Tag: Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki, Greece: Against anthropocentrism and metropolitan domination, on the occasion of the Flyover
“Flyover” is part of a programme of 30 projects aimed at transforming Thessaloniki into a “metropolis of the Balkans”. Through it, a complex of environmental destruction, capitalist expansion and tightening social control is revealed. Opposing this design through a radical perspective allows us to attribute a material basis to a system that would like us to believe is unmistakable.
The project includes the overhaul of 13.5 km of Thessaloniki’s regional road and the addition of a 4 km Flyover, for which 187 hectares of the Sheih Su forest will be destroyed. To ensure social acceptance of the Flyover project, managed by the AVAX-Mytilineos consortium, a conscious green-washing practice is used. Its main argument is better regulation of traffic to reduce CO2 concentrations in the city. However, it is proven that larger transport infrastructures tend to increase traffic. In addition, Flyover will further cement the nature of the area, harming fauna and flora and favouring the ‘heat island’ effect, i.e. the rise in local temperature due to the heat-absorbing property of the cement.
In other words, this is all bullshit! But even if the project was viable, it would remain problematic. This is an issue with important socio-political implications which should not be dealt with solely from an environmental point of view.
Control: the spacetime of the metropolis
Capitalism needs infrastructure to ensure its enforcement and maintenance. Infrastructures like Flyover help to further control the movement of people and therefore define the relationships we build with each other.
In recent decades, global capitalism has been reorganized around regional metropolises. A network of production units that destroy the earth, exploiting the lives of humans and non-animals. With rural reforms and the use of land for infrastructure, quality of life and employment opportunities are becoming increasingly scarce in rural areas, forcing their inhabitants to move to cities. And in turn, this exponential growth of metropolises leads to further destruction of natural areas. The continuous expansion of the metropolises strengthens the power, strengthening our dependence on the capitalist-state system.
As the metropolis expands, city centres are refined and standardised. What used to be a place of residence, meeting and organisation, it is now becoming a showcase for attracting business and tourism. In the metropolis, the city itself is a product. Those who disturb the superficial ideal, the “undesirables”, the working class, the immigrants and the squatters, are pushed to the periphery. This ‘cleansing’ is made possible as roads, the metro and other modern means of transport allow displaced people to move daily from the degraded neighborhoods where they live to the shops, offices and factories where they are exploited. And as the metropolis expands, so does the portion of their day devoted to commuting. As a result, leisure time is constantly being reduced, absorbed by overtime work and transport.
At the same time, public spaces become smaller, more controlled, uninviting (when they simply do not disappear), or are replaced by cafeteria terraces, parking lots or Christmas markets. The “third places” are exhausted, with every corner of the city being used for financial profit. There is no place for socialisation without honor, let alone political organisation, which is increasingly difficult as spaces that offer alternatives (squats, universities, squares, etc.) are attacked. The only form of protest that is accepted is not only the non-violent, but the one that either does not disturb the production-consumption cycle or actively feeds it. Political discussions are transferred to the online world, social media posts replace our presence on the streets and walls of the city. We are building our own surveillance. Our opposition to the system is expressed solely through our lifestyle, from where and what we consume. Therefore, activism, as it lacks its necessary social character, turns into individual consumer practice, supplying dominant systems instead of opposing them.
So, through the control of space and time facilitated by roads and modern transportation, governments direct our behaviors to prevent any disruption to the capitalist machine.
Moreover, for this transport system to work, it requires a high level of organisation and specialisation of work that only the state can provide. It creates a vicious circle where it is at once the means, the consequence and the source of capitalist expansion. It operates in every aspect of the economy: urbanisation, fossil fuel extraction, agribusiness and nature management. A chain reaction, where the capitalist-state system spreads like a virus until it consumes every living creature, every piece of land and wildlife.
Disconnection: the nature of the metropolis
To assert and maintain its dominance, the capitalist-state system must appear as the logical evolution of our civilisation, inevitable if not desirable. And to trap our consciousness, it shapes our horizon.
In the world of the metropolises, the ground is covered by behemoths and shopping malls, motorways and railways, parking lots and data centres. People penetrate the mountains with tunnels and dig the land for minerals. They mix the limestone and the clay they get with sand from exhausted beaches to make cement and concrete. Containers and giant fishing boats empty the seas, while planes fill the skies. And as capitalism colonises wildlife, the smell of fresh air, the sense of grass and the songs of the birds disappear from our daily lives. In the smell of exhaust fumes, in the sounds of car horns and in the hasty crowd of the city-worker, we find isolation and alienation. By separating us from the natural world, the capitalist-state system separates us from each other.
In the name of the god of profit, it plunders fauna and flora, reducing them to resources that are sacrificed on the altar of civilisation. Non-human animals become meat, winds become kilowatts, trees become oxygen, soil becomes building materials, people become labour. Everyone and everything becomes a commodity.
Although capitalism has driven ecosystem destruction to unprecedented levels, most civilisations have been promoting human domination over other species for centuries. Anthropocentrism, the idea that human civilisation is separate from nature, that man comes first, allowed them to naturalise the unbridled exploitation of the rest of the living beings. A multitude of dipoles runs through our world to ensure the machine runs smoothly: male-female, white-non-white, civilisation-nature.
Many environmental discussions don’t question anthropocentrism and therefore don’t challenge the system. But it is not about “conserving our natural resources” to ensure the future of humanity, nor about “defending nature” as an unattainable ideal separated from us. It’s about refusing to stay on paths that others have mapped out for us. The non-human world is not ours to destroy or protect.
WE ARE NATURE DEFENDING ITSELF
THE DEFENSE OF THE FORST IS SELF-DEFENSE
Defend Seih Sou
defendseihsou@espiv.net
Source: Blessed Is The Flame
Greece: 6th December / 6H Δεκεμβρή
Athens/Αθήνα
Thessaloniki/Θεσσαλονίκη
Heraklion/Ηράκλειο
Komotini/Κομοτηνή
- Αθήνα: Προπύλαια 12:00 1 2| Τσαμαδού 16:00 1 | Προπύλαια 18:00 1 2 3 4 5 6
- Θεσσαλονίκη: Καμάρα 18:00 1 2 3
- Πάτρα: Παράρτημα 12:00 1 | Παράρτημα 18:00 1
- Ηράκλειο Κρήτης: Λιοντάρια 19:00 1
- Χανιά: Πλ. Αγοράς 18:00 1
- Ρέθυμνο: Δημαρχείο 18:00 1
- Καβάλα: Πλ. Καπνεργάτη 18:00 1
- Κομοτηνή: Παλαιά Νομική 18:00 1
- Αγρίνιο: Πλ. Δημάδη 18:00 (πορεία 19:00) 1 2
- Λάρισα: Πλ. Ταχυδρομείου 18:00 1
Greece: Thanos Chatziangelou – On the misery of repression towards my family circle
We once declared that the first thing to die in war is the truth. Today, along with the truth, morality accompanies death. In war, as painful as it is to realize the necessity of your existence, there are rules. Those rules are once again being broken by my pack of persecutors.
I spent almost two and a half years as a prisoner in their cells of democracy. In hooded interrogation offices, in the corridors and halls of the inquisition, in cages and concrete tombs. And in all these years not a single moment has passed from my mind to bargain my political identity with what it carries as a legacy on it. Today I am back on the streets with a set of restrictions but my conscience is clear for what I have done.
The prison door closed behind me, but not the chapter of revenge. On June 4, a team of bailiffs went to my parents’ home in Volos to announce that due to my personal debts to the tax authorities, my father’s motorbike, which is in my name, is being auctioned. The debts concern accrued administrative fines from cases of economic repression such as refusal to enlist, fines from the curfew during the pandemic period, court costs of my previous court cases, etc., debts that I have consciously chosen not to pay, refusing the individualized administrative face of repression that has been generalized over the last 10 years.
My issue is not the goods we own and the sanctity of property, but the audacity and lack of morality of a repression that regularly turns on my family because it cannot bend myself. A repression that binds a gift from me to my father, sowing fear and blackmail in my family environment. A repression that in the past (both before and during my captivity) has regularly harassed them with stalking, approaches and solicitations, “friendly” chats and neighborhood interrogations about my profile and daily life.
So about the war, let me remind you that, in the historical record, no battle at its end revealed casualties in only one of the two sides.
6 June 2024
Prison Society
Source: athens.indymedia
DN Note
Anarchist Thanos Chaztiangelou has been released since 24th May 2024. Thanos was arrested along with two other comrades Panagiotis Kalaitzis & Georgia Voulgari for an incendiary attack at the Foundation for National and Religious Reflection in the Ano Polis area of Thessaloniki and were later charged with membership of ‘Anarchist Action Organisation‘. Thanos took full responsibility for the attack.
Athens & Thessaloniki, Greece: Book Presentation – Alfredo Cospito: Which International? / Event about the New Penal Code
“Go on, comrades: There is a whole world to be demolished!” Alfredo Cospito – Nicola Gai
Book presentation of the book by Alfredo Cospito “Which International?” (Interview and discussion with Alfredo Cospito from Ferrara prison, Italy).
Intervention by Italian comrades on the book by Alfredo Cospito, the isolation of the comrade, the 41bis regime & update on current repression operations in Italy. Update on Law N.5090/24 (New Penal Code). Telephone communication with a prisoner about the new penal code and the struggles inside the prisons.
Update from the lawyer Alexandros Kanellopoulos regarding the provisions and changes brought about by the law N.5090/24. The proceeds of the book will be used for financial support of comrade Alfredo Cospito.
During the event there will be a political poster exhibition from Greece and Italy & place with printed material (brochures, stickers, etc.).
Athens University of ASOEE Thursday, May 16 7 p.m.
Thessaloniki Anarchist Hangout Nadir Saturday, May 18 7 p.m.
Organization: Anarchist project Ragnarok https://ragnarok.squat.gr/
Anarchist Hangout Nadir https://anarxiko-steki-nadir.org/
Greece: On the eve of the Tempi disaster an Anti-Terrorist operation has been unleashed *updated*
The anti-terrorist attack on the eve of the Tempi*
An anti-terrorist operation has been carried out since this morning in various regions of Greece. Houses have been raided and at least eight people have been brought in. They are talking about arrests as they link it to the bank bombing in Petralona. It is “interesting” that they are linking all eight to the same case. Journalistic reports are non-existent as everyone is reproducing the paper the GADA is sending them.
Source: athens.indymedia
DN: Since Tuesday morning 27th February, a major operation of the Anti-Terrorism unit is underway. At least eight people have been brought to the GADA after operations in various areas of Athens and in two prisons in the region. One person arrested apparently has been in prison formerly for bank robbery and armed actions.
According to the same information, the arrests are related to the bomb attack that took place on 25th January at a bank in Petralona. Searches are also being conducted at the homes of the arrested persons. Searches of the prisons were conducted as the cops are accusing there being communication between the accused and people in prison.
Three days after the bombing, the new organisation ‘Conspiracy Vengeance‘ had claimed responsibility. The same anarchist group had also claimed responsibility for the grenade in the car of a prison officer now serving in Korydallos prison & for the attack on the house – offices of the company ERGOMAR of the well-known businessman Dimitris Marinelis.
We will provide more information as we receive it.
* DN Note:
On 28th February 2023, a head-on collision occurred between two trains south of the Tempe Valley in Greece, about halfway between the Greek towns of Tempi and Evangelismos in the Thessaly region. The collision involved a passenger train and a freight train, killing 57 people. It was discovered that the passenger train had been allowed to proceed on the wrong track and pass signals at danger despite the presence of the freight train on the same track. Protests and riots occurred throughout Greece following the accident. Beginning on 2nd March 2023, railway workers of Hellenic Train and the Athens Metro went on strike to protest the dangers related to the crash. Following the accident, Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned, taking responsibility for the crash and for his failure to bring Greek railways to 21st-century standards. I fthis was not enough it is still being covered upo to this day that the crash was the responsibility of many governments of the past, underfunding due to the extreme austerity measures placed on Greece after the 2007-2008 financial crisis, but also rampant corruption in infrastructure projects that continues even up to the present.
We would also like to point out that the Greek state and its security forces have a habit of unleashing military junta-esque anit-terrorist operations when they feel their backs are up against the wall, whether it is the rise in urban guerrilla activity or scandals that totally expose their true nature that everyone knows about, in attempt to distract from themselves.
*Update*
The Anti-Terrorist cops who conducted the searches of 4 prisoners cells and houses of other individuals have confirmed the repressive operation is connected to the organisation ‘Conspiracy Vengeance’. Six people have been arrested, along with the 4 already inside prison. Seizure of items at houses included assault rifles, hand guns and explosives. Mobile phones have been siezed in the cells of the prisoners.
The ten people are accused of participation and membership of a terrorist organisation, criminal support and provision of essential information, attempted murder, violence against officials and judicial persons, explosion, manufacture and possession of explosives, damage to foreign property and violation of weapons legislation.
Five particular attacks have been mentioned within the case already:
1. The sending a package with explosives to the Thessaloniki Courthouse, 12/02/2024.
2. An improvised explosive device at a bank branch in Petralona on 25/01/2024.
4. Throwing a grenade on 08/07/023 at a car owned by a prison officer in Haidari.
5. Throwing a grenade and exploding an improvised explosive device on 24/06/2023 in the yard of a house in Larissa.*
The ten accused will stand before the judges to make a plea on Sunday 3rd March.
Already the journalist vultures are circling, the slime media machine is in overdrive especially about the parcel bomb that was sent to the Thessaloniki court that was intended for the President of the Court of Appeal.
Nothing is over, everthing continues.
DN Note
* This is an attack that has not been claimed, that the authorities are claiming was a failed attack.
Thessaloniki, Greece: Responsibility claim for Parcel – Bomb to the President of the Court of Appeal Anastasia Anthopoulou by ‘Armed Response’
The work of the judicial officials is clearly aimed at torturing and impoverishing all prisoners and in general all those who unfortunately have to face their fate.
Judges, prosecutors, appellants, all together have for years created a closed group of torturers, of course with the help and complicity of the governments of the day.
Especially in recent years with the Mitsotakis government, they have been leading the country in the path of the junta and repression. The decisions made in the courtrooms and in their offices are clearly vindictive and inhumane for the people. The scum who bear the “title” of president, supreme court of appeal, etc., are the ones who give the orders to seize the homes of people with health problems, the elderly, and those facing financial crisis.
They are the ones who judge at will how long people will sit in prison, regardless of evidence and proof, because they only like to make vengeful decisions at their own so-called discretion and administer their own “justice”, without considering anyone or anything.
They think they are in a higher class of people and that they can play with everyone’s lives. Their direct connections to high level cops and politicians place them in a context of self-empowerment and corruption with no checks and balances from anyone. They sign and arrange laws for their corrupt “friends”, they give orders for surveillance of people for personal gain.
A huge chapter is about prisoners and the constant tightening of sentences, of course with some exceptions that only serve “their own”. Extensive sentences, the various provisions that are imposed overnight as it suits them, lead prisoners to the daily battle for survival in miserable conditions.
When it comes to people of their own clique, by cover-ups and short procedures, they are relieved of any responsibility. A typical example is the disaster in Tempe, where all the scum – responsible for the tragedy – continue their lives as normal. The then Transport Minister Karamanlis and his appointed minions, with the help of judges and prosecutors, have been absolved of all responsibility. The ‘famous’ friends of the Mitsotakis government, the rapists and pedophiles, Lignadis, Filippidis etc., are partially acquitted or are given the benefit of the doubt, so that they can continue their perverted work by being acquitted. On the contrary, for all those who do not belong to their debased rotten circle, the application of their laws transcends all vindictiveness. Continue reading “Thessaloniki, Greece: Responsibility claim for Parcel – Bomb to the President of the Court of Appeal Anastasia Anthopoulou by ‘Armed Response’”
Greece: Student protests and molotov attacks due to the state announcment for privatisation of universities
Recordings from the university marches in Athens & Thessaloniki with the participation of thousands of students against the bill for private universities, on Thursday 18 January 2024.
Thessaloniki, Greece: Responsibility claim for a raid on a MAT (riot cop) bus
The constant distortion of reality by the authorities and their sycophants everywhere.
On 22/10/2021 the 18 year old Roma Nikos Sampanis was shot with 36 bullets by the uniformed scum of the DIAS unit (motorcycle cops) in the area of Perama. This was preceded by the torture of Vassilis Maggos, which led to his death, followed by the rape at the Omonia Police Station, while on 22/09/2022 16-year-old Michalis was dragged and abandoned by an police vehicle in Ampelokipi in Thessaloniki, resulting in him breathing his last breath in hospital.
A little over a year after the murder of Sampanis, the 16-year-old Roma Kostas Fragoulis was murdered in Diavata, Thessaloniki on 05/06/2022 with a bullet in the head by a cop of the DIAS unit as he committed the crime of not paying for twenty euros worth of petrol.
On 11/11/2023 shortly before midnight after a chase, the cops once again murdered a Roma minor, 17-year-old Christos Michalopoulos. Two and a half months before, Kostas Manioudakis has left his last breath due to a beating by cops of the Souda police station during a random check. One month after the murder of Michalopoulos, a cop beats and abandons 19-year-old Ayse in the city of Xanthi, killing her.
To these incidents we could add countless beatings, torture, murders, all carried out by the police and silenced by the judiciary and the media.
In the few cases when police violence cannot be hidden, the mouthpieces of the state apparatus are quick to present the obvious as an isolated incident, that it was a bad moment or that the cops were in self-defense or that justice will be decided at a later stage.
It is worth mentioning that they try to throw tons of mud at the murdered person. Whether it is the criminal record, the social group to which they belong, or their political beliefs are emphasised over and over again, implying, where they do not say it outright, that it is a good thing the cop’s hand pulled the trigger. The presentation of the cop-killer is diametrically opposed. A family man with children, hard working for the safety of the citizens, with a social contribution, particularly beloved by the rest of the gang (“Hellenic Police”).
The media narrative changes the times when social revolt erupts and targets the perpetrators of so many murders. Suddenly the value of human life has become the ultimate good and the justly targeted uniformed killers become heroes wounded in the line of duty and unfairly targeted. Those who experience state and capitalist violence in their own skin and at times respond combatively to it are portrayed as brutal criminals with murderous intent.
To the apologists of the police: you and those who settle for the fairy tale you are selling are ridiculous low lives without a shred of dignity and morality.
To put it clearly and succinctly there is no room for doubt, the Greek police operate as a gang of armed potential murderers with complete impunity.
In this context we chose to carry out a raid with Molotov cocktails on 07/12/23 on the MAT (riot cops) bus on Agiou Dimitriou Street at the height of the Agricultural School in Thessaloniki. Continue reading “Thessaloniki, Greece: Responsibility claim for a raid on a MAT (riot cop) bus”
Thessaloniki, Greece: Solidarity Posters for Comrades in Chile – Squat Nadir
These are the new posters from anarchist squat Nadir about comrades in Chile:
1. Francisco Solar Domínguez and Monica Caballero Sepulveda
https://anarxiko-steki-nadir.org/?p=2121
https://anarxiko-steki-nadir.org/en/?p=2121/
2. Lucas and Aldo Hernández Valdés
https://anarxiko-steki-nadir.org/?p=2116
https://anarxiko-steki-nadir.org/en/?p=2116/
Keep strong