Repression – Page 35

France: Telephone interview with Claudio Lavazza

Posted on 2022/03/31 - 2022/03/31 by darknights

March 6, 2022

Q: Listeners have probably already had the opportunity to learn about the events that you have lived throughout your long imprisonment in Spanish jails from reading your biography. Let’s start now with the case that led to your current detention in France. What facts does this case refer to?

A: Yes, I have a 10-year sentence set by the Paris Criminal Court on November 8, 2019, for armed robbery and kidnapping. This sentence was recently reduced, a week ago, to five years. And my release date is scheduled for May 16, 2025, so three years from now. This is due to a calculation of the credits for sentence reduction made by the Mont-de-Marsan Prosecutor’s Office, starting from 30 years instead of 25 as the legal limit for the accumulation of sentences in the Spanish system. Well, if this limit had been established by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, if this limit had been enforced, I would have had to be released immediately. Instead, she changed her mind, because she decided that French law should now be applied. A doubly wrong analysis, as my lawyer has already told you in a letter. Technically, it is explained in this way only to understand, in fact, if article 132-23-1 of the French penal code says that convictions pronounced by the criminal jurisdictions of the European Union must be taken into account, on condition that they do not aggravate the situation of the convicted. The legal limit of 30 years of accumulation in French law would therefore be “valid”, in quotations, if I had been sentenced to life imprisonment. This limit would be reduced to 20 years if my sentence had been 30 years, but it is 25 years! So the deliberate error of the prosecutor is obvious. It is Article 362-2 of the French Code of Criminal Procedure. Technically it is quite simple to understand, but when there is a political will behind it that opposes freedom, everything becomes vindictive. Continue reading “France: Telephone interview with Claudio Lavazza” →

Berlin, Germany: Arson attack on car of prison profiteer SPIE in solidarity with prisoners

Posted on 2022/03/29 - 2022/05/18 by darknights

Wednesday night, March 23, we set fire to a car of the company SPIE in Prenzlauer Berg. SPIE participates internationally in the construction and operation of prisons and other facilities with the goal of total surveillance and control.

Educational institutions, parks, transportation infrastructure, and consumer miles become places of discipline under the electronic eyes and sensors of a mix of private and state security systems. Where people could organize and shape their own lives, where they could resist and simply take what they are not granted under capitalism, companies like SPIE are contributing to the technological assault. Too little is said to the enemies of freedom. Let’s burn down their cars, let’s paralyze their infrastructure!

With this action we declare our solidarity with the persecuted defenders of Biologico and the ungovernability of the University of Thessaloniki, with the imprisoned Thanos Xatziagkelou, Georgia Voulgari, Panos Kalaitzis and Dimitris Hatzivassiliadis.

With Ella and Lina in the focus of German repression and Claudio Lavazza under the control of the French prison system. With all persecuted fighters around the globe.

Source: de.indymedia

Trentino, Italy: Repressive operation and new measures against anarchists

Posted on 2022/03/06 by darknights

Source: Il Rovescio

Via & Translated by act for freedom now!

Yesterday, 25th February 2022, police notified three custodial measures to as many comrades – from the documents we learn that the recipients would be 4 in total. They concern one custodial measure in prison, one house arrest and two compulsory residence orders in municipalities outside Trentino (one in the Trevigiano area and the other in Trieste).

The accusations refer to events different to one another and also distant in time. The only common thread seems to be the struggle against prison. After the revolts that took place in Italian jails in response to the management of the epidemic, attention has become more stringent concerning those who mobilize outside the walls on this obviously explosive front (a local example is proceedings opened in Trento for incitement to commit crime following gatherings outside the prison of Spini di Gardolo in 2021). In the orders notified yesterday, the prosecutors (Raimondi, Ognibene, Profiti, the same as in operation Renata) talk about the intent “to impose their anti-prison ideology”.

The accusations are three:

According to prosecutors, Juan allegedly placed a device near the Tribunal of Surveillance in Trento in 2014 (article 280 bis). Juan is currently being held in the prison of Terni and is facing a trial for ‘terrorist attack’ and ‘massacre’, following devices placed near the premises of the Northern League of Treviso in 2018.

Two other comrades are accused of having aided and abetted Juan’s hiding between 2017 and 2018 (procured non-observance of an accusation, article 390), by providing him with fake identity documents and a rented place.

Another comrade is accused of attempted extorsion with the aggravating circumstance of purposes of terrorism because along with others he allegedly tried to convince the editor of Radio Ottanta to read live a communique in solidarity with the revolts and [against] the massacres which occurred in Italian jails in March 2020.

There is no charge of subversive association.

This is what the documents say in short. What we say is that the spirit of freedom will never be sedated by any police manoeuvre. That we’ll continue to fight against prison. That we want our comrades back with us. That we won’t deprive them of our closeness.

Solidarity with Juan, Massimo, Agnese and Stecco.

Italy: Blank spaces and black letters

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

Source: Inferno Urbano

Via & Translated by act for freedom now!

Blank spaces and black letters – On the repressive operation “Sibilla”

To express annoyance or disappointment in the face of power is not for us. Convinced as we are that between freedom and authority not only there is an unbridgeable gap but also that the former is the expression of irreducible otherness towards the latter and that the two are incompatible and irreconcilable, we persevere in firmly believing that the only possible relation with power is a relation of war. Either you are subjected to it or you destroy it.

This is the reason why resignation, surrender and, ultimately, capitulation become clear in the indifference towards the State. We anarchists retain an idea of freedom which is too extended and uncontrollable to be allowed to be “satisfied”. Our idea defines and – where theory flows into practice – intends to express integral and absolute freedom which scorns all kinds of compliance with power, which effectively smashes the false democratic “freedoms” being given to us, which in an eternal yearning for revolt strikes with action the persons and structures of power, disintegrating the space and time of authority.

Sometimes, especially when conscience is arid of will, the cumbersome presence of the State in all fields of existence and everyday life manages to make its courageous opponents withdraw, and in this way they begin to postpone the realization of their projects infinitively. Hostility becomes indifference. In this way, little by little, the goal becomes that of keeping on with a form of antagonism more or less adorned with radical desires. Rather than destroying the world of authority we prefer de-existential withdrawal which aims at building up our “small world”, by dedicating ourselves to ourselves, our deadlines, relations and even “self-management”, “self-determination” of milieus and situations. Continue reading “Italy: Blank spaces and black letters” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the arson attack on a company vehicle of UNISON Facilities Management in Exarcheia

Posted on 2022/02/25 - 2022/02/25 by darknights

Regenaration, development, gentrification. Concepts that have become embedded as spikes in the discourse and action of the antagonist movement, must be seen as another aspect of the attack of the ruling classes against the oppressed class. Capital aims at subordinating the whole of life to its exploitation and reproduction, and therefore organizes more and more aspects of human activity in this logic.

The process of enclosing community/public spaces for the purpose of capital’s reproduction is a process as old as capitalism. In recent decades we have experienced the long deconstruction of social democratic management, with the mediation of the state receding, giving more room for the defensive subordination of activities of social life to capital. In this sense, a concerted attack has been launched in recent years on public spaces, squares, parks in the metropolises, transferring their management from the state to private individuals, with the aim of creating new fields of profitability for capital.

This is exactly the condition of the sale of a series of public green spaces by the Municipality of Athens to the company UNISON Facilities Services, such as the hills (Strefi, Filopappou, Lycabettus, Turkovounia), squares (Protomaya, Victoria, Kypseli, Attiki, Ameriki, Drakopoulos, Agios Panteleimon), parks (Platonos Academia, Kyrpo, Patision, Goudi) and pedestrian streets (Agia Zoni, Fokionos Negri). UNISON (formerly ISS), belongs to a category of a new type of company that, through contractor privatisations, is simultaneously financed by state-taxed, collectively produced surplus value, and at the same time intensifies the exploitation of its workers through miserable wages, flexible working hours and violation of workers’ rights. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the arson attack on a company vehicle of UNISON Facilities Management in Exarcheia” →

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” →