A LETTER FROM MARCO CAMENISCH

End of February 2002

To the comrades,
To the authority of repression,
   On the 18th of April, I’ll have served a sentence of 12 years in Italy and I’ll be extradited to Switzerland to be submitted to various trials with accusations that carry life sentences too.
   I do not recognize any legitimacy for government and the repressive machine, consequently I’ll exclude any statements in front of this machine and its representatives, except perhaps spontaneously in public, before the court.
   I warn the repressive body not to repeat the extortion of false statements from my family, especially from my elderly mother and from my brother, both not able to be interrogated due to health reasons, through pressure and coercion, as happened after the death of a member of the Swiss Financial Police in 1989, for which I’m charged.
   Due to personal reasons, like being too old, prejudiced health and social responsibilities and needs, it would not be possible and responsible for me and that long before, to take up arms and underground life again, in the antiauthoritarian struggle. But I continue to vindicate the necessity of a radical antiauthoritarian struggle against rule and exploitation always more aggressive and destructive (now through technological capitalism and its total war against individuals, societies, cultures and environments of the Earth community) and for ANOTHER NECESSARY WORLD, necessarily based on solidarity and antiauthoritarian and fair relationships among all individuals and communities of things, the non-human and human lives, that form the terrestrial community.
Marco Camenisch
viale dei tigli 14
13900 Biella
Italy

SOLIDARITY IS OUR WEAPON

(extracts from two different texts, published in Anarchist Bulletin, no 7, September 2000)

Dozens of people arrested the night of "Rage Against the Machine" concert that took place in June, after riots outside the concert and clashes between groups of youth and the police forces. The police suffocated the area with use of tear-gas, but didn't manage to catch anyone. After the concert finished and about 8000 people started leaving, riot and security police ranged themselves out all the way, so that people had to pass through them. That's when they began making arrests, chosing who will they present as suspect. About 20 of the young people arrested, after beaten up in the Public Security (police hq), were taken to the public prosecutor and charged for felonies. They were temporarily released on bail and on terms, except from two of them, V. Panousis and K. Nikolaidis, who were judged as "especially dangerous" to be set free (also they are now released). The lack of any evidence was "covered" by "identifications" by the cops themselves. The real reason they chose them is their attitude towards the authorities and their police criminal record, rather than any proved relation with the riots.

The repressive operations and the machinations of state authorities continued against the anarchists. One day after the RATM concert, in June 15, the police announced that 6 more persons are wanted for participating in the riots, according to tesimonies of two cops who were supposed to have "identified" them. Not accidently, all the six of them are active anti-authoritarians and anarchists, known to the police as such. Among those six persons, there was comrade Simos SEISIDIS, a permanent target for the prosecutory authorities during the last years. He was arrested and released on terms and on bail as well as the other five comrades.

But Simos didn't stop being a target for the police machinations and very soon, in the 1st of August, as he was going to the police station to report himself according to the terms of his release, he was arrested again. This time for... bank robery, with the evidence that his fingerprint "was found in a plastic bag 500 metres from the bank" !

The police report mentions that "the robery that took place in ALPHA BANK, in the 29 of June, was commited by two unknown persons". Without presenting any other evidence, they continue their report saying that " Seisidis, born in Athens in 1976, has been arrested in the past, repeatedly, with charges of 'property destruction', 'arsons', 'posession of explosive bombs'."

So Simos, is going to prison for a robery "commited by two unknown persons", with the evidence of a fingerprint that the police "found" in a bag, and for being branded as anarchist.

We should remind that Simos had been arrested for first time in Feb. 1995, accused with three other persons for attempt to arson in a car for press distribution. He had then stayed two months in a prison for minors, and the police had taken the chance to blame him, while in prison, for three more arsons that were commited in 1994!

He was arrested again, along with 504 more persons, in 17th November 1995, after the police invaded the Polytechnic School which had been occupied as an act of solidarity with the prisoners' revolt in Koridalos and with anarchist prisoners who were then on hunger strike.

WE WILL NOT HUSH AND WE WON'T LEAVE ANY COMRADE ALONE IN THE
REPRESSIVE OPERATIONS AND THE MACHINATIONS OF THE STATE

FREEDOM TO ANARCHIST SIMOS SEISIDIS

FREEDOM TO ALL IMPRISONED FIGHTERS