This is an attempt to provide information and context for those outside Greece concerning the recent state abduction of anarchist Nikos Romanos.
On 31 October, 2024, an explosion in the Athens neighborhood of Ampelokopoi killed the comrade Kyriakos X and severely injured the comrade Marianna M.
They were both in an apartment where an explosive device detonated, knocking out one wall of the building. The state claims they were planning to detonate a bomb elsewhere and that it exploded prematurely. Both Kyriakos and Marianna are anarchists, respected participants in the movement.
The press in Greece is owned by a handful of old families who control most of the remaining greek assets– those that haven’t been sold off to foreign investors. The Greek mainstream media exists to disseminate state narratives, and it immediately began slandering the victims of the explosion as well as engaging in wild speculation– such as that the israeli embassy was the intended target. Whether or not that’s true, it is true that israeli mossad agents came to assist the Greek police in their investigations. Since the explosion, the state has made additional arrests of people it claims are somehow connected to the apartment and its lease, sublease, etc.
As the Greek press promoted the propaganda of the state, there commenced activity in some cowardly corners of the left to distinguish the more “guilty” of those accused from the others. This is the question of who to tar with the labels of “anarchist” and “terrorist” — thereby assumed to deserve repression– vs. who is really “innocent.”
The anarchist movement itself, both in Greece and internationally, has rejected such division and remained strong in solidarity despite a chilling increase in repression. There were multiple support gatherings outside the hospital where Marianna was held under guard and when, shortly after her second surgery, she was transferred to Korydallos prison, comrades also gathered there. Kyriakos has been honored with actions, banners, marches, events and memorials, and will remain a beloved comrade forevermore. There has been no “disavowal,” no step back.
Since the tragedy in Ampelokopoi state repression against those suspected of being “anarchists” has become more aggressive, although this is consistent with an ongoing trend since the pandemic. What we have seen now are not new tactics but an increase in frequency: police actions such as stopping and searching people around the neighborhood Exarcheia, early-morning “preventative detention” of targeted individuals (people considered politically prominent) on the days of demonstrations and marches, and an increase in surveillance of those the greek state has a grudge against, including by parking unmarked cars with surveillance equipment in front of their homes.
Few people in the anarchist movement here have been under as heavy surveillance, long-term, as the comrade Nikos Romanos. He was a friend of the anarchist Alexis Grigoropolous, and witnessed Alexis’ murder by police on 6 December 2008. Since that time Nikos has been arrested many times and accused of many crimes, along with false accusations of involvement with the direct action group Conspiracy of Cells of Fire. Continue reading “Realities Behind the Arrest of Nikos Romanos”→
Opening the tensions of dialogue, we present the following section of interviews with individuals, collectivities and related spaces that make up the anarchic body in different parts of the world.
The interviews are a valuable contribution to the observation in detail and depth; they come, in a certain way, to broaden the view to give us feedback among comrades and to debate with perspectives and projections, that although they may be different, they converge in the ideas and practices of freedom against all authority.
Without further ado, we have in this first venture of dialogues the comrades of Espacio Fénix.
1-How and when did Espacio Fénix arise, and what projects converge in the space?
Espacio Fénix was born in the middle of the pandemic, at the beginning of 2021, in the midst of a series of ridiculous mobility restrictions and increased police intervention under the excuse of controlling and preventing the spread of covid-19.
Thus, a group of compañerxs got together, seeking to open a crack, a fissure within the asphyxiating panorama that was regulating everything, imposing the rhythm of power and where many seemed to be accommodating or waiting for the authority to give us “permission” to resume our lives.
We embarked on the idea of opening a physical space where comrades could converge, where anarchic material could circulate and where new comradeships could be woven and articulated. Thus in May 2021 we opened the doors of the space, we began to set up its infrastructure and in July we held our first activity in memory of compañero Santiago Maldonado.
Claustrofobia Ediciones, the Biblioteca Antiautoritaria Sacco y Vanzetti and various anarchic individualities converge in the space.
2-The “Ciclos de Cine” (Film Cycles) is the tool you have used the most to carry out activities. What is the significance for you of the screening of films, documentaries, etc.?
We started with the film cycles in October 2021 and we have not stopped every Tuesday, month after month, grouping the films by specific themes, seeking to stress our ideas and nourish our arguments with content, it is the beauty of the feedback between colleagues with diverse experiences and views.
From the very beginning, we proposed the screening of films as an excuse to sit down and converse, because after each screening, the central part of the activity comes to life, which is the discussion about what has been screened. There the words run, without leaders, where everyone can expose their dislikes, their liking or the results and analysis that is made of what we have seen. With this gesture we also seek to break the logic of passive spectators, of consumers, very typical of socially imposed roles.
In this sense, we have screened diverse audiovisual material, industry films, documentaries made by compañerxs, films that we like or dislike, always aiming at the discussion and tension between compas.
We do not seek to fill the cultural gaps of authority, nor to be the free panorama for those who lack resources; we seek, by different means and tools to spread our anarchic and anti-authoritarian ideas/actions, therefore the film cycles are just one more tool we choose.
Ciclo de Cine March 2024Ciclo de Cine November 2021
3-Regarding the written material, what is the importance and power that you perceive in it?
The written material certainly has another power, another depth and transcendence, of course the spoken thought is important, but writing allows the ordering of ideas, so as to be able to reflect more carefully on what is going to be exposed and to assimilate/discuss more deeply on what is read.
In a present where immediacy, image culture, the digestible and pyrotechnical, where almost the medium is the message, emptying of content many of our tools, writing/reading is a weapon, which can also serve as a refuge, where to continue polishing and sharpening our ideas.
The written material is an instrument that impels us to grow, to argue and continually revise our positions, widening our views, shining light where there was darkness.
On the other hand, it is necessary to say that written material has always accompanied anarchists, as propaganda for the dissemination of ideas, it is an effective tool to enter into dialogue with more comrades wherever they are: in the street, in prison, or other territories. It is important because it nurtures individual thinking, as well as possible collective discussions.
The written material as propaganda can bring together comrades and depending on the objectives and projections that we have, we can realize initiatives of various kinds. In the same way that we can find ourselves on the path of anarchic struggle, we can also distance ourselves from people who spread anarchist propaganda of other tendencies, for us those who are called to participate in the electoral circus, appeal to platform organization, dream of unity and large federations and those who reject legitimate political insurrectional violence – to give just a few examples – puts us in another place on the sidewalk and in several cases as enemies.
4-There are political-cultural spaces that coexist peacefully with power, while others attract police attention. Why do you think this happens? Are there more dangerous ideas-practices? If so, what would these be?
We don’t think this was the intention of the question, but it is worth clarifying to avoid pejorative atmospheres. For us, anti-power spaces/ideas/practices (truly anti-authoritarian and anarchic, leaving out and fighting the bullshit of “popular power”) by definition do not coexist peacefully neither with power, nor with authority, nor with the police and their investigators of all kinds.
Police eyes and ears are always there, to believe otherwise is naive and dangerous. They let themselves be seen or directly attack depending on conjunctures or panoramas that mark a change of rhythm.
In this sense, it is not the police harassment that defines our comrades’ ties -it is defined by our ideas, values and projections- because valuable initiatives that are undoubtedly a contribution to the anarchic tide, may not receive the police onslaught in an evident and grotesque way and not for that reason be considered “legal”, “innocent” or in any way aspire to coexist peacefully with the power. For example, at present there are activities that do not receive police interference, but that 3 or 4 years ago were seen as a danger and received harassment; we are talking about common pots or self-defense activities. It does not change the activity or the background, but it changes the perception of power or the effect it seeks to achieve as a chain reaction (fear, disarticulation, etc.).
Now, it is important to emphasize that these types of practices carried out by those in power are part of their work, and must be understood as such. They have always existed and will continue to exist, we do not say this in an alarmist way, much less to call for immobility or to “disappear” from certain spaces. Simply because it must be clear, those who consciously decide to undertake a confrontational path to power and propagate it in multiple ways, may encounter those enemy dynamics, therefore, the consequences must be assumed. Continue reading “Chile: Interview with Espacio Fénix EN/ES”→
This is Toby Shone, an anarchist imprisoned in the operation Adream which was an antiterrorist investigation against the counter-information project 325. I am calling from a prison in northwest England, it’s a long term, high security prison, and the fact that we can steal these moments is very important.
As you may already know, Operation A-dream was a repressive attack by the UK state in which 3 collective housing projects, a family home and storage unit were raided by cops. I was accused of being an administrator of 325.nostate, which earned me 4 terrorist charges: section 2 (distribution of terrorist publications), section 15 (funding terrorism) and two counts of section 58 (possession of information which is likely to be useful for terrorist purposes). I was also accused of several direct actions and membership of FAI, ELF and ALF. Hundreds of police were involved in the simultaneous raids and despite this, only one of the comrades were briefly detained and subsequently released for lack of evidence. It’s clear through the conditions of imprisonment I am held under and the constant monitoring that an active investigation continues with tailings and surveillance of comrades on the outside along with observation of anarchist social spaces.
Why is this taking place? It’s because anarchism is a threat to the existing technocratic order, our direct-action groups have a palpable reality in however minimal way in comparison to the task to be done, and the counter-information constellation continues to shine in the dark nights and become easier to use and navigate. Anarchist publishing is viewed as being an unacceptable endeavour by the police and intelligence services. Reporting on anarchist direct action, social struggles, and uprisings because it forms a narrative of subversion is arguably targeted with as much repression as that towards those who carry out the deeds that are being reported. It’s a strategy which has been in existence for a very long time. In the case of Operation Adream, the police was scared of the explicit anarchist insurrectionalist and anti-civilization rhetoric combined with the distribution of electronic and paper publications. During the interrogations a particular concern of the detectives was the purpose of anarchist paper publication. All the electronic documents have a digital forensic signature known as the hash value which can be tracked across the internet and devices even if deleted from those devices. Paper publications on the other hand, cannot be tracked as they are distributed – an investigation into them requires material forensics and a traditional police enquiry: this needs more resources, money, and personnel and especially the underground publishing initiatives which may have an irregular schedule of publishing and “informal” methods of distribution.
This brings us back to the purpose of anarchist publications: paper copies exist and have the power through being passed hand to hand to have an impactful material reality. They also accumulate forensic traces, the books, magazines, and pamphlets we are talking of, dangerous ideas, which can inspire our lives. Their time duration is different from those digital, and we can view that accordingly. With our publications, even if they are doomed to be in university libraries, mainstream bookshops, or worse, museums and art galleries, they always remain controversial and even illegal in some cases. Their purpose is social war and the destruction of the State. In the investigation files of Operation Adream, dozens of anarchist publications were cited many of which we may take for granted, that are freely available at anarchist bookfairs, squats, social centres and stalls at events. Yet to the police, special unit, and prosecutors these publications form part of an amorphous conspiracy aimed at overthrowing the establishment, which is correct, but not exactly in the perverse way that they wish to interpret it. To explain, we are often confronted by the repressive model that has a special function ascribed to theorists and writers, that of “leadership”. They are accused of giving orders and instructions and then cells or cadres then carry out those orders. I don’t need to tell you that this is an offense to anarchist practice, but it was a clear line of questioning put to me by the counter terrorist division. Does possession of 325 magazine indicate membership of an organization? Does that organization execute actions? And is that organisation part of a larger terrorist infrastructure? These are the types of questions bounced at me. With this scheming, marionettes of repression are formed, arranged in hierarchical structures which reflect their feverish minds. So, in those interrogations the investigators focused in some parts on questioning me about administrative functions, decision making flows, statistics figures, target demographics, research and linguistics, or translations. To the latter the cops wanted to know who was responsible for the translations, how they were organized, and who decided what should be translated.
At what level does the level of repression equate to that of our actions? For me, the answer is straight forward. The level of repression is currently far beyond that of the anarchist direct action. It’s the nature of State’s repression to aim to be overwhelming and our struggle is still only an active minority. In the UK the silence and lack of action highlights the social living death. But it was not always this way. And the future remains unwritten. That’s why police infiltration will continue to try to prevent for ruptures and individual attacks. It’s impossible to separate Operation Adream from the consequences of over a decade of anarchist direct action and social riots in Bristol. Although those things are at low ebb currently, it doesn’t mean that it will remain so. Anarchism remains part of the fabric of this South-West region. And where the reports, communiques and analysis are published will remain high in the list of targets for the State. The hundreds if not thousands of publishers across the world, part of a connectivity of contemporary anarchism, add to our ability to stay relevant and expansive.
Huge changes are taking place in society, and mass discontent has the possibility to form into a needed vital resistance. The new anarchist critique of high technology is cited by various intelligence agencies, State and private, as having the threatening ability to infect the population with a deep anger of the digital future. This future being planned by the bosses is a vast surveillance state which is part of the cybernetic matrix, where machines are taking the place of humans, and the artificial intelligence has inserted itself into every place it can be situated. Likewise, we can see human beings are becoming more machine-like, and their environment is degraded and polluted. Increasingly we can talk about the fact that many complete failures are taking place in various social systems, due to the ecological collapse and economic and post-industrial transformation. Huge territories are rapidly changing from floods, wildfires, draughts and intense storms. Unprecedented challenges are coming very quickly with harsh effects on critical points pertaining to agriculture, migration, division of labour, geopolitical conflicts and so on. Our publications and counter-information networks are a direct way in which we can communicate our analysis and methods of organization. Repression recognizes the danger of the contagion of this message, and the narrative which we possess. To the extent that they illegalize our publications and try to impose exemplary sentences is only a means to and end for them. And this is what we have always faced. If we are effective, we meet repression, prison, death. That’s what many comrades face across the world right now. Essentially some of us have been living under surveillance and investigation for so long, everything we do could be considered as crime, simply existing. That’s worth writing about and when we read and know more about what others are confronting and how, we can gain our power.
Lastly, I want to talk about the censorship I am facing here. Since it’s been a consistent feature of my imprisonment and is also part of the topic we’re discussing. Many comrades face problems with their correspondence and receiving publications. This is not unusual. But it’s worth saying here that I’ve been denied access to the majority of my correspondence and books which I am being sent. Even though I am facing denials by the prison administration that this is taking place, it most certainly is. This is the strength of our newsletters, our books, our letters to catch with comrades, that they make the enemy afraid. In my case, I’m also being denied socialist, autonomous-marxist and communist papers and books, which have been sent to me by those in solidarity from the radical left, as well as books on black history, transformative justice, and prison abolition. The very few anarchist books I have managed to receive I hold them close to my heart, here in my cell. Freedom is written with ink and our blood, like it always has been and will be. Value your books, your newspapers, your letters sent and received, combative memory persists, and we pass it to each new generation without efforts alone.
I’ll finish here and so I thank you for your energy and your attention, and a strong hug to all, and especially those under repression for the written word. For from the words come deeds, and that is the topic we’ve encountered today. Love and rage, thank you.
Last December 22, the police installed a video surveillance camera in front of the house of some anarchist comrades in the Gracia neighborhood of Barcelona. The camera was located on the side of the roof of a restaurant right in front of the house in question. It was protected by a dark glass casing and pointed directly at the door of the squatted house of the compas (as can be seen in the photograph), which is why it is impossible to think that it was a “security” measure of the restaurant, which already has its own “security” system. The restaurant has refused to give coherent explanations about these facts.
It should be noted that the compas were arrested on August 23 of this year, accused of having participated in the actions of the May 1st demonstration. This is a repressive case being handled by the Violent Extremism Brigade of the Mossos d’Esquadra, an information brigade that now specializes in the persecution of anarchists. After months of investigation, the compas were arrested at the door of their home, and since then members of the secret police have been seen around the property.
We know that the security forces of the state watch and spy in different ways and periodically on anarchists and the revolutionary movements of which they are part. The police have at their disposal all the means to do so, as they have already demonstrated before and do in territories all over the planet. But now we not only have the presentiment, but also the certainty and the proof that proves it thanks to the images and information provided. Continue reading “Barcelona, Spain: Spying and video surveillance in front of the anarchist compas’ house”→
DN Note: Our collective presents and translates a text written by ‘Assembly against Biopower and Confinement’ detailing a Greek academic who is in alliance with the Greek state, cops and their counter-insurgency tactics against our comrades and any manfestation against the social order. A similar incident in this country of ‘Aufhebengate/Libcom‘ comes to mind when we post this text, how the parasites of academia and its involvement in counter-insurgency, has not only spread to other countries such as Greece, that there is also international co-operation occuring on a far larger scale than before. As seen by the text there is a move to include all theories that are deemed ‘extremist’ and ‘terrorist’ as one emcomapssing threat especially because of their use of violence. Academia is the breeding ground of the new technoligcal shift that has already arrived, collabaration with cops in order to repress our circles is unforgivable and anyone connected to such scum as Rosa Vasilaki are not our comrades.
POPULATION GOVERNANCE THROUGH THE STRATEGIC THEORY OF TWO OR MORE EXTREMES: THE CONTRIBUTION OF LEFTISTS AND ‘ANTI-AUTHORITARIANS’ TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THIS STATE STRATEGY
or
Do we all hate the police? Not all of us…
(on the occasion of the Event-Discussion in Chamadou entitled “The New World Order of the Far Right” by Asymmetric Threat & Opposition Publications)
“I decided to make an international career as a civilian, because Greece doesn’t fit me. Here is my article on the electoral rise of the far-right, hosted by Jakobin…
(Actually, the truth is that without Rosa Vasilaki’s invaluable help I wouldn’t even have made it to Bitola…)”[1]
Nikolai Polykarpov
One year ago, on 13/12/2022, the “Left-Right Lies Observatory”[2] publishes a video with an interview of former Contra Dystopia member Iason Baggeris on the show of the anti-vaccine cop Telemachus Bossios. We all believed at the time that the denunciation of I. B. by the meth/vaccine activists/vaccinators of the Observatory was done in the name of an anti-authoritarian authority: “we never talk to cops and cops’ associates”. The refutation of this erroneous initial impression was not long in coming. A few months later, on 28 August 2023, the main contributor to the Observatory, Polykarpos Georgiadis (Nikolai Polykarpov), published an article on the “coalescence of left and far-right in Greece” in Jacobin, the magazine of the left wing of the ruling Democratic Party in the US. [3] The publication of the article, as he informed his petty followers in a public post on his online profile, was mediated by Ms. Roza Vasilaki, among other “academic ” collaborators of the Greek Police – the latter of course conveniently for him avoided mentioning it. What happened in the meantime? Did Mr Georgiadis renounce his principles in order to make a face to the American democratic readers of Jacobin? No! As we will show in the following text, these “principles” are simply non-existent. But we will not limit ourselves to that. Because the issue for us is not simply the morally unacceptable or inconsistent behaviour of “anti-authoritarian” or “communist”, but the size and depth of the network of surveillance and repression of “dangerous” political activities that the security mechanisms have set up in Greece. And we will start by first answering the question: well, the “prominent member” of the Class Counterattack, Polikarpos is well-known, but who is Ms. Vassilaki?
Ι. TO WORK OR NOT TO WORK (FOR THE POLICE)?
In broad strokes, R.V. is another career researcher among those who use the language of the state and social movements simultaneously and have knowledge gained from participating in research projects that are at the service of capital, its state and the mechanisms of disciplining labour power and repressing class struggles. As such, it has acquired the capacity to be marketed differently depending on the audience. These days she tends to present herself as a militant researcher of the emergence of far-right discourse in Greece, as she writes in the promotional bio on her personal blog: ‘she has conducted extensive research on the far-right, football violence, religious fundamentalism, immigration and refugee integration, as well as feminism and gender-related issues.’[4]
By this point, one might reasonably wonder where the real problem lies. From the quotation of this autobiography, we seem to be talking about a left-wing researcher, one of many in the academic industry, who is conducting in-depth scholarly research on important issues that inevitably have occupied almost all social movements in recent years. Is there something wrong with all this and with Mr Georgiadis’ collaboration with R.V.? Are we referring to the classic combinations of academics of the antagonistic movement with other “networked” members of the academic community which can provide them with a few extra contacts and some professional and political career opportunities? Are we not referring to the various theoretical all-encompassing “conflict politics workshops”, from which indeed some careerists may later end up in the practical conflict politics workshops of the security apparatus of the capitalist state?
I wish we were just talking about this early stage of a political scientist’s career. In a more explicit, previously posted biography of R.V. on the internet, we read that “she has taught history and sociology at universities in Greece, Israel, and the United States. : we have the feeling that she did not teach anything that glorified the ‘Palestinian resistance’] and in Great Britain” and that her “main research interests focus on the changing place of religion in modernity, the emergence of post-secular and post-Western knowledge and theories, and the manifestations and genealogy of violence in the modern world, such as religiously and politically motivated violence and the particular role of security forces in modern states”. [5] Indeed, her professional activities cover a very broad field that basically centres around counter-insurgency policies and technologies, intelligence gathering and methods of preventing and suppressing activities ranging from youth rebellions to Islamist terrorism. Continue reading “Greece: POPULATION GOVERNANCE THROUGH THE STRATEGIC THEORY OF TWO OR MORE EXTREMES: THE CONTRIBUTION OF LEFTISTS AND ‘ANTI-AUTHORITARIANS’ TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THIS STATE STRATEGY”→
Reposted for anti-info reasons, be aware of any mainstream/corporate links:
Leaked files reveal the Anomaly 6 spy firm is providing intelligence to the British military through a cut-out involved in the Kerch Bridge bombing and other acts of dangerous sabotage in the Ukraine conflict.
On December 6th, The Grayzone revealed how British military and intelligence agencies were deploying technology created by shadowy private intelligence firm Anomaly 6 to illegally spy on citizens across the globe.
The company’s technology effectively transforms every individual on Earth into a potential target for surveillance and/or asset recruitment by monitoring the movements of their smartphone. Anomaly 6 embeds tracking software in popular applications, then slices through layers of theoretically anonymous data to uncover a wealth of sensitive information about a device’s owner.
Anomaly 6’s services are provided to Britain’s soldiers and spies through Prevail Partners, a private military company which The Grayzone has exposed as Whitehall’s arm’s-length cutout for prosecuting its proxy war in Ukraine. The firm has constructed a secret partisan terror army on Kiev’s behalf, and helped plan the Kerch Bridge bombing by Ukraine’s services.
Starting today, the Ears and Eyes project is now hosted by the Counter-Surveillance Resource Center (CSRC). The present website will not be updated anymore. The new address is:
This new website has a modern design, is easier for us to update and brings advanced search features to our database, allowing you to filter and search through our 100 cases of surveillance devices hidden by law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Feel free to check out CSRC’s other projects, including their database of resources on targeted surveillance and their Threat Library (a threat modeling tool for anarchists).
As usual, you can get in touch with us if you have feedback, criticisms or information to give us. We also welcome translations in any languages. You can now contact us at CSRC’s email address – csrc@riseup.net – or use our old address if you prefer.
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”→
In these days of commotion at the discovery of the new police infiltrator, from security culture, by allusions also, we want to launch some reflections.
Blame leads nowhere
First of all, we would like to send a warm greeting to the people who have had to deal closely with this situation. We know what it means to give our trust, time, support, affection and body to our loved ones and what it means when we are betrayed and instrumentalized. Especially if it is a case like this one, in which some of our colleagues have also been involved in more intimate relationships with this subject.
But it is useless to whip ourselves now that we already know it, when suddenly comments and ideas appear that, in the past, come out quickly, but are not very visible when the infiltration is taking place. We have to bear in mind that these tasks are part of police and state tactics with many years of experience that, in most cases, will surpass us. Either because of the means used, because of the intentions that lead the State to infiltrate someone, because we are a visible target, because they are trained for it and because we are human and we cannot always detect it easily. We count on the fact that this is something recurrent and permanent, that there have been, will be and will be more infiltrations that we have and that, until the hare jumps (in the cases in which it happens), it is complicated to find out. That is what it is all about and that is what they work hard at, however, they also have failures and letdowns of guard that allow us to pull the thread of some detail that, as unnoticed as it may seem to us, can lead to discover someone. What can be done now is to learn from the mistakes made, analyze the path of this person with us and see how it can affect us in the future. And at the same time, take into consideration the investigative work that has been done, the sensitivity in detecting suspicious behavior and the rapid dissemination of information to avoid further damage. Without forgetting the set of repressive tools that the state has at its disposal, infiltration being just one more and certainly less common compared to others.
Let’s take responsibility, let’s acquire good practices
But despite the fact that all this seeks to whip, the feeling of guilt and mistrust, it is true that it is in our hands to continue implementing a culture of security that safeguards our spaces of struggle and the people who are part of it. This goes through many axes, some of which have been exposed in these cycles of talks that were made from this project, with special emphasis on police work and forms of repression and highlighting the figure of infiltrators and whistleblowers as a tactic used. Continue reading “Spain: “Bark, then ride” About the discovery of a new police infiltrator.”→
