Repression – Page 34

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the burning of the Exarcheia Police Station on 4.2.22

Posted on 2022/02/12 - 2022/02/12 by darknights

We take responsibility for the burning of the Exarcheia Police Station on 4.2.22. The attack was carried out by a group of comrades who, armed with the weapons of comradeship and organization, defied police state and succeeded in destroying the myth of omnipotence that the police systematically cultivates in this area. We attacked with more than 10 Molotov cocktails at the outpost and the entrance of the police station, driving the cops outside into disorderly flight.

A few words about the incident

The tragic management of the pandemic, the sweeping changes it has brought about and the developments of the period are revealing of what it has brought about to the social base. Inflation, poverty, energy poverty, the daily deaths from COVID-19 which reach 24,000 are the results of capitalist management in order to recover the profitability of capital.

At the same time, the indirect reduction of wages against the government narrative, the ever greater devaluation of the Ε.Σ.Υ. (National Health Service) are increasingly impoverishing the social base. On the other hand, the cynicism of the rulers is reflected in their statements showing how indifferent they are to the lives of the impoverished.

The recent statements of Mitsotakis: “we may have had 16,000 dead but we saved tourism”, the admission of Plevris: “we have no communism and everything that is commanded is paid for” and the reference of Skertzos that it is a luxury to support the Ε.Σ.Υ. , leave no room for doubt.

At the same time, Development Minister Adonis Georgiades announced the end of the pandemic, at the same time that patients continue to die in beds and the medical and nursing staff, being understaffed, is collapsing from the workload. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the burning of the Exarcheia Police Station on 4.2.22” →

Spain: Legal developments since last public statement on Gabriel Pomba Da Silva (April 2021)

Posted on 2022/02/12 - 2022/02/12 by darknights

With this communiqué we want to inform about the current legal situation that continues to prevent the release of our anarchist comrade, despite the fact that 2 years have passed since his arrest (we remember illegal). It is evident the will of the executioners in robes to continue kidnapping Gabriel. With any means that their (almost) unlimited powers allow them, they abuse demonstrating their will to continue turning time into a weapon.

The sadness of the legal message (which we use in a synthetic and cold way) becomes strength knowing that our comrade is in very good health and spirits, despite this situation, and despite the discriminatory treatment he has been suffering for months after having refused the anti-Covid “vaccine” (he is not allowed to have vis-a-vis and can only receive visits by telephone). As always, he is investing his time (in his hands, as in ours, time can also become a weapon) reading books, receiving and writing letters, dedicating himself to translations and physical exercises and to freedom projects that we hope will materialize as soon as possible. The communication interception has been retroactively annulled (before last summer the Provincial Court, with a firm sentence, established the “non-dangerousness of the inmate”). In response, the prison took revenge by denying the second permit for “belonging to armed gangs” (the appeal has been dismissed with the excuse of the “remoteness of the date of compliance” -November 2030-, without going into the matter of the unjustified and false accusation of “armed gangs”… note the plural! Until this date of compliance is not modified, it is not possible to ask for another permit – the answer of the supreme court regarding the possibility of recasting to 20 years should have arrived last autumn, but the solicitor responsible for the processing of the appeal did not process it, making us lose 6 months (legal sewers of state part 1). The same court reinstated the appeal and we had to wait another 5 or 6 months at least. Continue reading “Spain: Legal developments since last public statement on Gabriel Pomba Da Silva (April 2021)” →

Thessaloniki, Greece: Three anarchist comrades arrested in anti-terrorist operation, accused of attacks by ‘Anarchist Action Organization’

Posted on 2022/02/09 - 2022/02/12 by darknights

Three anarchist comrades have been arrested in a large repressive operation by the anti-terrorist unit in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece. Four houses were raided, the cops are claiming that they found at the addresses, a significant amount of materials to create explosives, pistols, ammunition, fake police and ambulance uniforms, ID’s, a transceiver and a manual for information on the creation of incendiary explosive devices entitled ‘Manual for Direct Action’.

The comrades are accused for the formation and membership of ‘Anarchist Action Organization‘, regarding acts that took place in Thessaloniki, at least since 2016, as well as for ‘terrorist acts’: Explosion, jointly using explosives, the manafacture, supply and possession, jointly, of explosives, including being accused of endangering human life. Other charges include arson, possession of guns and damage to property.

The raid on the houses was initially to investigate the incendiary explosive attack upon the ‘Foundation for National and Religous Reflection’ in Thessaloniki, that occured in the early hours of yesterday.

The three comrades have already passed in front of the prosecuter in Thessaloniki & will be detained awaiting trial.

We will post more info as we receive it.

Solidarity & Complicity with the 3 anarchist comrades arrested in Thessaloniki!

Let us not leave them on their own, not just in word but also in deed!

Anarchists of the Dark Nights & 325 Collectives

Update: From comrades of Tameio/Solidarity Fund for Imprisoned, Persecuted Revolutionaries of Thessaloniki

At dawn on Tuesday 8/2, two people were arrested after an operation by the anti-terrorist police, due to the placement of an explosive – incendiary device at the entrance of the “Foundation for National and Religious Reflection” at 37 Mouson Street in Thessaloniki, according to the media. Later in the afternoon another person is brought in, which turns into an arrest. On Wednesday 9/2 the arrested comrades were passed by a public prosecutor and a criminal case was filed against them, which attributes them to the formation and membership of the organization “Anarchist Action”. The charges against them are: joint explosion, manufacture, supply and possession of explosives and bombs that can cause danger to people, arson, manufacture, supply and possession of pistols, as well as explosives and explosive devices in order to supply organizations and groups and damage to foreign property using explosives. In the morning of 9/2 a solidarity meeting was held outside the Thessaloniki courthouse with a strong pulse and the comrades managed to hear us. The comrades and the comrade were given a deadline for their apology to the interrogator for Friday 11/2.

A more extensive update will follow.

SOLIDARITY MEETING AT THE COURTS OF THESSALONIKI FRIDAY 11/2 9:00

OPEN MEETING OF SOLIDARITY IN ΣΘΕ (School of Sciences of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) SATURDAY 12/2 17:00

NO ONE ALONE IN THE HANDS OF THE STATE

STRENGTH AND SOLIDARITY TO THE ARRESTED COMRADES OF 8/2

Solidarity fund for prisoners and persecuted militants (Thessaloniki assembly)

Source: athens.indymedia

Belarus: The case of anarchist Alexander Zaitsev

Posted on 2022/02/06 by darknights

In December, we received information that Aleksandr Zaitsev, who declared his commitment to the anarchist movement, was in pre-trial detention in Volodarka. It took us quite a while to verify this man’s story and get to the bottom of it.

In 2020, Zaitsev actively participated in protests against the regime and was detained at least once in November under “people’s” article 23.34. While in detention, Zaitsev met a man who introduced himself as Dmitry Sergeenko. Comrades from the Pramen team found the real name of this man – Dmitry Akulich, who had been working for many years with the Interior Ministry as a provocateur and prison agent. Akulich actively begins “developing” Zaitsev and by summer both are already planning a radical action: they want to set fire to Sukalo’s dacha. To paint a pretty picture of the investigation, Akulich says that he got in touch with the group “Stork fly” and they paid for him to buy two five-liter bottles of gasoline.

Not far from the dacha both are taken by Almaz. Zaitsev confesses to everything and is now under terrorist article 289 part 3 (punishment up to the death penalty). We do not know Akulich’s status in this case, but he most likely passes as a witness with the false name of Sergeenko. It is noteworthy that Akulich was given a real passport with a fake name to work with Zaitsev.

Now Aliaksandr Zaitsev continues to be held in the pre-trial detention center, awaiting trial. We have almost no information about the anarchist himself, as none of the activists know him.

Remember, if you want to carry out any radical action, you should do it only with trusted people, not with acquaintances. This story also shows that cops actively engage in provocations to continue repression and spin the myth of terrorism.

Now it is extremely important to remember to have a safety culture and take the time to familiarize yourself with texts on countering repression!

Source: ABC Belarus

Italy: Democracy is the other face of fascism

Posted on 2022/02/03 - 2022/02/03 by darknights

DEMOCRACY IS THE OTHER FACE OF FASCISM

Since two years we live in a state of emergency without end, following the advance of a virus that has become a global pandemic. Sooner or later it had to happen in a globalized and capitalist world that for mere profit destroys the natural environment, where goods and people move in a short time from one end of the planet to another (and only the poor are rejected at the borders) and where more than half of the world’s population lives crowded in mega-urbanized cities.

The emergency proclaimed, however, has been used by the state not to put hand to the health sector, decimated by continuous cuts that governments have made over the years and that have caused so many preventable deaths (not only because of the virus), but in order to accelerate all those authoritarian and coercive mechanisms of which the democratic regime is capable.

We are not only talking about the compulsory vaccination for certain categories (health workers, teachers, over 50) about which there would be much to discuss, but especially about the social control put in place, not least the instrument of the Green Passport, which is still only a step towards the race to forced digitization of all the data that concern us. Controlling and trading digital data, as we know, is the new frontier of “surveillance capitalism,” which through emergency management is gaining momentum.

From tracking apps to facial recognition cameras, from the internet of things to artificial intelligence, technology at the service of masters and states, which was not born to simplify our existence but to monitor us, will be increasingly present in our lives, but it is only with the digitization of data and their transmission (5G, ultra-wideband) and interconnection (home automation, smart-city) that this will be possible. It is no coincidence that the PNRR of the Draghi government, the Italian Recovery Fund financed with European money, for a large part serves to channel astronomical sums towards surveillance technologies and the digital modernization of all essential sectors: school, work, telecommunications networks, mobility and health (with telemedicine). It is also not by chance that the Draghi government has made it easier for public administration bodies and institutions to collect and process personal data, through an article of the Capienze Decree that last October abrogated article 2 of the Privacy Code, also reducing the role of the Guarantor in charge of data protection.

For many people perhaps it is not a problem that their data are used by private companies, multinationals and state institutions, through massive surveillance. People still think that because they do nothing wrong, their data is not a secret. But social control is never something that concerns only the sphere of personal freedoms and privacy; there are several reasons to oppose the digitalization of data and invasive tools such as the Green pass, among the most immediate: from the ease of the employer in monitoring his own employee (and riders and Amazon employees know something about it!) to those living in a situation of forced illegality (see undocumented migrants) who see their lives continuously threatened by the increase of increasingly sophisticated monitoring devices. Let’s not forget then the discrimination of those who already today do not have access to new technologies, that is often the poorest people in society, who see their access to rights and social services undermined, conquered years ago at the cost of hard struggles. Continue reading “Italy: Democracy is the other face of fascism” →

Italy: Measure and process updates for Operation Bialystok

Posted on 2022/02/03 by darknights

January 2022

As we approach the end of the trial of Operation Bialystok, it seems to us to be the right moment to spread some considerations on its progress. Although we are not interested in following the pace dictated by repression, nor in taking a victimistic or alarmist stance in the face of the activities of police institutions, we believe it is important to share information and impressions about what is happening at the court level. By conscious choice, we will summarize aspects and moments that we consider noteworthy, at the expense of a detailed and chronological description of the trial in which we are involved.

As far as the framework of the investigation is concerned, we refer to the texts “Sull’operazione Bialystok” (On the Bialystok operation) already published and circulated on the web and “Testo e contesto” (Text and context).

At the time of writing all defendants in this proceeding are at large. On January 27th a positive response was received to a request for the end of the precautionary measures to which 4 defendants were still subject (3 obligations to stay and one obligation to present themselves for weekly signatures), so that at the moment only one person remains under obligations to stay. The differences in conditions are mainly due to the different timing in the presentation of the appeals which brought the same before different courts, and to the specificity of the individual positions regarding the crimes charged.

Broadly speaking, up to now the process has been marked by hours and hours of endless hearings for the delineation of the anarchist context both nationally and internationally, hearings where we defendants have almost never been nominated. Only after many hearings did we begin to talk about the so-called specific facts. There was a certain interest and prominence in the moments in which the international relations of the defendants were exposed; this was not because the prosecution brought who knows what elements, on the contrary, we witnessed a real climbing on mirrors, but more because of the play of roles within the institution of justice. It is evident that an assize court, used to dealing with crimes of a certain gravity, sees in the international dimension of the investigation the possibility of its own raison d’être. And this, we say, on the level of the actual courtroom show; behind the scenes, that is, on the level of the investigation, and therefore of the repressive strategy, we also see something else, that is, a direction that looks like it wants to be taken in the future. These, like others in the past, are attempts, sometimes successful and sometimes less so, to structure on a concrete level the collaboration of police and prosecutors’ offices on an international level regarding investigations. Continue reading “Italy: Measure and process updates for Operation Bialystok” →

Leipzig, Germany: Parts for electric cars are scarce – let’s stop the cars of the city police!

Posted on 2022/02/02 by darknights

In order to break our political stagnation, due to the Coronavirus epidemic, we went out on the night of January 24th.
We decided to set fire to several vehicles of the municipal police – parked in the parking lot of the city hall, in Ossietzky street*.

We wanted to oppose the arming of the control and repression organs, which is linked to the pandemic situation.

If we look at the last years, we see a significant strengthening of the municipal police force.

The tightening of the police laws and the continuing crisis due to the pandemic are giving (have given) them more and more competences. We can see how they are “policing”. In an increasingly authoritarian and violent way.

It is the municipal police who impose violence when we have to be restricted in our so-called free time, outside of work.

Because the measures taken to curb the pandemic are intended to forcibly maintain our ability to work and to deprive us of our social freedoms.

You will always try to restrict our freedom of movement, especially at night, or to close down meeting places, rather than factories or office floors. But we will always find ways to oppose you, no matter how difficult it is. On October 23 last year**, you managed to ban our demonstration. The city was cordoned off by the cops in a military way, that day our room for maneuvering was limited, the direct truncheon in the face would have probably been the consequence in many situations. In the years to come we will be confronted with such bans again and again.

You can ban our demonstrations and control the areas where you expect us on those days. But we remain “Autonomous. Resistant. Irreducible”.

If you take us away during the day, we’ll fall back on the night.

People who will still do it!
Until you lay down your weapons and open the way for a new emancipatory beginning!

–

Attaque Notes:

* according to German newspapers, four electric cars of the Polizeibehörde (comparable to the municipal police in French cities) were set on fire in the backyard of the city hall in the Abtnaundorf district.
** A demonstration against the criminalization of the revolutionary movement and the stigmatization of the working-class district of Connewitz was planned in Leipzig on October 23, 2021, but was banned.

Sourcre: de.indymedia

Via: Attaque

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attacks in solidarity with comrade Haris Mantzouridis

Posted on 2022/01/30 by darknights

Comrade Haris Mantzouridis has been a prisoner of the state and its mechanisms for 4 months. On 13 October, uniformed masked men of the police kidnapped him from his house in front of his family and took him to the GADA (police HQ). There he is accused of involvement in a robbery of a safe deposit box in Zografou in 2018 with the only evidence being an “orphan” DNA sample found in adjacent premises after the suggestion that an “anonymous citizen” seems to have made to the cops.

The use of DNA as evidence of guilt while scientifically perverse and false is used extensively by the state and its repressive mechanisms to hostage and trap militants. At the same time, the existence of an “anonymous phone call” clearly shows the orchestrated effort of the state mechanism to trap the comrade.

The state crime and the vindictiveness towards Haris because of his long-time participation in the anarchist space continues and goes beyond any limit as while he has applied for release due to his serious mental health, the prison prosecutor prosecutes him for false self-harm with the purpose of attempting to escape, which sends him to the disciplinary court. At the moment, the comrade is being held in the psychiatric hospital of Korydallos prison with conditions there further discrediting his charged mental health. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attacks in solidarity with comrade Haris Mantzouridis” →

UK: About the total surveillance order facing anarchist comrade Toby Shone EN/DE/ES/FR/IT/PL UPDATED

Posted on 2022/01/27 - 2022/05/02 by darknights

* UPDATE * SCPO HEARING FOR ANARCHIST PRISONER TOBY SHONE HAS BEEN ADJOURNED UNTIL 6 MAY.

Even though the cops couldn’t prove their terrorism case against him after a four year investigation, anarchist prisoner Toby Shone is facing a Serious Crime Prevention Order that will legally sanction the criminalisation and total surveillance of him and everyone around him for years to come after his release.

In November 2020, a series of co-ordinated raids against one of the alleged administrators of the website 325.nostate.net was executed by counter-terrorism cops in the UK as part of “Operation Adream”. Several properties in the southwest of England were searched and one person, Toby Shone, was arrested at gunpoint in the Forest of Dean and charged under the Terrorism Act. This was the first time the British State attempted to prosecute an anarchist under modern terrorism legislation and the first time that somebody was prosecuted for being suspected of running an anarchist website.

Toby was originally charged with providing a service enabling others to access terrorist publications, with fundraising for terrorist purposes, and with two counts of possession of information likely to be useful to a terrorist. He pleaded not guilty, the cops weren’t able to produce any evidence, and the prosecution was forced to drop these charges on October 1^st 2021.

In the end, Toby Shone was sentenced to 3 years 9 months in prison for 8 drug offenses on October 13, 2021. The ‘drugs’ were psychedelics and medicinal plants found at two of the four properties raided in November 2020, all collective spaces. He served 8 months of this sentence on remand at HMP Wandsworth and is currently held in HMP Bristol. He is due for release sometime between August and December 2022. Continue reading “UK: About the total surveillance order facing anarchist comrade Toby Shone EN/DE/ES/FR/IT/PL *UPDATED*” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for arson attack on Hertz dealership in solidarity with Haris Mantzouridis & Steki Biologico

Posted on 2022/01/23 - 2022/01/23 by darknights

“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” →