

Athens, Greece: “Put an incendiary device at your neighborhood cop” Responsibility claim for incendiary attack at cop’s apartment

Posted on 2023/05/05 by darknights

Solidarity to G.Voulgaris, Th. Chatziangelou, P. Kalaitzis

We wish a good recovery to comrade Alfredo Cospito

Solidarity to the 4 imprisoned comrades F.D. – I.R. – P. & L.B.

Signal of solidarity with the French insurgents

The unswerving solidarity with the imprisoned comrades, the multiform daily struggle against the power structure and the inexhaustible desire to destroy it will always be in our consciences and will help us to define the path of the insurrection.

Whenever you take your holidays within the normality of defined etiquette traditions we are given another opportunity to break through it to remind you that nothing is interrupted as long as our lives are silenced, imprisoned and suppressed.

It must be understood that wherever the scum of the authoritarian system responsible for repressing, punishing, beating, raping those who do not fit in or who oppose it exist and reside, they will be targeted

As our lives degrade and fragment their realm of emasculation expands along with their dying civilization. While to them not a nostril is opened we continue to plan and act step by step for our revenge.

On the night of April 13 we placed an incendiary device at the entrance of the apartment building of the cop Maravelakis Nektarios (Patriarchou Jeremiou 63) as an act of revenge on the police force.

10 – 100 – 1000s of arsons

Put an incendiary device at your neighborhood cop.

Source: athens.indymedia

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attacks on Airbnb, hotels and cameras in Exarcheia

Posted on 2023/04/28 by darknights

In a virgin forest, a wild mountain, a quiet clean sea, a beautiful neighbourhood, the capitalist sees a “fillet”, a new field of investment and profitability. There is nothing in the world we live in, in the world of state power and the capitalist organization of the economy, that does not have a certain exchange value, that is not valued in money. Such is the nature of capital that it is driven to perpetual expansion as a condition of its survival and reproduction. Everything in nature and society is a target and a field for exploitation. In a miniature version of this process, the neighbourhood of Exarchia has recently been subjected to one of the strongest attacks in recent decades by the State and Capital. Like many other neighbourhoods in the centre of Athens, Exarcheia is still an ‘unexploited’ field for various kinds of big investors. A neighbourhood in the centre of the city, in the midst of its facade, that has been “left behind” in terms of infrastructure, big investments and profit supply to the capitalist machine.

But it is also a special neighborhood. It is different from the other – several other – downtown neighbourhoods that remain ‘underdeveloped’ and undeveloped and for which the same future of ‘development’ is foreseen. It is the neighbourhood of movements, of struggles, of politicised youth, of radicalism, of anarchists. The state has every reason to allocate many of its forces and resources to subjugate, refine, clean up, normalize Exarcheia and offer it, under its auspices, as a pawn to investors. The state knows that, traditionally, Exarcheia is the reference point of radical movements, the “headquarters” of the internal enemy. In recent years, and with particular intensity during the New Democracy government, the state has been attempting to fight what it imagines to be the final battle for the neighbourhood.

This is not, of course, a choice detached from the big picture of state policy. At the juncture of the last few years, the state seems to have considered – and, moreover, proclaimed – that it is the historically and socially appropriate moment to end the deep-rooted domestic revolutionary tradition, political radicalism, anarchists, movements, what its right-wing managers call the “ideological hegemony of the left”. In the era of economic crisis, high inflation and the coming recession, war and geopolitical upheavals, the Greek state is being shielded in the face of an unstable future. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attacks on Airbnb, hotels and cameras in Exarcheia” →

Italy: Updates on the Genoa trial of Gianluca and Evelin

Posted on 2023/04/28 by darknights

Updates on the Genoa trial of Gianluca and Evelin

UPDATES on the GENOA TRIAL of GIANLUCA and EVELIN.

The undoubted crisis that the capitalist mode of production is going through today manifests itself in an economy that bases its wealth on war, on the robbery and plundering of the commodity-rich global south, and in the sharpening of the class struggle.

While it is true that capitalism continually seeks “alternative” solutions that will ensure its continuation, often succeeding in finding them and thus creating new pockets of profit for the market, it is also true that the resource crisis and especially today’s climate crisis will not grant alternatives to this parasitic presence for long.
The commodity crisis affects not only the production of secondary consumer goods in the technology, war and digital industries, but also primary resources such as water. This leads not only to a change in geopolitical arrangements, but also to internal conflicts between exploited and exploiters as the example of reservoirs in France or mining in Germany highlights. Objectively, even in Italy, beyond the obvious shortcomings of radical opposition initiatives, the “hunt for ore” or residual gas supplies are accentuating the extractive machine of ruthless multinationals that destroy territories to increase their profits, with the favor of state concessions.

But the crisis of production is a possible prospect today, which is why states are organizing in an attempt to assert their interests and prevent radical struggles and forms of internal guerrilla warfare.

Against this backdrop the authoritarian turn underway in Italy and elsewhere takes shape, which on the one hand is evident in the adoption of economic and “social” policies aimed at ever greater class exploitation, and on the other in the tightening of repression against political crimes.

In the last period the authoritarian turn taken by the state has clearly and heavily characterized the exclusively political reading of social events and struggles by entering even the judicial spheres. It has strongly conditioned the use of repression with the application of punitive instruments that remain an objective problem for political prisoners, such as 41 bis, hostility and crimes arbitrarily reinterpreted, reformulated and used in a vindictive way as massacre and associative crimes. Continue reading “Italy: Updates on the Genoa trial of Gianluca and Evelin” →