Solidarity gathering Monday 1st of November,Appeals Court, Athens

SOLIDARITY GATHERING TO THE PERSECUTED FOR THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE CASE AND TH THE HUNGER STRIKERS FROM OCTOBER 9th K.GOURNAS & N.MAZIOTIS -MONDAY 1/11/10, 10am, LIONTARIA SQUARE HERAKLEIO, CRETE SOLIDAIRITY ASSEMBLY TO THE IMPRISONED FIGHTERS NEXT MEETING 1/11/10 -8pm EUAGGELISMOS SQUAT

Letter from Maria Beraha On monday 25th of October the special interrogator D.Mokkas sent me “CALL OF ACCUSED” to testify on monday 1st of November “for the punishable act of entering as a member in the terrorist organization named “REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE” the same call was also received by Nikos Malapanis, who happens to be our best man... Kostas Gournas, who together with Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis has taken the political responsibility for participating in the Revolutionary Organization “Revolutionary Struggle” (while their co-accused V.Stathopoulos, S.Nikitopoulos, Ch.Kortesis deny participation), is my partner and father of our two 22month old children. My partner, after being tortured in gada (greek police h/q), following his arrest, was imprisoned in Trikala prisons. Since october 9th he is on hunger strike in koridallos prisons, together with N.Maziotis (while other prisoners in solidarity deny prison food) demanding the self evident: to remain in athens where his family lives. Today (28/10/10) he is on the 20th day on hunger strike in critical condition in the hospital with Nikos Maziotis. A war is going on inside the “walls”, in the attempt of the state to put the imprisoned fighters in a hostage regime with all means. The attempt of extermination of my partner “roams” around the outside of the “walls” as well by trying to put the family in a suffocating psychological shackle. The pressure that Kostas receives towards the attitude he has kept is clearly vengeful. The terrorism applied to comrades and relatives is also vengeful. I will not apologize to anyone for my life and why I chose Kostas as my partner and father of our children. I will not apologize for scenarios that have been made up about me. For the authorities, possibly and based on, solely, our political family relations we could all be “members” of “R.S.” let there be a full stop to the persecutions that come out of these relations. Patience has its limits... Maria Beraha 28/10/10

1st of November


Kostas Gournas (and with him Nikos Maziotis) is forced to go on a long hunger strike, in order to be moved to koridallos prisons, where is co-accused are imprisoned, so he can see his baby children.
And the amazing: Instead of the authorities satisfying this, as they should, the vital demand, they charge his wife Maria Beraha and his best man Nikos Malapanis without any evidence at all -with the full meaning of that phrase. If this is not blackmail vengeance and pitiness, than words have lost all meaning.
Maybe though the most worrying of all the first seen are the dozens of calls the last few days for questioning to anarchists and family friends of the accused is literally a factory of calls, which has nothing to do with the interrogative job of evidence collection for the case but is exclusively a show of power of of the repressive mechanisms, operation to scare the anarchist movement and mainly, applying the fascist authority of “collective responsibility”,for the time in the public sphere against a legal political movement as we (consider) the anarchist is.
Hands of the fighters N.Malapanis and M.Beraha
Solidarity to the hunger strikers -members of R.S., Nikos Maziotis and Kostas Gournas.
Solidarity gathering
Monday 1^st of November,Appeals Court, Athens
Comrades from athens, theassoniki and comrades from inside the prisons

 Text from Nikos Malapanis concerning his call by the special appeals interrogator
30/10/10

And now solidarity is being persecuted...


On Monday 1^st of November I am called to present myself before the special appeals interrogator K.Baltas, as one accused for “the punishable action of integration in a terrorist organisation called Revolutionary Struggle”. Lately many individuals of the anarchist/antiauthoritarian movement from the wider friendship and comrade circle of those arrested, have been called as witnesses for the same case.
Since six fighters were arrested on the 10^th of April, three of whom deny participation in Revolutionary Struggle, a repressive attack has begun that, based on silence, is unfolding more and more. The fact that at this moment I'm in the forefront shows, once again and more indirectly, how arbitrarily and in no way accidentally the repressive mechanisms move. In the forefront is an entire movement including those who fight or express their solidarity.
For 15 years I have belonged to the part of those that fight against the intensifying oppression and terrorizing of society. What we named the “coming treaty of totalitarianism” is seediness as a form of everyday routine and fear as a form of existence. It is what in the middle of a crisis (I.M.F., austerity measures, new antiterrorist law) they are now trying to apply to me and my comrades.
I am known to the persecutory authorities, having been arrested for my political action in the past. Part of this action was always solidarity to imprisoned fighters, because of which I have also been portrayed and targeted in the case of those arrested for Revolutionary Struggle. The message is clear. The comrades that deny the charges are in underground cells with the only evidence their political action and comradely relations, which they have never denied, with Pola Roupa, Nikos Maziotis and Kostas Gournas as well as with Lambros Foundas. The experiment is considered successful so is now being applied to more people. My prosecution, therefore, is clearly political and vengeful. It is for the awareness and conformity of those who still choose to fight, those who are ready to take the decision to fight.
Today they are clearly persecuting solidarity, comradeship, dignity. And the mechanisms smile at us ironically. With as my only weapon dignity, resistance and solidarity I walk and I will walk.
Finally, I express my solidarity to my bridesmaid and friend, mother of two children Maria Beracha, who is persecuted along with me. Also, my friendship and solidarity to Kostas Gournas and Nikos Maziotis, on hunger strike from the 9^th of October in order to break the regime of isolation so that Kostas Gournas can be near his family.


In the face of these prosecutions we will come out stronger.
I know, because
SOLIDARITY IS OUR WEAPON


Nikos Malapanis 


boubourAs translation acforfreedomnow! 

Thursday, October 28, 2010

a ghost is floating above the city... TERROR LAW 3 After the terror law 1 and 2 comes the most awaited 3rd part of the trilogy... “state corruption reaches the top” “Strong excitements, mass arrests” “now with anonymous testimonies” YOU TOO CAN BECOME THE NEXT “TERRORIST”... Soon in the streets near you

Public announcement concerning the mass calls and interrogations in the frame of the “anti”-terrorist campaign:

The same moment that the imprisonment of the three anarchists (Sarantos Nikitopoulos, Vaggellis Stathopoulos, Christoforos Kortesis), who are accused of participation in the revolutionary organisation “Revolutionary Struggle” without any evidence is extended, as well as the three fighters (Panagiota Roupa, Nikos Maziotis, Kostas Gournas) who have taken the political responsibility for their participation in “Revolutionary Struggle”, The same moment that Kostas Gournas, is in an advanced phase of hunger strike, since the 13th of October (with the support of prisoners, with hunger strikes and prison food denial), while the juridical mechanism denies his transfer from Trikala prisons to koridalos prisons, keeping him far from his family, The same moment that the imprisonment of anarchist Aris Seirinidis is extended, with an official charge unheard of and supported by the scientifically unfounded and juggling method of DNA analysis, The same moment that the state and bosses start the most barbaric postwar economic and ideological attack against society, having equiped and educated an enormous police-antisocial army, The judges call in the masses for interrogation, people from the social environment of the imprisoned, their relatives and politically active anarchists, without a specified subject of investigation, other than a general mention of the “anti”- terrorist law , (“we call you to be questioned as a witness for the Par.b 187 A P.K [greek antiterrorist laws official name]), without naming in the calls and during the interrogations the invoking clues of personal relations with the defendants or relations with Revolutionary Struggle. Precisely as they called the fighters to police stations after the civil war and in the dictatorship “they guessed”. The interrogations had been announced in advance in an article of newspaper “to Vima” (the stand), which fulfils at influx the propaganda of the provocative scenarios of the cops, spearing the big part of the journalistic world that serves the organisms of government owned terrorism. The interrogative operation seeks the intimidation of a political movement and a social space and the beam measuring of its relations, its reflexes and the attitude of those who fight, in the direction of generalised penalization based on the special laws and in the direction of the diffusion of suspiciousness and of destruction. Indicative it is that the questions concerned the social relations, elements of the personal life and the political opinions of those called. With this frame it invests in the stigmatization of those called for interrogation, The same moment that the indirect tortures of anarchist Simos Seisidis is continued, who is kept, being amputated in one leg, after he was shot in the back by a cop, from a distance of smaller than one metre and moreover being accused of a case of the “anti” - terrorist law also supported by the method of DNA analysis. The same moment that the murderers of immigrant Mochamed Kamran Atiff, which were tortured to death in the police station of Nikea in October 2009, continue to “work” the same posts. The same moment that the executioners of working immigrant N.Tonti, who was murdered by the police with fifteen bullets in February 2010 in Byronas area (athens), are around still armed. Terrorism will not pass. Some of the called “as witnesses for the Par.b 187 A P.K” Solidarity is our weapon.  boubourAs translation acforfreedomnow.

Cambridge Anarchists u.k.

Anarchy, Bank Robbery & Prison Revolt in Greece (Film showing)

Join us for a showing of two new English-language released films about the insurrectionary situation in Greece. “The Story of a Bank Robbery” is about anarchist comrade Giannis Dimitrakis’s capture and trial by the state as a part of an alleged international group of rebels financing revolutionary projects by expropriating the expropriators! “Prison World” explores the 2007 prisoners revolt in Greece sparked by the beating of a now imprisoned Giannis by screws.
7pm Sunday 31st October at The Hut, 3 Fletchers Terrace, Cambridge (off Mill Road)
There will also be info about current struggles & hopefully lively discussion!
# # # #
Athens, 16 January 2005: A bank robbery is disturbed by a zealous security guard, which leads to the capture of anarchist Giannis (John) Dimitrakis.
For the police, Giannis is a member of the gang of the “robbers in black”, suspected to have been involved in a dozen bank-robberies to fund anarchist projects. Giannis was shot and arrested during the robbery and convicted to a 25-year sentence.
At the start of November 2009, in Greece, the Ministry for Citizen Protection set a price of 600,000 euros on the heads of the rest of the gang, at the same time arguing that they are not only robbers but also members of terrorist groups.
In the morning of Monday, April 23, 2007, prisoners at the prison of Malandrino in Fokida, mainland Greece, revolted. The spark igniting the revolt was the beating of anarchist prisoner Giannis Dimitrakis as well as the vicious, violent response of the guards to the protests staged by his co-prisoners. The revolt spread to at least 11 other prisons and lasted for 4 days.

SHAC activists convicted and imprisoned (UK)

http://bristolabc.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/update-on-shac-prisoners/

On 25th October six British SHAC campaigners were convicted on charges related to their role in the campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences. Alfie Fitzpatrick was given a 12 month sentence suspended for 2 years. Sarah Whitehead received 6 years. Nicole Vosper received 3 and a half years. Thomas Harris received 4 years. Nicola Tapping received 15 months. Jason Mullen received 3 years.
Please send urgent letters of support to:

Sarah Whitehead VM7684
HMP Bronzefield
Woodthorpe Road
Ashford
Middx
TW15 3JZ
England
Nicole Vosper VM9385
HMP Bronzefield
Woodthorpe Road
Ashford
Middx
TW15 3JZ
England
Thomas Harris
HMP Winchester
Romsey Road
Winchester
Hampshire
SO22 5DF
England
Nicola Tapping
HMP Bronzefield
Woodthorpe Road
Ashford
Middx
TW15 3JZ
England
Jason Mullen
HMP Winchester
Romsey Road
Winchester
Hampshire
SO22 5DF
England

COMRADES DENY TO BE EXAMENED

Solidarity gathering at hospital canceled, The gathering today at the “Laiko” hospital is canceld that was called in solidarity with the two hunger strikers Kostas Gournas and Nikos Maziotis, who together with Pola Roupa have taken the political responsibility for Revolutionary Struggle. The two comrades who were transferred to the hospital because of the seriousness of their situation, demanded the exams take place without the antiterrorist cops inside the room of the hospital. The head of the hospital as well as the doctors of the pathology department of Laiko hospital denied to exam the two comrades without the cops inside the room (!!!) resulting in the two fighters denying to do the exams and were returned to koridallos prisons. Discussion about the above tonight at 19.00 at the Polytechnic (gini) building.

Update on Simos Seisidis situation

29/10/10 Ten days ago Simos put on his artificial leg (c-leg) which was bought for 37.000 euro with the contribution of the whole movement. It takes a few months until he learns how to use it perfectly. The court case of the shooting has closed. The prosecutor was in a hurry to get rid of it... She didnt even wait for the coroners report on the amputated leg that was ordered FIVE MONTHS AGO and is delayed for an “unknown” reason (not at all unknown, we already know it...) On the 19th and 24th of November are two trials for the same case: the seven robberies in the case of “the robbers in black”. He was sentenced for that to 7,5 years without showing up to court during the time he was outlawed. He was sentenced even for what GIANNIS DIMITRAKIS WAS FOUND INNOCENT OF. On the 19th is the trial to cancel the first trial, and on the 24th is the appeals court (if the canceling is not excepted).

Arson attack on info shop

Neo-Nazis are suspected to be behind an arson attack on Berlin's oldest info shop. On the same night fascist graffiti was sprayed on several left wing projects in the same area.

Arson Attack on M99 Infoshop in Berlin

At around 3 am on Tuesday morning (27.10.10) an arson attack was carried out on Berlin's oldest remaining infoshop, M99 in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. The arsonists were able to escape, despite being seen by several witnesses. A fireman at the scene commented that if neighbours had not already begun to try to extinguish the flames, or if fire services had arrived a minute later, the whole residential building would have burned down.

Luckily no one was injured, but at least one flat above the shop will be uninhabitable for some time. It is hoped that the shop will be able to open provisorily.

Fascists are suspected of the arson, as several other left-wing projects nearby were daubed with neo-Nazi graffiti on the same night, including the Red Stuff shop just around the corner.
This was not the last piece of bad news for the shop. Building inspectors will be visiting today and as the new owners of the building (Berlin Property GmbH) and the property managers (David) want to get the shop out, they will be hoping this will provide them with the opportuity. Both have a history of semi-legal evictions of tennents in order to sell off the apartments.
And yesterday the shop was raided by the police for the 52nd time.

Berlin

a ghost is floating above the city... TERROR LAW 3 After the terror law 1 and 2 comes the most awaited 3rd part of the trilogy... “state corruption reaches the top” “Strong excitements, mass arrests” “now with anonymous testimonies” YOU TOO CAN BECOME THE NEXT “TERRORIST”... Soon in the streets near you

Arrests in Xanthi for arson attempt |north Greece} 28/10/10 two were arrested and one more is wanted. Early this morning two people were arrested while they tried to burn the stand for the officials that was set up for the parade today. The cops say they found gasoline and flares on them.

Kostas Gournas and Nikos Maziotis are taken to “Laiko” hospital athens.

Kostas Gournas and Nikos Maziotis are taken to “Laiko” hospital athens. Both of them have been on hunger strike for many days. Kostas started and Nikos followed in support. The two accused of participation in the organization are being treated, already, in koridallos prisons and on wednesday night the doctors judged, with the agreement of the prosecutor, they had to be moved to the hospital. Both are well in their health.

Public announcement concerning the mass calls and interrogations in the frame of the “anti”-terrorist campaign:

The same moment that the imprisonment of the three anarchists (Sarantos Nikitopoulos, Vaggellis Stathopoulos, Christoforos Kortesis), who are accused of participation in the revolutionary organisation “Revolutionary Struggle” without any evidence is extended, as well as the three fighters (Panagiota Roupa, Nikos Maziotis, Kostas Gournas) who have taken the political responsibility for their participation in “Revolutionary Struggle”, The same moment that Kostas Gournas, is in an advanced phase of hunger strike, since the 13th of October (with the support of prisoners, with hunger strikes and prison food denial), while the juridical mechanism denies his transfer from Trikala prisons to koridalos prisons, keeping him far from his family, The same moment that the imprisonment of anarchist Aris Seirinidis is extended, with an official charge unheard of and supported by the scientifically unfounded and juggling method of DNA analysis, The same moment that the state and bosses start the most barbaric postwar economic and ideological attack against society, having equiped and educated an enormous police-antisocial army, The judges call in the masses for interrogation, people from the social environment of the imprisoned, their relatives and politically active anarchists, without a specified subject of investigation, other than a general mention of the “anti”- terrorist law , (“we call you to be questioned as a witness for the Par.b 187 A P.K [greek antiterrorist laws official name]), without naming in the calls and during the interrogations the invoking clues of personal relations with the defendants or relations with Revolutionary Struggle. Precisely as they called the fighters to police stations after the civil war and in the dictatorship “they guessed”. The interrogations had been announced in advance in an article of newspaper “to Vima” (the stand), which fulfils at influx the propaganda of the provocative scenarios of the cops, spearing the big part of the journalistic world that serves the organisms of government owned terrorism. The interrogative operation seeks the intimidation of a political movement and a social space and the beam measuring of its relations, its reflexes and the attitude of those who fight, in the direction of generalised penalization based on the special laws and in the direction of the diffusion of suspiciousness and of destruction. Indicative it is that the questions concerned the social relations, elements of the personal life and the political opinions of those called. With this frame it invests in the stigmatization of those called for interrogation, The same moment that the indirect tortures of anarchist Simos Seisidis is continued, who is kept, being amputated in one leg, after he was shot in the back by a cop, from a distance of smaller than one metre and moreover being accused of a case of the “anti” - terrorist law also supported by the method of DNA analysis. The same moment that the murderers of immigrant Mochamed Kamran Atiff, which were tortured to death in the police station of Nikea in October 2009, continue to “work” the same posts. The same moment that the executioners of working immigrant N.Tonti, who was murdered by the police with fifteen bullets in February 2010 in Byronas area (athens), are around still armed. Terrorism will not pass. Some of the called “as witnesses for the Par.b 187 A P.K” Solidarity is our weapon.  boubourAs translation acforfreedomnow.

Greece - Solidarity to Kostas Gournas, member of Revolutionary Struggle on hunger strike since 9 October

http://actionforliberty.tk

http://actionforliberty.wordpress.com/
15 10 2010
NOT ALONE
Kostas Gournas, member of Revolutionary Struggle and on remand in Trikala Prison, began a hunger strike on 9 October with the 'outrageous' claim be transferred to Korydallos prison in order to see his 22-month-old twin children.
The vindictiveness of the State against both the defendants in the Revolutionary Struggle case and more generally those who challenge and resist bourgeois legitimacy is a given (with many examples over the years). The State also makes a point of punishing the children of fighters more. Finally, we are aware that the "legal culture" only affects those who move within the boundaries of bourgeois legality, e.g. Christoforakos of the Siemens case, etc.
From the first time the State has opted for the six comrades of the Revolutionary Struggle case to be dispersed in various jails of the country with the clear objective of making it difficult for them to have contact with their lawyers about their case, and to isolate them from their families and co-defendants.
We express our full solidarity with the hunger striker Kostas Gournas, claiming that risking one's life is the most obvious right of any detained person in order to be close to home so as to facilitate contact with his family.
As Action for Freedom we demand that all prisoners in the case be transferred to the prison of Korydallos in order to facilitate contact with their families and with their lawyers in order to prepare for trial.
Abolish the system of quarantine imposed on Nikos Maziotis and Sarantos Nikitopoulos in the underground F Wing of Korydallos Prison
Solidarity is our weapon
ACTION FOR LIBERTY

SOLIDARITY BANNER IN PATRAS

DOWN THE HANDS FROM K. GOYRNAS!
HUNGER STRIKE FROM 9 OCTOMBER
OUR SOLIDARITY IS OUR WEAPON!
SOLIDARITY TO THE 6 FOR THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE!
ipposd.wordpress.com/





IN SOLIDARITY WITH COMRADE K. GOURNAS  NIKOS MAZIOTIS ON HUNGER STRIKE! TO.
As of 9/10 we are not accepting the prison food of the prisons we are in, in solidarity to anarchist comrade Kostas Gournas who is on hunger strike.
We stand even in this symbolic way next to the comrades struggle to remain in koridallos prisons, abolish the isolation situation for his family and political environment that is essentially being imposed with his imprisonment in trikala prisons.
Michalis Traikapis
Alexandros Kosivas
Aris Sirinidis
Christos Stratigopoulos
Giannis Dimitrakis

Double fascist attack in Rethymno and Larissa on Sunday 24th of october

http://en.contrainfo.espiv.net/2010/10/28/double-fascist-attack-in-rethymno-and-larissa-on-sunday-24th-of-october/

They don't frighten us, they make us angry

On Sunday morning of the 24^th of October, around 1 am, a fire erupted in the self-managed haunt in the University of Rethymno (Crete). All the indications point that it was an arson caused by neo-Nazi scams, as a pile of flammable materials was gathered in the middle of the space to facilitate the set up of the fire and fascist slogans were written on the wall. The University of Rethymno is under occupation by the students, against the meeting of the university rectors and the upcoming educational reform. Though the fascist tags do not indicate a specific neo-Nazi group, all the suspicions fall upon O.E.P. (Organization of Nationalists of Rethymno), since the latter has a long history of attacks against comrades, immigrants and youngsters and a strong presence (along with cover by the cops) in the city of Rethymno, every time that is needed by the authorities a reactionary response against the wider left/anarchist movement.
On Sunday night of 24/10/2010, in Larissa city, right before midnight, there was a fascist attack at a convenient store owned by immigrants. Four persons armed with blackjacks (riot sticks) and broken bottles attacked the two employees and stall their cell phones and also money from the cash register. The cashier injured in the head was transferred to the hospital, while one of the attackers was immobilized and handed to the police by the immigrants. 20 comrades arrived in the place of the attack, spoke with the immigrants and landed a spontaneous small scale demonstration at the police station where the neo-Nazi was held. A week before the attack, the outer lights of the shop were broken and slogans of racial hate were written on the front under the tag of “Xrysh Avgh” (Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi organization active in Greece). The arrested neo-Nazi is a minor of 17 years old.
There is no doubt that in this crucial historical moment of the ongoing social war in Greece, the neo-Nazis try to climax their action, influence a wider part of the Greek society and rise up as a competitive force in the fields of social struggle. Towards this threat, locals and immigrants, we organize ourselves by all means necessary and hunt them back to their filthy shitholes.
On Tuesday 26 of October an antifascist demonstration took place in the city of Rethymno. Around 250 people participated marching through the center of the city and protesting against the neo-Nazi attack.

Call for anti-fascist demo as a first answer to the arson attack on the self-organized steki of Rethimno University by fascists. island of greece

THEY DO NOT FRIGHTEN US THEY INFURIATE US Where the hand of the state cannot reach, the fascists hand does. The arson attack on saturday 23d of october in the self-organized steki of the university will not remain unanswered. ANTIFASCHIST DEMONSTRATION TUESDAY 26th OF OCTOBER 2010 RETHIMNO TOWN HALL 18.00 NO TOLERANCE TO THE FASCHIST GANGS AND THE PARA-STATE FASCHISTS BACK TO YOUR HOLES Self-organized steki of rethimno university/ contra banda krete island greece Announcement of the Coordinative of Occupation of the Higher.Education.Institutions of Rethimno 25th october 2010 “After a General Assembly of students from all faculties in the University of Rethimno the decision was taken for fighting mobilisations (occupation, events and demonstrations) in view of the meeting of the deans on the promoted reform in education, remainder of the imposition of a memorandum. The attendance of students exceeded all precedent and it proved that students do not haggle the dissolution of the public university. The minister chose to keep the students far away using the repression of police and the para-state. The demo of student asossiations, that had decided to demonstrate all the way to the hotel where the assembly of deans was taking place, was interrupted violently and anti-democratically by the riot cops. Against the mass action of the student movement, the mechanisms of the para-state acted in a provocative way, setting up homemade explosive device in the self-organized steki that is in the occupied university. In the area of the university at that time there were members of the student association, that by chance were saved from the splinters of the explosion. From the fire the whole space was destroyed, while it is characteristic of the fascist mentality of the perpetrators that the library and the archival material was used to start the fire. Leaving, the perpetrators left their signature (neo-nazi symbols) in the space of attack. This attack did not only aim at the self-organized steki. It aimed at the asylum, the occupation as a means of fight and the entire student movement. It is an attempt to terrorize the movement, academic community and local society. Such actions, however, do not terrorize the student movement, but on the contrary coils it makes it more dynamic, decisive and militant. We call the students to take part in the general assembly of all faculties Monday at 14.00 in the D3. We call all the people to the demo that will take place on Tuesday 26/10/10 at 18.00 at the Town hall of Rethimno.” Coordinative of Occupation of the Higher.Education.Institutions of Rethimno

Detention conditions in Greece for migrants are frequently "inhuman" due to "filthy overcrowded detention facilities", poor police training and a huge spike in arrivals, a UN official said Wednesday, calling for EU assistance.

United Nations special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak also said he had received "consistent" allegations of police beatings, and that at one Athens precinct, police kept a hard line on migrants for fear of far-right militants.
"The time has come for urgent measures to fundamentally restructure the whole way of how asylum seekers and migrants are dealt with," Nowak told a news conference at the end of a 10-day mission to Greece.
"I appeal to the European Union, and the Commission in particular, to assist the government... they are in need of very substantial financial and technical assistance so that the crisis can be solved," he said.
The UN fact-finding mission visited five prisons, nine police stations, two border stations, three migrant detention centres and three hospitals.
In most cases, it recorded severe overcrowding at both jails and police stations. Some police detention cells, where migrants can be kept for up to two weeks, sleeping on benches or on the floor, were so overcrowded and filthy that the UN mission had difficulty breathing, the UN rapporteur said.
"Very often, I was told that cleaning personnel do not dare any more go into these filthy overcrowded detention facilities," Nowak said. "The hygienic conditions are simply indescribable."
At the detention cells of Athens International Airport -- which were built to house 18 people in groups of two -- the mission found 88 detainees. As only two bathrooms are available, the detainees regularly urinate in bottles.
"This is by itself inhuman," Nowak said.
To improve conditions, the UN official said asylum procedures ought to be transferred to civil authorities and that the health ministry should be placed in charge of health care in prisons and police facilities.
He also called for the establishment of an independent police complaints commission to investigate claims of abuse.
According to Greek figures sent to the UN, from 2003 to 2007 only one officer was dismissed out of 238 police ill-treatment investigations, he said.
"We found persons with injuries too afraid to allow a forensic examination, too afraid to speak even," Nowak said. "That is a very negative signal."
But police say they also feel pressured into a hard line, he said.
In one Athens district with a high migrant population that has seen frequent clashes and attacks on foreigners, high-level officers said they felt "at risk" from far-right groups and could not afford to be seen as soft, Nowak said.
About 300-400 persons enter Greece illegally every day, not counting those returned by other European Union states under current EU migration regulations, known as the Dublin II system, Nowak said.
The police this week said they had caught more than 96,000 irregular migrants in the first nine months of the year, and that arrests on the Greek-Turkish border had spiked by nearly 400 percent compared to the equivalent period last year.
The authorities attribute the increase to the success of Greek-EU patrols in patrolling the waters around Aegean Sea islands which were hitherto used by people smugglers to land migrants.
In recent years Greece has had one of Europe's lowest asylum approval rates, with only 0.9 percent of applications accepted.
© ANP/AFP

WORKING AND LIVING BY THE SWEAT OF OUR BROW!
We sell things on the street because we don’t have an alternative way of making a living.
No work is refused in order for us to make a living.
These people that you see on the street , these people that you keep harassing, are people who are familiar with most trades and professions.
Even though we are only vagrant street vendors, we are the ones paying for the houses that were had locked up for a long time, houses crying for a human presence.
A house can’t live by itself. It needs souls, it needs lives.
Water, power, telephone, means of transport and everything else we need to live are not for free.
You will never see one of us involved in affairs of the night and the underworld.
We are honest people, very sociable and open to everyone and everything.
We have obligations, but we also have rights.
We are only asking for understanding and tolerance.
Immigrant street vendors

IN GREECE
I arrive in GREECE in the morning, at 7 o’clock. The GREEK police took us to a camp. This camp was very dirty I have been in this for 23 days.
After 23 days the police sent me to another camp witch was for minors refugees. The director of this camp told me it was full and that I must go to ATHENS.
Then I went to ATHENS but I had just enough money for the ticket and nothing for the hotel. When I reached ATHENS I only had 7 euros. I saw that in ATHENS there was a lot of refugees who were sleeping in the parks. I slept one night with them and after I left ATHENS to PATRAS.
I arrived in PATRAS with my 7 euros. I found that PATRAS was like ATHENS. I have been in PATRAS for 3 months. Most of the nights I had to look for food in the bins because I had nothing. In PATRAS all refugees wanted to go forward but the police didn’t let us go.
After 3 months I came back to ATHENS and then I went to the camp for minors. We were sometimes more than 200 minors there. There I have been for 9 months I became lazy because we only ate and slept . Nevertheless I learnt German and Greek. Sometimes I went by foot to the beach, near Mytilini – 9 hours’ walk. I had no money for the bus. I didn’t have any future there. I found work for 3 months harvesting oranges. With the money I spared, I paid 500 euros to a smuggler and I had 200 euros left.
Then I went again to PATRAS and I succeeded to cross to ITALY


Recently, fascist and nationalist violence has been on the rise once again in the wider area of Ayios Panteleimonas. From September 11th to September 14th, fascist gangs used the cover of some locals and the police to attack, beat and stab migrants and to smash up their shops. Yet the migrants don’t retreat. They defend their lives, they crouch together and defend against far-right attacks and pogroms. Ahead of the [local municipality] elections the far-right is intensifying its shouting against migrants who “steal our jobs” and “are responsible for the crisis”. At the same time [the far-right parliamentary party] LAOS is voting in favour of the IMF agreement while organised gangs support the “average greek tradesman” – that is, the same person who has for years now exploited their employees, whether local or not.

• are supplied by the state

The “citizen protectors” arrest, beat up, torture and arrest injured migrants. The local police station enforces the policy of the state and its bosses against the migrants. A policy which names endless policing as “citizen protection” and equates “organised crime” with “petty thieves”. A policy creating migrant detention centres, spills blood on the borders of the EU and names “illegal” all those forced away from their places.

• they’re sharpened by mass media and the national body

Mass media, regularly hiding away reality, present the groups of neo-nazis, macho greeks, racists and descendants of nazi collaborators as “groups of enraged locals”. They hide away racist pogroms, the stabbing of migrants and police violence and they instead project “a suffocating situation” and “increased crime rates”.
In the midst of the crisis they continue to target migrants as a “national threat to health, national order and security”. They are moulding a national body on behalf of those who sit on our necks, perpetuating national divides, racism and xenophobia.

Common Struggles by locals and migrants

Us locals and migrants must find common ground to breach national unity, to create embankments, to fight together against all sorts of fascists, the attack launched by the state and bosses, the contempt for our lives.

Video about the immigrants and the fascist attacks in Greece

Video-documentary from the Norwegian state media channel about the fascist attacks and the experiences of immigrants in Greece and especially in central Athens. The video exposes the difficulties and the brutality that the immigrants experience by the Greek state and some fascists living in Athens.
Nevertheless, we don’t agree either with the character and the perspective of the documentary or with the terminology used in it (illegal immigrants, the efforts of the police, etc).
The video is not objective about the reactions of Athens’ citizens. The fascists you see in the video chasing immigrants from the squares are not everywhere. It’s a huge problem in some areas in central Athens. There, some fascists, (and not “Citizens of Athens” that they use as a name), with the cooperation of the police and the Municipality, organize pogroms and brutal attacks against the immigrants.
On the other hand, there are many people that fight neo-fascism and pogroms, trying to express their solidarity to the immigrants with actions. Of course the enemy is the whole state and not only some dozens of fascists. We should also mention that the left-wing parties are totally absent in front of the huge problem, preparing for the elections.“The battle for Attica square”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPl9PW7ONIQ

The Chilean miners: fake solidarity in the land of "every man for himself"

Like millions of others, I was absolutely delighted to see the trapped miners in the San José mine in Chile getting out alive from their stressful, claustrophobic confinement which they'd been in for almost 70 days as a result of negligence on the part of the mining companies. I could only be thrilled to see this terrible story of grief and suffering come to a happy ending and see tears exchanged for bursts of laughter. But at the same time, mixed with my joy at seeing these 33 condemned men return to life, I still had a feeling that was a mixture of revulsion and anger at the show put on by the very people who had dug what could have been these men's graves. I have no wish to be a killjoy, but when the natural euphoria that has engulfed the country calms down, a great many questions will need to be asked.The first is that although the government is blatantly attempting to reap political credit for this miracle of the rescue of 33 men who were buried alive under tons of rock, 700 metres below the surface, the reality is that they never should have been buried in the first place! The mine had been closed for safety reasons and was reopened precisely because of the government policy that sacrifices workers' safety, workers' lives for the benefit of the entrepreneurial class. Moreover, at a time when both the government and the bosses were taking these men for dead, it was the tenacity of the miners themselves and their workmates who provided information and the benefit of their experience, that were responsible for keeping the search alive until they were found. The miners are alive not thanks to the Piñera government, but to the perseverance of the workers who pressured them into making the rescue a reality, and thanks to the expertise of the miners themselves who knew how deal with their situation underground. If it had been down to the government and the bosses, these miners would have been forgotten and abandoned like hundreds of other workers who every year are forgotten and abandoned when they die in accidents, the vast majority of which are preventable.
But once the cameras arrived, the indifference was immediately forgotten, replaced by an almost feverish concern; the country and its ruling classes were struck by "Telethon syndrome", all smiles for the cameras and hugs for the victims. But this is the sort of solidarity that tricks us, because it makes us forget that we live in a country where there is very, very little solidarity, a country where the "every man for himself" mentality was imposed on the inhabitants through the blood and fire of nearly four decades of rampant neoliberalism. It is fake solidarity because it is used to their own advantage - to increase their popularity ratings, for the sake of propaganda and marketing, to make political capital. Apple will give them I-pods, Farkas gives them 5 million pesos each [1], some have offered holidays in the Greek islands, others the chance to see Real Madrid or Manchester United play, a third-class politician (who, incidentally, is the president) poses for pictures with them... everyone using them quite blatanly as propaganda for their product, sports club, country or government. I can't stop feeling a bad taste in my mouth when I see how they are exploiting them in such a way.
This is the extent to which the manipulation reaches, with Piñera calling on the world to remember Chile as the country that rescues and forget about the Pinochet dictatorship - which made him a billionaire, with wealth far beyond what the vast majority of people can even imagine. Think how the world would react if German Chancellor Angela Merkel asked the world to forget about Hitler. I cannot help feeling deep disgust at the vile opportunism of it all. But I'm not surprised. For better or for worse, it is part of the plans by the ruling block to wipe out the "original sin" of our exemplary democracy, to forget the authoritarian-dictatorial "slip up" that drowned the hopes of three generations of Chileans in blood, part of the imposed collective amnesia by this country's propertied class. All this was was another opportunity to flog what they have been flogging us for the past twenty years.
This is a country which lives on fiction, where the rescue becomes a form of reality show, with of course no shortage of spicy stories about lovers and other scandals to divert the hoi polloi. A reality show where the reasons for this tragedy are conveniently forgotten, where the reason these men were entombed goes unmentioned - an economic model which seeks the maximum profit for the least possible cost. It is an economic model which puts subcontractors, workers in conditions of terrible danger, in the mines and other places, making them carry out risky work which in many cases costs them their lives, while their employers amass enormous fortunes.
This is only a fictitious solidarity, solidarity which exists in front of the cameras, for show, but which disappears in the anonymous day-to-day interaction of our grey cities. This fake solidarity is handed out like aspirin to feed the inflated image we have of ourselves. But above all it is fictitious solidarity because this solidarity between buried and buriers disappears amid a sea of inequality in a country where neither the society as a whole nor the economy holds solidarity as its guiding principle. A quick example: while the miners are being offered millions in contracts by all and sundry, the company is refusing to pay them for the time they spent underground. Now with the miners themselves rolling in money, they are probably not too concerned about receiving their miserable wages, but there are thousands of other, less fortunate workers who are languishing in one of the country's Workers' Hospitals, to the indifference of their companies, without any wages as long as they remain unable to work due to injuries they got on the job. That's capitalism...
But let's not forget that 439 workers died in workplace accidents in this country in 2009, and where was the solidarity for them? Where were all the efforts to save them from their mines or from all the various workplaces they died in? For them there was only the indifferent gaze of the authorities or the criminal entrepreneurial class. 439 human beings with the same abilities, the same right to live, laugh and enjoy the good things of life as the 33 miners brought back from the dead.
So that's why I have all these conflicting feelings about the rescue and the coverage of it. Because beyond the happiness we all feel for the good fortune these workers have had, escaping with their lives, beyond the plastic, showbusiness smiles, beyond all the presidential visits and hugs, beyond all the "generosity" being paraded before the cameras by certain companies (or more accurately, by their marketing departments), I still think of the thousands of unfortunates who are sacrificed year after year on the altar of profit, whose fate is only met with indifference. I cannot help thinking that if those same workers had organised themselves to fight against the dangerous conditions they were (and still are) forced to work in, if they had resisted allowing themselves to be buried, they would have been treated like criminals. I cannot help thinking that in a country which boasts of its solidarity, at that very moment there were also 32 Mapuche political prisoners, some under the age of 18, who were considered "terrorists" and who were left to waste away on a hunger strike which was hidden from the eyes of the national and international press, and who are being treated in a disgracefully paternalistic way by the government. I cannot help thinking of all this, despite my immense joy at seeing the miners returning to us.
What a shitty, hypocritical country.
José Antonio Gutiérrez D.
15 October 2010

---

Note:
1. Leonardo Farkas, a billionaire businessman and mine owner known for his appearances on TV Telethons and handing out money on the street. 5 million Chilean pesos equals approximately US$10,000.

Madrid - attack in solidarity with Chilean anarchists

cette semaine

Madrid, 21/10/2010 - Yesterday October 20, the windows of a Santander bank in the south of Madrid were pelted with stones, and a tag was left: "Solidarity with the anarchists of Chile".
This bank was chosen for its connection with the Chilean State and bourgeoisie, being present over a large part of Chilean territory, and involved in the exploitation of its inhabitants.
Let's come out into the Streets! May the rage spread!
To our Chilean brothers! To those who fight!
We do not want to deal with this misery, but to destroy it!
TIERRA SALVAJE

Three police officers dragged from their car and beaten in Italy as tensions continue to rise over proposed rubbish dump

http://signalfire.org/?p=4672

25th October 2010
Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni today threatened ‘tough intervention’ unless violent protests against the building of a rubbish dump stop.
Mr Maroni spoke out after yet another night of violence by masked rioters left three police officers injured, one of whom was taken to hospital with a serious eye injury.
The officers, who were part of two plain-clothes patrols in unmarked cars, were dragged from their cars and beaten by the gang of masked youths.
Three men aged 18, 22 and 24 were later arrested for the attack amid claims they had been drafted in by the local mafia – known as the Camorra – to cause trouble.
The Camorra has a heavy hand in rubbish in the area, extorting contracts for its collection and disposal, with claims that it also offers to get rid of toxic waste from overseas if the price is right.
In recent days there has been an escalation of violence at Terzigno near Naples, site of the proposed dump, with cars regularly being torched and rocks, fireworks and Moltov cocktails thrown at police.
Over the weekend a small quantity of explosives was seized by police close to the area where the rioters have set up their protest camp. However no direct link has yet been proved.
Speaking to students in Varese near Milan at a conference on organised crime, minister Maroni said: ‘At Terzigno there have been real acts of wanton violence against the forces of law and order and this is no longer acceptable.
That is why I am appealing to those involved to lay down their weapons, otherwise I think it will be necessary for tough intervention, more so than there has been up to now.
‘These officers have been attacked ion the dead of night with rocks and beaten with bars.’
Terzigno has been the scene of violent protests for several weeks and as a result rubbish has been piling up in the streets of the nearby city of Naples prompting health fears.
Two years ago Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was faced with a similar situation and managed to resolve the problem – blaming the cause of it on the left wing Naples city council.
Residents of Terzigno, which has a national park surrounding the dormant volcano of Vesuvius, are opposed to the building of a new waste disposal centre for health reasons.
They claim that the site will not recycle enough rubbish and give off toxic fumes which will pollute the local environment and threaten the lives of children.
Berlusconi’s government has released £12million to deal with the situation immediately and said that it will put the new plant on hold – providing the rioting stops.
However the plan is also conditional on the continued use of another waste disposal centre near Terzigno with vegetable compost being brought in to dispose of the tons of rubbish that has built up.
Officials say it will take ten days to get back to normal – providing there is no more violence – but locals are said to be unhappy with the offer and there are fears of a further violent backlash.

Electronic pay machines stolen in continued sabotage of parking meters

10.12.2010

Irate drivers may have found one way to deal with Chicago's new parking meters.
Twenty of the 200-pound electronic parking pay machines have been stolen throughout Chicago since Sept. 17, police department spokesman Roderick Drew said in an e-mail. It isn't known how much cash may have been taken from the stolen machines, he said.
Four of the pay machines have been recovered, Drew said.
Drivers who paid for parking with a credit card shouldn't be concerned about their information being stolen because the machines don't store credit card numbers, Drew said.
Although the thefts have been reported citywide, nearly half have occurred in the Grand Central Area on the Northwest Side, he said.
"Area 5 Detectives have been working with LAZ Parking to address this issue. Residents who witness vandalism or suspicious behavior should call police immediately," Drew said.
Police are still investigating, he said.
Nearly two years ago, the city signed a 75-year parking meter lease with Chicago Parking Meters LLC that led to soaring rates and initial troubles with jammed, broken and error-prone meters that angered many drivers.
Avis LaVelle, a spokeswoman for Chicago Parking Meters LLC, said in a statement she could not confirm the reports of thefts.
But she added, "Theft or destruction of pay boxes and meters is regarded as a very serious offense and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
If a driver comes across a parking spot with a missing pay box, he or she should find another nearby box, LaVelle said.
If there is no box, the driver can park, then should call the customer service line of meter operator LAZ Parking at ... to notify the company of the missing box. That call is used as "documentation of defense in the event of a possible citation," LaVelle said.

from the Tribhttp://socialwarchicago.blogspot.com/2010/10/electronic-pay-machines-stolen-in.html

The ALF has claimed responsibility for an arson attack at the Ronsard poultry slaughterhouse in Jouy during the night of October 16.

 Two trucks full of empty cages were destroyed. Firemen stopped the fire before it could spread to a nearby office. Photo from newspaper report.

The activists wrote:

"We burnt two trucks at a slaughterhouse in Jouy, a small village in France about 75km from Paris. The first goal was to burn completely the slaughterhouse but we failed. So just these two trucks.
French ALF"

Letter from French Comrades about the general strike and the riots in France

fromhttp://voidmirror.blogspot.com/2010/10/letter-from-french-comrades-about.html

Here attached and pasted is a communique from 
comrades in Paris translated into english by 
american writer Calamity Barucha. 

Please forward this widely, post onto
your blogs ect . We are trying to get this out there 
because there haven't been many communqies 
until now and hopefully people will
organize some soli-demos.
This same group who wrote this will soon 
come out with another 
communique that will be broader, consolidating 
more info and having a bigger anylisis and 
comrades will translate it.... 

But for now this is all we have so help us 
get it out there.
-sleepless in europe, 

Void Network

The following is a communiqué that appeared 
on Paris Indymedia, written by comrades who breifly 
occupied the Opera in Bastille, Paris on Satruday. 
Since the appearance of this communique,
mainstream media reports rising violent resistance 
across France on Tuesday, as once
again up to three million people took to the 
streets and riots occurred from Lyon to the Paris 
suburbs. As the Guardian reports, the
strikes have “appeared to be pushing France closer 
to crisis today as fuel shortages were felt across the 
country and violence erupted on
the sidelines of protests by children.”  
According to media, if fuel is not made available 
to cargo trucks in the next few days (due to
blockades and strikes), the economy could become 
paralyzed when factories and workplaces 
run out of supplies.

Translated from French:

The state and the bosses only understand one language
Monday, October 18th, 2010


During the last days numerous initiatives have begun to flourish
everywhere: secondary schools, train stations, refineries and 
highwayshave been blockaded, there have been occupations
of public buildings,workplaces, commercial centers, 
directed cuts of electricity, and ransacking of electoral 
institutions and town halls...In each city, these actions are 
intensifying the power struggle and demonstrate that many 
are no longer satisfied with the forms of
actions and words of order imposed by the union
leaderships.
In the Paris region, amongst the blockades of train stations 
and secondary schools, the strikes in the primary schools,
the  workers pickets in front of the factories, people create
inter-professional meetings and collectives of struggle 
are founded to destroy categorical isolation and separation. 
Their starting point:
self-organization to meet the need to take ownership over our
struggles without the mediation of those who claim to speak for
workers. Many of us do not organize ourselves according to the
traditional forms of strikes on work sites, yet provided, we still
find a desire to contribute to the general movement in economic
blockade. 

Thus, we find this movement as also an opportunity to go beyond the single issue of pensions, the question of work, in order to
develop and build together a critique of exploitation.

Starting from these questions we decided Saturday to occupy the Opera Bastille. This was to disturb a presentation that was live on radio, to play the trouble makers in a place where the cultural merchandise circulates and to organize an assembly there. So we met with more than a thousand people at the “place de la nation”, with banners stating “the bosses understand only one language: Strike, blockade, sabotage”
and “against exploitation: block the economy”, with the desire to go beyond the strictly limited framework of the union’s demonstration. We reassembled at the end of the demonstration in the contrary sense and arrived at the place of action, finally finding ourselves in a free demonstration situation surrounded by an impressive police force. Very
quickly more than a hundred police officers in civil dress, helped by the syndicalists service, ordered to split the demo in two and prevented a certain number of people from joining in.

With eggs and fireworks we pushed away the cops as far as possible from our demo, and we left “accidentally” some traces along our way. Note in passing to those who find nothing better to do than speculate on undercover officers from images stolen by journa-cops, there is no question of crying over two windows of banks whose attack is merely a weak response to the violence of capital.

Upon arrival at the Bastille, due police repression and confusion, only about fifty people were able to finally enter the opera while others chose to disperse.

The cops deployed in the square were able to arrest some forty people who were taken into custody in several police stations. Monday night, most were released, but at least 5 others remain in custody and go before the judge this would be Tuesday…they are charged with “armed assembly” and “destruction of goods by an organized gang”. As always, the powers decided to strike fast and hard, hoping to accentuate or create separations (between reasonable sydicalists unionists and simple shop-owners, between students and rioters ...) in order to smash everything that contributes to the
emergence of a genuine power relation against the state and the bosses. Police used “flashbang” grenades and rubber bullets against overly energetic high school students; the refinery workers suffer not only attacks from the police but also direct threats by the “prefect” to pursue them, and of requisition; the pissed off demonstrators who
decided not to just calmly disperse risk prison as in St. Nazaire.
Since the beginning of the movement over a thousand people have been arrested.

The multiplication of initiatives that escape the traditional
gravediggers of struggles belies clear to all those who would like to isolate the black sheep and prevent protesting that which is largely accepted, beyond the numbers of years of contribution. These actions allow us to glimpse the possibility of a movement where the corporatist struggles are left behind, where the bureaucrats loose foot, where struggles are not limited to what is allegedly acquired.

There is way more to take than they want us to believe!

Stop the pursuits. Freedom for everyone...