Letter declaring prison food abstention in greece

We know it by first hand. Thousands of paths lead to freedom and thousands of disagreements can exist among those that fight. Besides, each individual, each group, each organization consists another tendency of the revolutionary community, however…

When we close our eyes the same pictures are painted in our minds. When we take our decisions the same smile is shaped on our faces. When we go on the attack same are the pulses of our hearts and when we fall in the hands of the enemy we draw and emit the same force. And we share the same pride, the same weirdness, the same sky…

The hit on one of us, is a hit on all of us. And the struggle of one of us, is the struggle of all of us. The tortures, the trials, the prosecutions of a generation of guerillas, revolutionaries, anarchists might aim separately, but they will have all of us against them.

In the war that we consciously accentuate and that has no end, no revolutionary will be alone.

The increased qualitatively and quantitatively hostilities, the hostages of war that ignited it, are and will be met with the proportionate upgraded repression.

Specially made rooms, increased measures of safety, the filling of those who attend the trials, will be included in the scedule of the theatrical plays of governmental revenge.

The war cry of the members and the defendants of the Revolutionary Organization Conspiracy Cells of Fire inaugurates the new battles that will take place from now on on the field of the enemy.

It shows us that this war does not stop with the arrest of a fighter and continues under any condition.

From the avenues with flaming barricades, to the careful escapes in the alley ways of the metropolis, from the yard of every prison to the court rooms full of "ekamites" (special forces), we would stand tall in order to defend our honour, freedom, the struggle, the revolution.

We therefore begin abstention of prison food as of today today Thursday* 27^th of January as a token of friendship, respect and revolutionary solidarity to the struggle of the members and the defendants of the Conspiracy Cells of Fire, that give a luminous example of dignity and proud attitude, affixing the revolutionary intolerance against the intolerance of their persecutors and state justice.

Dimitris Fessas

Babis Tsilianidis

Dimitris Dimtsiadis

Koridallos prisons

Socratis Tzifkas

Giannis Skouloudis

Panagiotis Anastasiadis

Stelios Anastasiadis

Avlona prisons

P.S. We know that the abstention from the prison food as a mean of struggle has a demanding character and has a limited scope, we cannot however but follow it as an aspect of the spectrum of possibilities that we have at our disposal and to completely support as our choice under these particular conditions.

*While in Avlona prisons we began yesterday 26^th

^{boubourAs tlanslate actforfreedomnow!}

Letter from Alexandros Mitrousias, Kostas Sakkas and Giorgos Karagiannidis ( GREECE)

Letter from Alexandros Mitrousias, Kostas Sakkas and Giorgos Karagiannidis

19/1/2011

We declare clearly and to all directions that no one from our three co-defendants has any relation with the charges they are accused for. The prosecution of anarchist Christos Politis was clearly carried out for political reasons, since it had been attempted unsuccessfully by the persecutory authorities, few days before his arrest, to sentence him for the case of arson on the Court of Appeals inAthens. We clarify that this person never had any relation or contact with us and he is persecuted with the ridiculous evidence that he supposedly provided counter-observation for one of us, only because he happened to be in near by streets of Peiraias. We express our solidarity to his person and demand the ceasing of any prosecution against him and that he is released immediately.

Regarding the other two of our co-defendants, Stella Antoniou and Dimitris Michail, we clarify that they are persecuted based on their personal and friendly acquaintance with us. Unfortunately it is not the first time that friendly relations of people belonging to the anarchsit movement, are criminalized and turned into charges, since they were obviously imprisoned for revenge by the State. They also have our unreserved solidarity, our friendship and our love, and we also demand their release as well.

Alexandros Mitrousias

Kostas Sakkas

Giorgos Karagiannidis

LETTER OF KOSTAS SAKKAS FROM NAVPLIO PRISONS 3/1/11 http://actforfreedomnow.blogspot.com/2011/01/letter-of-kostas-sakkas-from-navplio.html

Letter from imprisoned comrade Christos Politis, one of the 6 arrested on the 4th of December 2010 READ....actforfreedomnow.blogspot.com/2011/01/letter-from-imprisoned-comrade-christos.html 

On 4 December 2010, G.Karagiannidis and A.Mitroussias were arrested and detained due to warrants pending against them for The Conspiracy of Cells of Fire case 

http://actforfreedomnow.blogspot.com/2011/01/some-information-about-start-of-trial.html

 

Information about the 6 arrested alleged "terrorists"

On tuesday 7^th of december 2010 the first 2 of the 6 arrested allegedly part of a “terrorist organization” were imprisoned.

Alexandros Mitrousias was sent to Patras prisons and Kostas Sakkas to the prisons of Navplio.

THE WEAPONS FOUND IN AGRINIO WERE ALSO FOUND "CLEAN" AFTER THE EXTENSIVE BALISTICS EXAMINATION.

As it appears the efforts of the anti-terrorist police to connect the guns, that were found in the possession of A.Mitrousias. and K.Sakkas, and those that were found in the house in Agrinio, with terrorist attacks and specifically with actions of the Sect of Revoutionaries were fruitless. Specifically, the balistic examination showed that the guns that were found in a"safehouse" on the corner of Daskalopoulou and Praidou street have not been used in any terrorist action. 

THE OTHER FOUR OF THE ARRESTED ALLEGEDELY PART OF A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION ARE IMPRISONED FACING 4 FELONIES AND 2 DELINQUENCIES BASED ON THE ANTI-TERRORIST LAWS

The imprisoned are Stella Antoniou, Dimitris Michail, Christos Politis and Giorgos Karagiannidis who after the completion of their pleas with the agreement of the interrogator and the public prosecutor are confronted with charges that concern the “offences” of constitution and integration in a “terrorist organisation”, “terrorist organisation”, “terrorist actions”, “possession and manufacturing of explosives” and “distinguished case of gun possesion”.

All that remains is to see what attitude the alleged terrorists will keep.

athens assembly

 

Letter from imprisoned comrade Christos Politis, one of the 6 arrested on the 4th of December during a widespread anti-terrorist operation.

Some very first thoughts on my detention 

1. This letter does not constitute an overall political analysis of the anti-terrorist operation which began on December 4th, but rather a first political reading of my detention; of its meanings and wider aims.

2. It is a fact that I find myself in prison exactly because I am an anarchist; because for 15 years now I am continuously active through this radical political element. A reading of the legal documents of my case, together with the cynical statement by the chief of the greek police – that I was arrested because I was released in the High-court case*- are indisputable proof of this. I find myself locked up here, and I am deeply convinced of this, for our reactions to the murder of Christoforos Marinos in ’96, for the barricades outside the examination centres in ’98, for the anti-war demonstrations in ’99, for the demonstrations against the european leaders’ summit in Thessaloniki in 2003, for the student protests in ’06-’07, for our solidarity to the prisoners’ struggles and to all those prisoners who refuse to bow their head, for the December insurrection, for…, for… For being everywhere, with our smaller or larger forces, where nothing seemed certain and social entropy gave again a meaning to our lives and strength to our struggles.

3. On the 4th of December we were taken to police headquarters together with my friend and comrade Kostas Barlis, from outside a café in Exarchia by police officers from the Delta force and the antiterrorist unit. My friend is released approximately 16 hours later. I am handed the report of my arrest 26 hours after I was taken in. And then the madness begins. Because if during the last period we can see in a series of cases the criminalization of relationships of friendship and comradeship, in my case they can’t even “invoke” that. I am in prison for a case in which I do not even know my fellow accused. No witnesses recognize me, no police officers are claiming that I met with anyone of my fellow accused, none of the phone taps have a mention of my name and as far as the search carried out in my house the only thing worth mentioning is that they stole my shaving machine, so also my DNA (I will note that this is not even mentioned in the confiscation report). However, according to the antiterrorist unit the first “incriminating” evidence was that on the night of November 24th they saw me moving parallel to Praxitelous street in Piraeus. So what if on Iroon Politehniou street, three side-streets down the road, is were my attorney’s office is situated. So what if I paid him a visit that night as in a few days I had to present myself to the interrogator in regards to the High-court case. The second “indisputable” piece of evidence is that I had a drink in Exarchia, the area in which I socialize with dozens of people everyday, with an “unknown person” who according to the antiterrorist unit had eaten earlier a souvlaki with one of my fellow accused. Each can come to their own conclusion. Of course, for that whole week that I was kept in the antiterrorist division I remained isolated in a 1by3 cell, without a window and with the light constantly switched on. And then came the pre-determined decision for my detention and not only that but in Grevena. Grevena is a high-security prison where only long-term convicts are held and not those accused pending trial, plus it is situated 500km away from Athens, making any communication with friends, comrades, family and lawyers almost impossible.

4. The two very serious prosecutions against me within the space of two weeks and my detention should not spread confusion and be considered only as a continuous effort for me personally to be placed in a regime of suffocative control. On the contrary, this whole setting of extermination lies in the heart of modern repressive policy; in the heart of a multilevel plan aiming at the intimidation and the imposing of discipline on the new “dangerous classes” and the neutralization of the regimes’ political rivals. Aiming at the stultification, in other words, of the projects of self-activity, direct action, solidarity and the struggle for the re-appropriation of life; at the undermining of the anarchist and anti-authoritarian dynamic inside social fermentations. So that the recent general strike and the dynamic demonstrations of December 15th last for only a day, so that resistance is devalued, those in struggle are scorned, Keratea becomes simply an area a little outside of Athens, December is forgotten and celebrated like the 17th of November. And for the kingdom of death and order to be established, for the victorious attack of the capitalist world to triumph, it is necessary to multiply all those that find themselves targeted. The penal spectrum must be widened and legal concepts must be expanded with a permanent character of intentional vagueness; to lose every meaning or rather, even better, to acquire their full meaning with the enforcement of a state of emergency. Without any reserve, the interrogators and the prosecutors keep proving that their only preoccupation is how to crush the enemy within. And after, it’s the turn of the monotony of the correctional facilities and the pure, raw violence of incarceration.

5. The fabricated and canalized prosecutions based on the scenarios and fixations of the antiterrorist unit resemble cluster bombs. They aim somewhere in order to strike in a large radius around them, to destroy a wider area. This prosecution is not about me personally. This prosecution wants to instill fear in everyone. To make us cautious with who we talk. With who we go fly-posting. With whom we bring out a pamphlet. With whom we walk side by side in demonstrations. With who we exchange points of view at different events. And of course where we go. To infuse our everyday life with suspicion and fear. The clerks of the troika offer us generously the permanent “alibi” of obedience, a transient security and the false certainty of submission. Because who will dispute, without making a complete fool of themselves, that if we wanted nothing, if we were anarchists until we finished high-school, if we were “relieved” with the signing of the memorandum, if we hated immigrants, if we were fuming against the koukouloforoi (hooded-ones), if we were in fear of the “terrorists” neither myself nor many others who resist would have suffered the consequences of repression

6. The struggle, however, will not retreat. The regime and its various officials will never feel neither joy nor relief. We stand by the imprisoned anarchists, the prisoners in struggle. Until their liberation. We continuously contribute to the –theoretical and organizational- composition of our class and we develop the necessary strategic planning for achieving its victory. Let’s stand up. And let us take the next step. For the social/class counterattack. For the proletarian storming of the heavens.  P.S. As a good comrade once said to me: “Patience. Strength. Faith in the cause. We are right. Final.” These words will be my guide in these truly difficult moments.

Christos Politis

Grevena Prison

16/12/2010 

* On May 22nd , 2008 and around noon on the way to get my motorbike which I had left near Panormou metro station I was taken to Police Headquarters where I was asked various questions on my whereabouts the previous night. After some hours I was released. On the previous night an arson attack on vehicles had taken place within the perimeter of the high court of Athens. From this moment in time and onwards published articles start to appear based on police scenarios, which link me in the beginning with the arson attack against vehicles at the high court and later on present me as participating in various organizations and attacks, many times as being a leading figure. Last November they actually reached the point of announcing through the television an arrest warrant against me, which in reality did not even exist. At the same time, for long periods I had visible police surveillance. And the highlight, 2,5 years later I was summoned to defend myself as I was accused for the High court case. Indeed I presented myself to the interrogator on December 2nd and was released (for 2 days!).

LETTER OF KOSTAS SAKKAS FROM NAVPLIO PRISONS 3/1/11

Because of the world economic crisis which is a consequence of the bankruptcy of the capitalistic model and neo-liberal economic policy of the western states and governments, the biggest and and most massive anti-popular attack in the world and mainly on the societies of the “weakest” links of the eurozone of the new economically third world, is unleashed by the big international (and not only) capital.

The structural changes and austerity measures that are imposed by the mechanisms of support onto the “ill” economies, so that they achieve their “cleansing”, have as a target and result the change of the world economic governing, with terms even more favourable for the bosses.

For the bosses that are outside but also inside the national borders. For the bosses that express the big and small capital. As in the case of Greece, the economy of a country that is included in the mechanism of support and applies austerity measures, has as result the depreciation of labour and its labour potential. And this happens in the big also the small enterprises. In the enterprises with foreign, but also in those with local interests.

The privatisations and the sell out of public fortune and beneficial enterprises to the public, which never really belonged to the greek people and never were never exploitable from them, it is not accidental that it does not depend on their selling out, neither is it determined according to the terms of the memorandum, by the reduction of the deficit of the economy and the prices of the percentages of the GDP, as it could in some way be considered reasonable, but from whether it could payoff the loans it has received, the moment the Greek state is sinking continuously more and more in the mechanisms of worldwide loansharking (International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank).

The otherwise awkward economic position to which the country has devolved to, is not so awkward for the private capital, but a investment opportunity so big, that it is hard for someone to believe that the handling of the government against the mechanisms of support and the unconditional acceptance of the memorandum, is accidental. On the contrary it has been confirmed that the domestic bosses profit by the same economic situations with the international ones and their interests -at least economically- are common.

The biggest part of society, maybe doesn't perceive the economic crisis with the terms of the world market, the role of the stock exchanges, the frauds and the relation of euro and dollar, however it clearly perceives the “crisis” of the greek debt, that became a crisis of borrowing, which is translated into a memorandum, that means cuts on wages, pensions, and benefits.

The attack on the labour and welfare rights, the reduction of public spending and benefits, the increase of taxes, unemployment and generally biotic, in connection with the existential poverty, is immediately perceptible and very rapidly galloping.

However the anti-memorandum paroxysm of the media that is so important for the maintenance of social “peace” from the side of sovereignty of the system, as much as an anaesthetist in a critical operation, it cannot cleanse the corrupted operation of the state before the memorandum and the integration of the country to the mechanism of monitoring (structured bonds, empty insurance funds, “black holes”, economic scandals, payoffs etc.) and mainly it cannot render the greek society free, while its biggest part, is under a hostage regime, not since the arrival of the troika, but from long before, since the greek state existed and from the national bosses first of all.

The austerity measures and the orders of the memorandum that are imposed, cancel in practice the constitution itself. This has as result the obliteration of every false conviction for the social character of state, a thing that creates inevitably the prospect of a mass reflective social revolt.

Spontaneous, reflective, without ideological-political characteristics in its majority, however a revolt. For those that fight for the assault and destruction of the state and its structures, is a challenge. One more front for the disturbance of its orderly operation. The unprecedented abstention from the last municipal elections, taking into consideration the polls in which doubt dominates and “no one”, the mass strikes and mobilizations with violent and aggressive characteristics, the lynching of various political people of every party mechanism in the streets, are simply a sample of the mood of whats to follow.

For those that take in practice the side of the multiform struggle for revolution and the creation of a prospect for it. For those that fight the sovereignty of the state and the bosses, but also the submission that this presupposes for its existence. For those that fight eternally, beyond periods, seasons and economic situations, against the power and its representatives, whatever side of the social field its expressed by and reproduced, whether its from the side of the powerful, or from the side of the weak through the consent, every crisis cannot be anything other than another reason, another occasion for struggle, against big and small capital, against the powerful euro but also the underestimated drachma, against the foreign but also domestic bosses, the hostage situation of the exterior mechanisms but also internal mechanisms of exploitation.

FIGHT AGAINST THE STATE AND THE CAPITAL FOR THE REVOLUTION AND FREEDOM AND SOCIAL AUTONOMY.

From10/12/10, I am another hostage of the democratic regime and am kept in one of its cells in the correctional shops, of marginalisation, of isolation and vengeance of the state. Where the food is not always enough, but heroin is in excess. Where psychotropic substances are more than what is in the warehouses of hospitals. Where the disciplinary sentences are in the daily provision and heating is a luxury. Where the presence of rodents, bugs and cockroaches is frequent, contrary to that of sanitary. Where in cells that their specifications are for 2 individuals, theres 4 beds and they make 6-7 people sleep, where the correctional code and the rights of the prisoners, are broken constantly and blatantly, but the hi-tech systems of safety and monitoring, work perfectly and the doors of the cells always close on time.

The minister of justice, the public prosecutors and the juridical servants should know, that where that where they throw people like the waste of society, exists dignity and solidarity and these neither can be judged or be jailed.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES

Kostandinos Sakkas

prisons of Navplio

boubourAs  translate actforfreedomnow!

   On tuesday 7^th of december the first 2 of the 6 arrested allegedly part of a “terrorist organization” were imprisoned. 

Alexandros Mitrousias was sent to Patras prisons and Kostas Sakkas to the prisons of Navplio.

LETTER FROM COMRADE CHRISTOFOROS KORTESIS IMPRISONED FOR THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE CASE 18/11/10

Seven months after my arrest and the well advertised TV, and not only, delirium of the authorities and the antiterrorist police, I am still imprisoned for participation in

Revolutionary Struggle. I am convinced that my persecution has a clear character, with an obvious target the penalisation of the political movement to which I belong, my comrade and friendly relationships, and at the same time the exemplification and terrorisation of wider parts of society who are already fighting, or will choose to resist, the current economic and social conditions of oppression, imposed with an increasingly intensified pace.

To clarify my position, from the first moment of my arrest I said I am an anarchist. I deny to renounce my political identity and for years now conscious choice to openly participate with hundreds of comrades in all social struggles. I deny to renounce my comrade and friendly relationship -as many comrades- with Anarchist fighter Lambros Foundas. The ‘strong’, ‘incriminating’ evidence that the prosecution throws against me, is as follows a fingerprint of mine on a political pamphlet in the house of L.Foundas and an alleged visit to the house of a friend and comrade, co-accused, of mine. My application for release was denied because of the fingerprint mentioned above and one more ‘strong piece of evidence’: a fingerprint of a co-accused of mine on a ‘suspicious’ object in my house, a dvd of an american movie.

Since when is it illegal to possess and exchange leaflets with a political antiauthoritarian content? Since when are visits to friends’ houses persecuted? What morbid imagination baptises the house I’ve lived in permanently in nea filadelifia, a ‘safe house’? Let’s get serious. For those that forgot or for those that don’t know, forbidding people to go out after 10pm, gathering in groups of 3 or more, to freely distribute pamphlets with a political content, belongs to other regimes, which those as well (accidental? I don’t think so) call themselves democratic.

My refusal to give a DNA sample is due solely to my political beliefs and values and not dictated by any fear to prove my ‘guilt’, as its being implied. Of course I refuse to cooperate with the authorities and repressive mechanisms in their attempt of biological (and any other) data basing with obvious aims.

At this point I would like to clarify that I am not possessed with the logic of victimisation, since I have no illusions about democracy, neither about the ‘fairness’ of Justice. As an anarchist I do not condemn any form of struggle – postering, actions of counter-information, political texts, occupations, protests, dynamic actions, ex-appropriations, urban guerrilla warfare- which historically have been chosen and used by fighting people (anarchists, communists, wider resisting parts of society).

I am not willing to give away to the authorities any information of my personal life and no ‘print’ of my comrade relations and my political choices.

And the carousel of the targeting not only of specific people but ultimately of the concept of comradeship itself and the choice of solidarity is widened. Dozens of comrades from the antiauthoritarian movement are called as witnesses with always the same reasoning (fingerprints on books, CDs, doors and windows…now in the houses of friends and comrades imprisoned for participation in Revolutionary Struggle) culminating in the indictments of four more people from the friends or even the family of the arrested!

The attack of the Regime- with its current spokesmen the ‘antiauthoritarian’ PASOK (governing party) and the fellow governing parties- of course is not aimed exclusively to the anarchist movement, but the generalised explosions that are being prepared by wider social parts as healthy reactions to the economic misery (wage and pension cuts, of working relationships, thousands of layoffs etc.) and the complete degradation of human dignity. The images of the violent treatment of the strikers, unemployed, worker protestors, (gathering of workers at the acropolis and outside ministries) are neither fragmented actions, or ‘unfortunate’ incidents of police brutality.

The state arms not only its repressive (hundreds of new recruits to the security forces) but also its legal arsenal. How else can you interpret the new antiterrorist law that baptises ‘terrorism’ even syndicalist actions (with obvious target the basic unions and not of course the ‘militant’ GSEE), the participation in dynamic protests and brings back the anonymous prosecution witnesses- does this remind anyone of those collaborators with the hoods and their fingers stretched out? Who exactly does the infamous ‘dogma of security’ want to protect with the police filled cities and neighbourhoods, if not the system itself? And who purposely cultivates the fear (e.g. of a coming bankruptcy for which everyone supposedly has a responsibility!) in order to obtain a social consensus insidious plans?

Christoforos Kortesis

court prisons of Corinthos.

Letter from Panayiotis Giannos Greece

30 11 2010

From Culmine (November 26, 2010) via Indymedia Barcelona (November 26, 2010):

Panayiotis Giannos, who was arrested on October 7 for “possession of an incendiary device,” recently released the following letter detailing his experiences:

Thursday, October 7, 2010, 8:40 p.m.: After being followed on motorcycle for about a kilometer by pigs from the DIAS squad, I inadvertently got stuck in a dead end. I was immobilized, restrained, and brought to the nearby police station on Bournazi Street in the Peristeri neighborhood for identification, since it was impossible to confirm my details on the street due to the rain. During the pat-down at the station, they found an incendiary device I had on me.

The theatrics that followed are well-known by now: threats, advice, and attempts to “talk things over as friends” from every rank of neighborhood pig guarding me at the time. This went on until 11 p.m., when they transferred me to the sixth floor of Police Headquarters. Almost immediately, I was brought to the office of the head of the department (Security and Order), who—alongside another high-ranking official—bluntly proposed a collaboration: If I promised to snitch, they would release me immediately and the charges would be forgotten. After they got the response they deserved, they stopped talking to me, and the treatment I received from then on became more “crude.” Later, accompanied by the prosecutor, about 20 undercovers searched the house where I live with my parents—the inside as well as the backyard and surrounding area. We ultimately returned to headquarters, where at 2:10 a.m. they informed me that I was under arrest. During this entire period, I was isolated with my hands cuffed behind my back, unable to communicate with anyone. Despite asking them repeatedly, they wouldn’t tell me what was going on. At 4 a.m., I was finally allowed to speak to a lawyer. I remained locked up in the seventh-floor cells until noon on Monday, October 11, when—escorted by a horde of undercover and counterterrorist agents—I was brought to court to plead before the duty judge and the prosecutor. The two of them had a disagreement over whether or not to stick me in pretrial detention, so they released me on probation and referred my case to a judicial committee. Quite a while later, the committee reached its decision: “pretrial detention for being a danger to public safety.” On November 17, I was brought to Korydallos Prison, which is where I am now.

I have no doubt whatsoever about what led the judges to their decision. It wasn’t a question of evidence (or the lack thereof). Rather, it was my lengthy presence in the antiauthoritarian milieu, where my activities have been known to the pigs for years. From the 1998 student movement that occupied schools in protest against the dumbing-down of education, to the November 17 march that same year, until today: Even in times of expensive consumer goods and cheap ideals, I took part in most of the important moments of the social struggle. Of course, those activities led to quite a few detentions at Police Headquarters—some of them “circumstantial,” others less so. Once they even came for me at my house. All this, combined with my “bad little habit” of frequenting the Exarcheia neighborhood during those years and the “coincidence” of the currently prevailing antiterrorist hysteria, formed a set of prior conditions used to criminally persecute me on the basis of an additional charge—the legal instrument that criminalizes political ideas and friendships with a vengeance that only the dregs of inhumanity are capable of legitimizing and applying.

All of the above would already constitute sufficient analysis to explain the reasons why I was imprisoned, but in my opinion the thrust of my case is different. The imbeciles of legality speak the language of Domination, which aims to subjugate and lower the standard of radical discourse, distancing it from its natural habitat in order to declaw it and turn it into easy “prey” for the sterilized analysis of “specialists.” The scientific perversion of Justice, after imposing rules whose object is to delineate and define the personality of the individual and/or her acts, condemns subjective dialectics to the malice of the aforementioned language of Domination, which by definition excludes and eliminates anything foreign or alien to its terminology as “too insignificant to mention.” Keeping in mind this idea, which has always been considered immutable, I will make no further reference to the legal aspects of my case, nor will I use terms like “innocent,” “guilty,” “set-up,” or others that might leave room for Power’s words to assert and impose themselves over my own words. I take active responsibility for my foundation of values and I will uphold those values until the very end, because through them I take a stand as a fighter, not as someone who infringed on a few paragraphs of the fundamental rules of conduct decreed from above called the Penal Code. I accept no one’s Right to judge me unless that Right is conferred by prolonged revolutionary combat, which is nothing less than the impetus for the Struggle against capitalist gangrene; the impetus for all who, each in their own way, contribute to the destruction of authoritarian subjugation and act in the interest of popular emancipation. I therefore consider myself a political prisoner, not to disassociate myself from “criminals” but because—from my point of view—I am where I am because of my political decisions and my tactics, which are consciously hostile toward those of my mortal enemy: the regime. At the same time, I am paying the consequences for an error I made (understood by the many whom it’s a pleasure to consider my comrades, and the few who happily consider me their friend), about which I don’t want to divulge anything more.

Regarding the generally repressive climate of the times: The state is most certainly preparing its defenses in view of the growing popular rage provoked by the fierce oppression—especially on an economic level—battering larger and larger social sectors, and the best proving ground for the state’s repressive methods is the antiauthoritarian milieu. Plus, past experience has shown that the only real “danger” capable of creating situations that are literally subversive lurks within this milieu. However, these facts shouldn’t excuse inactivity or shackle rebels to the beginning of a campaign of victimization and defeatism. Now more than ever, reorganization is required in order to create an indivisible attacking front capable of demolishing the crumbling edifice of Order that tyrannizes our daily lives. The Struggle always continues, even from inside prison cells, and each person can contribute to it from their own barricade. Subversive ideas will invariably be forged on the Streets, which is above all where those ideas are reflected in each of our liberatory experiences. Nevertheless, even prison and its unique conditions can be a point of resistance where Dignity is preserved by opposing the barbarity of imprisonment.

I declare my solidarity with every self-organized and collective project that supports comrade prisoners, like the Solidarity Fund for Prisoners in Struggle and the Solidarity Assembly. I also declare my solidarity with every individual or group that—through its practice and discourse—wishes to express its solidarity, however it may choose to do so, on the sole condition that its attitude isn’t hostile toward the general theoretical core of antiauthoritarian revolutionary processes.

With combative greetings from the cells of Democracy,

—Panayiotis Giannos
Korydallos Prison, D Block
November 19, 2010 

/http://thisisourjob.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/letter-from-panayiotis-giannos/