Letter from anarchist comrade Dimitris Michael (greece)

Letter from Dimitris Michael

 On the 4th of December a Hollywood-style production took place within the framework of political “witch-hunts”, produced by the (anti-)terrorist unit, the Mass Media and as guest-stars five anarchist comrades and myself. In a movie-show where houses are turned into “hide-outs”, books into “illegal press”, friendship and comradely relations into fabricated “terrorist organizations”, the people in struggle into “bloodthirsty monsters”. And of course the recipe that follows is simple. There is no need for real evidence to put someone in a “great democratic” cell. Any anarchist / person-in-struggle that has a friend, comrade, family relationship or has ever stepped inside the house of a supposed “terrorist” becomes her/himself guilty until, and if, the opposite is proved. By the way, they did not hold back from reaching the point of creating fake relationships and contacts. I refer to the arrest on remand of anarchist comrade Christos Politis.

 More analytically, the chronicle of my arrest up until my imprisonment on remand:

 To start with, at 20:00 on Saturday 4th of December I am taken to the Police Station of Siteia town in Crete town under the pretence of checking my identity. Two hours later, they inform me that some of their colleagues have arrived from Athens and ask me to give them a DNA taste, something that I refused to do. After some time, eighteen police officers take me to the house where I used to live in order to collect evidence (cigarette buts, drinking straws, empty beer bottles, note-books, mobile-phones, etc). During all this time I was asking to be informed whether I was accused of anything and so to be able to communicate with a lawyer. Their continuous answer was that “that will also happen, we will tell you later”. After the end of the raid in my house I am again taken to the Police Station of Siteia, where they announce that there is an arrest warrant against me, without telling me what I am accused of and from there they transfer me in handcuffs to Athens and specifically to the 12th floor of the Antiterrorist Authority at 09:00 on Sunday 5th of December. There they keep me as a hostage handcuffed behind my back and standing still, staring at the corner of a wall for five or six hours. At one point, they take me into another room to take my finger-prints, which I refuse to give. Back again in the office where I was before, this time in the presence of two men without hoods covering their faces in order to have “a friendly chat”. They were asking me about a number of things, about my past, about several persons familiar or unknown to me. My answer was that I do not want to discuss with them and that I want a lawyer next to me. One hou later, a man appears who was presented as chief of the rest and he starts throwing an amount of moronic lies in my face in the style “that are there finger-prints of mine everywhere in several houses and on many weapons”, places and items whose existence I never knew of before, and “that it would be good for me to speak out, given that my comrades have already pleaded guilty to my participation in the organization” and other bullshit. Of course, my answer was “Say whatever you like, I do not have anything to say to you”. Then, I get led to a nearby office, from where they write a ridiculous paper with the heaviest fake-constructed accusations and from there I am taken in the direction of the courts.

It took two days delay for me to testify, as my trial brief arrived at the last moment, then came the moment to recognize the principal roles of the investigator and the prosecutor who were deaf to everything that I was refusing to say oconcerning the methodized scenarios of the cops (5 telephone conversations and three dates with friends) which, joined with the tv-cannibalism of the Mass Media were sufficient for me to be sent to Trikala prison on remand.

 Of course, the above event is neither the first or a surprise to me. It is a standard tactic of power with the Mass Media as allies for backbiting, defamating, revenging and outlawing social struggles, friendship and comradely relationships of people in struggle but also the anarchist movement for the over-throwing of capitalism, which I participate in. Especially in times like the present! While the government, the state, capital, the mass media, the mechanisms of authority, enforcement and repression are agonizing fiercely to safeguard social peace and consistency against the perspective of a massive social insurrection or revolution, in times like the present where the biggest looting-transfer of social wealth from the base to the top of the social hierarchy under the cover of the global economic crisis and under the stipulations of the memorandum imposed by the global loan-sharks of the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank is taking place.

 During a season in which the government-robber-gang is methodically looting the workers’ income day by day, with the abolition or scorn of work and insurance guarantees gained by bloody struggles in the past, always following the orders of the foreign and local forces of capital in Greece and the European Union. Meanwhile legalizing violence against protesters, arrests and imprisonment without trial, the mass media’s campaign to target individuals and display for public ridicule struggling people who never learned how to bow their head and are holding offensive positions against the system.

 SOLIDARITY TO ALL THE IMPRISONED AND ACCUSED COMRADES, PEOPLE IN STRUGGLE, ANARCHISTS, ANTI-AUTHORITARIANS, REVOLUTIONISTS AND TO ALL THOSE PEOPLE WHO WITH DIGNITY AND CONSCIOUSNESS KEEP RESISTING AND STRUGGLING.


Dimitris Michael
Trikala prison


actforfreedomnow!