The criminalization of poverty and the resistance in the case of the Tsouvalaki brothers.

Tuesday 1st of September 2010. For the theft of two laptops and a few mobile phone batteries of small value, from shops of a large company, “repeated thefts, occupation thieve and by habit”, the court of appeals of athens gave a sentence of 6 years to Nikolaos Tsouvalakis, who according to defence witnesses has the responsibility of taking care of his sick brother and his other three brothers that are locked in psychiatric clinics, and 4 years To Theodoros Tsouvalakis, who has 67% disability from a stroke he had in 2000 and can barely take care of himself, with the mitigation of “good behaviour after the action”. According to the decision the two brothers have to serve the sentences given to them. Nikolaos Tsouvalakis returned to Trikala prisons were he has been kept for 20 months now, while disabled Theodoros was taken to Hania prisons despite the decision of the first court to postpone his sentence of 7 years until the second court. Since friday august 20th N.ikos Tsouvalakis is on hunger strike in Trikala prisons protesting the justice procedures and for the granting of his demand to be moved to Agia prisons in Hania, to be near his brother. Note that his organism is worn down he has high blood pressure and suffers from respiratory problems and the decision to absent from food is dangerous for his life. Nikos Tsouvalakis belongs in the category of citizens that resist. On 22/4/2009 he wrote to the superior of the prosecutors of appeals of athens, a year ago: -Society is not in danger from me, its in danger from the governing parties, who as you can see, the social decadence, corruption and the jungle of violence that have become the regime and the theft and criminal self interest and repeated fraud by the political and economical mafia of the country remain in the penal unaffected, despite the fact that they wasted and looted, with their quarrels and the vicious “pimps”, all the budgets and public money-. During his imprisonment in korridalos he did three hunger strikes: two for the barbaric prison conditions and one in solidarity with the imprisoned (from the december 2008 events) Thodori Iliopoulos. The initiative for the rights of prisoners supports the demand of the brothers to serve their sentence in the same prison and near their family environment. It is self evident, just like its self evident the state will restore the injustices against the poor and unprotected people. The case of the Tsouvalaki brothers comes to confirm the passage from the state of welfare to a state of punishment as well as the position of prison in the new directory of disgust for the intensification of detention for socially outcast workers. The hunger strike is the ultimate resistance to a system that criminalizes poverty and leads the prisoners to annihilation.