Contra Info is an international multi-language counter-information and translation node, an infrastructure maintained by anarchists, anti-authoritarians and libertarians who are active in different parts of the globe. More »
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Contra Info is an international multi-language counter-information and translation node, an infrastructure maintained by anarchists, anti-authoritarians and libertarians who are active in different parts of the globe. More » We now have a pgp key to use for encrypted communication, for those of you who may wish to use it or require it. Click here to download it in .asc text format (armored). Obviously, we still receive unencrypted emails at contrainfo[at]espiv.net. You can also submit texts anonymously by using our comments section Solidarity with our crypto comrades! Received March 18th: On 15th of March the Pyhäjoki anti-nuclear protest camp participated the International Day Against Police Brutality with a banner drop and by serving two private Fennovoima-Rosatom security guards and a police officer with cream pies. The little goodwill demonstration encouraged the public to remember the dangers environmental and human rights activists face in different societies – for example in Russia. The protest camp chose the tactic that would fit the Finnish mental landscape. Cream pieing world leaders, military commanders and other high profile figures is a humorous tactic to put serious topics into the public eye. Before the Pyhäjoki cream pie fiesta, the last person who got pied in Finland was the World Bank Secretary James D. Wolfensohn in 2001. Naturally, the cream pie fiesta was not aimed to any particular police officer, but targeted to the police institution’s global role in growing inequality and political persecution of dissidents. Police forces are the first ones to get thrown into the line of fire when societal inequality grows: as they are the ones sent to execute the political decisions that cause that inequality to grow. At 10.30 AM the protest camp people visited Fennovoima-Rosatom and Titan-2, the Russian firm being the main constructor of the planned nuclear power plant site. In the centre of Pyhäjoki the activists climbed to the roof of Titan-2’s office and dropped their banners. Soon one of the Titan-2’s workers tried to seize his momentum by trying to pull the banner down from an opened window. Finding his attempt unsuccessful, the office staff withdrew, closing the shutters and hiding themselves form the cameras. This seems to be a common thinking pattern in Titan-2, that has a reputation of corruption, mob connections and failing to get salaries delivered to their subcontractors: close our eyes, do not answer the phones – if one cannot see the problem, the problem does not exist. Singing and dancing After the rooftop banner party the activists moved on to the Fennovoima-Rosatom’s office and held a jolly Hiroshima -themed group singing workshop for the entire office staff. It turned out to be more difficult to close a bunch of singing person’s by shutting the curtains. Unsurprisingly enough, Fennovoima-Rosatom had different ideas of the jolliness of the singing workshop. As the closed curtains weren’t enough, office staff alerted the private security and the police. Being the first to arrive, the two security guards soon got a drift of Fennovoima-Rosatom’s transparency ideals. While singing group still held their banner high, one activist decided to leave the office voluntarily. Security guards singled him the lone activist out and regardless the fact that the person was willing to leave by themself, the guards decided to grab them and put the person in handcuffs. However, the professionalism of these to private play cops did not convince the followers. Not only failing with the handcuffing, the two guards also managed to trip and fell themselves and their captive through the outer glass wall of the office. After a moment of rolling in the shattered glass, the guards managed to find their way out and drag the detained activist with them. After this display of professionalism guards continued their attempt to handcuff the detained person lying on the ground. During the process both of the guards were greeted with a cream pie right into the face. Soon the two-officer strong police patrol arrived and proceeded to move the detained activist to the police car. During the process a third cream pie found its way to the face of the second police officer. All Cakes Are Beautiful, right? The cream pie fiesta aimed to bring attention to the role of the police institution in increasing inequality and being a tool of political persecution. The police, of course, ends up in the frontline of societal tensions while fulfilling the unfair decisions for the state. In Finland, for example the case of the neo nazi street patrols ”Soldiers of Odin” and the clown group, ”Loldiers of Odin” forms one example. While police secures the neo nazi group’s right to patrol and hold openly nationalistic and racist marches to ”protect the Finnish women from the immigrants”, the same police clads itself into riot gear and detainees the group of group of literal clowns singing, dancing and clowning against racism – especially, if the clowns go dancing against racism on the same streets with the neo nazis. In Finland the general situation is not, of course, directly comparable to the experiences and everyday life of activists and dissidents in Russia or Latin america. However, the Pyhäjoki protest camp has had its share of risky or dangerous situations caused by the sort tempers and misjudgements of the local police. The police doing stupid shit to get activists off their lock on’s has resulted in various dangerous situations – for both parties. Detaching a person locked to the roof of a truck from their neck is a job for a specially trained team in Britain. In Finland a standard street cop and an angle grinder is enough. Note from Contra Info: Since March 15th 1997, annual demonstrations in the streets of Montreal have taken place to highlight the International Day Against Police Brutality, which has already spread from Canada and Switzerland to numerous other countries. Bern, Switzerland: Direct action against research on GMOs in solidarity with Billy, Silvia and CostaOn February 25th just passed, a branch of the Federal Department for the Environment in Bern was attacked with paint. From February 22nd until 28th, a callout was made for an international week of action against technological nuisances and the world that produces them. It’s in this context that, on February 25th, we went and poured out a massive amount of paint on the walls of the Federal Office for the Environment in Bern. For several years this Office issues the permissions to conduct research on genetically modified (GM) plants in the open-air “Protected Site” laboratory, in Reckenholz, Zurich. At this very moment a new request, concerning “Gala” apple trees, is being processed. This attack against research and development of GMOs was carried out in solidarity with everyone in struggle against industrial society. Solidarity with Billy, Silvia and Costa = silviabillycostaliberi.noblogs.org “Things here are tense but festive. The C.O. and warden was stabbed…It has nothing to do with overcrowding, but with the practice of locking folks up for profit, control and subjugation. Fires were set, we got control of two cubicles, bust windows. The riot team came, shot gas, locked down, searched the dorms. Five have been shipped and two put in lockup.” – An inmate at Holman Correctional This week, prison rebels at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama staged two riots in three days—battling guards, building barricades, stabbing the warden, taking over sections of the prison and setting a guard station on fire. These actions come as no surprise to those who have been paying attention to the crumbling prison system in Alabama and the increasing level of radicalization of the prison population there. The uprising at Holman, and the conditions of Alabama prisons in general, provide a unique situation in which anarchist solidarity may prove strategic. Historically speaking, successful prison uprisings have often been the result of a degrading prison system (incompetence, understaffing, weak administration) in combination with a high level of prisoner-unity and the development of a strong political subculture within the prison that supports and encourages acts of resistance. These conditions shift the balance of power between prisoners and their captors and allow prisoners more latitude to take bold action. Prison rebels in Alabama report that guards often refuse to enter the cell blocks for months at a time out of fear of attacks. The conditions for rebellion are ripe in the Alabama prison system. The connections that Alabama prison rebels and anarchists outside of prisons have cultivated over years have created a situation in which expressions of solidarity from anarchists may have an impact. There is a great possibility that news of solidarity actions will reach prisoners there and that those actions will make sense to these rebels. Another way in which anarchist solidarity may prove uniquely valuable in this and other situations of prison rebellion is in our capacity to relate to these uprisings outside the framework of reform that the media, the state and the left will inevitably push them toward. We are already hearing the rhetoric of those outside Holman turning immediately toward reform, appeals to legitimacy in hopes of reaching journalists and liberals, and framing the riots as a ‘last resort’ after non-violent methods failed. What we propose instead is direct affirmation, through action, of prisoners’ own revolt. In this, our solidarity is equally with those demanding better living conditions and those who say, quite simply, “they need to let us free up out this bitch” and “there’s only one way to deal with it: tear the prison down.” In the spirit of diversity of tactics we’ve compiled a list of some ways to act in solidarity with prison rebels in Alabama. The intention of this list is to find ways to act in solidarity with the many, often contradictory, desires of the many different rebels involved in the uprising. Check it out on It’s Going Down. Late in the evening of March 13th 2016, the Vancouver Apartman building which is squatted for a little over a decade came under attempted arson attack, when a Molotov cocktail landed in front of a door on Mavromataion Street. At a time when the anarchist squat in Vancouver Apartman building is threatened with eviction, because of reconstruction plans by the Athens University of Economics and – above all – Business, it comes as no surprise that nationalist scum have rushed to assist the institutional repression. Vancouver Apartman squat – which combines a housing infrastructure and a self-managed space where public activities take place – is an integral part of our ongoing struggle for individual and collective liberation, and we will defend it by all means. Solidarity with the squatters in Vancouver Apartman! AGAINST THE STATE AND CAPITAL in Greek In the night between the 9th and 10th March 2016, we sabotaged about 10 luxury cars rendering them unusable. Driving private cars, especially big ones in the city, is useless and ecologically unsustainable. We will carry on action to disturb destruction and exploitation of nature and animals. in German Yesterday morning [March 14th] the meadow occupation was surrounded by cops. This turned into a huge police operation: All main paths in the forest were cleared, fixed and broadened, all barricades and triprods destroyed. Until today four unoccupied platforms were evicted. Police forces are still present all around, chasing people who try to build new barricades… This is an urgent call-out for all kinds of support! What has happened the last two days is a massive attack! Because all the roads are cleared and passable for big machinery, it is important to protect the forest occupations NOW! For more information: www.hambacherforst.blogsport.de Thanks and greets to all comrades Received March 16th: Following the recent evictions in Calais, a week of action in solidarity with the resistance of the ’’jungle’’ took place in Marseille. The various actions contained in this communique were anonymously contributed by numerous individuals and groups. All the targets chosen collaborate in the repression, subjugation and deportation of migrant and/or paperless people in Calais and elsewhere. * 500 stickers including “No to evictions/deportations(*) – Solidarity with the resistance in Calais”, “Migrants welcome – bring your mates”, “Collaborators – Solidarity with sans papiers in Calais”, as well as various others in French and English, distributed throughout the city. * Several small actions took place Sunday 6 March: * 200 posters pasted around Noailles, Belle de Mai and National (1st and 3rd districts) with four different posters: “Solidarity with the sans papiers in Calais”, “Solidarity with the resistance in Calais” and “Solidarity with the hunger strikes in Calais” (the latter in French and English). * Wednesday 9th March early morning: * Thursday 10th March at 4.30am: Red Cross building, Rue Baille, 5th district. Windows smashed with rocks and locks sabotaged. Against the ‘humanitarian’ collaborators and their attempts of softening the violence of the borders. There are no peaceful evictions. * Two collaborating LCL cash machines put out of service. * Graffiti against six Groupe SOS buildings in the 1st; 3rd & 7th districts: 200 & 357 blvd national, 3 blvd grigou, 2 rue grigan (locks broken as well), 24a rue fort notre-dame, 1 blvd charles livron. * Night of Thursday 10th: Graffiti and paint bombs against 3 Red Cross buildings around Boulevard Chave in the 5th district (a charity shop and the headquarters). Messages painted: “Solidarity with Calais” and “Collaborator in evictions”. * A group of us decided to make a banner reading “Destroy all Borders- Solidarity with the eviction resistance in Calais” in French, Arabic, and English. We took a photo with some comrades holding the banner, as a small gesture to those struggling in Calais. This happened on Friday. (*) Translators note: the word “expulsions” in French can mean interchangeably deportation and/or evictions, due to this, where the word expulsions has been used in the original French we have decided to always translate in both forms since we do not know the intentions of the contributors. Where specificity was either implied or openly stated, we have used the direct translation.
The group published a text on their blog, taking the responsibility and threatening that they will come back. They didn’t reach their goal because no damages were done, as the bottle failed to set the house on fire. This is the second fascist attack against squats within a month. The previous happened to Zaimi squat on 16/02 by the fascist group C18 Hellas. Nothing will stop us. The threats of the fascists, the State, and ASOEE University (who owns the building) will not make us give up our struggle. Solidarity to Zaimi, Libertatia, Mundo Nuevo, Analipsi, Autonomous Steki in Exarchia, Kouvelou, Terra Incognita and all the other squats and people who have been attacked. And to those who fight against fascists and fascism. DOWN WITH FASCISM. VIVA ANARCHY. Initiative of anarchist squatters from Vancouver Apartman in Greek, Portuguese, German In the night of 8th-9th March 2016, with garbage skips and flammable products we set fire to the front of the architects’ office of Archi 5, rue Voltaire, in the town centre of Montreuil-sous-Bois [Paris outskirts]. Archi 5 boasts on its website of having achieved, or trying to achieve, alongside insignificant constructions, the following list of macabre projects: The prisons of Bourg en Bresse, Draguignan, Mont de Marsan, and Rennes, the jails of Condé-sur-Sarthe and Vendin the Veil, the Cergy-Pontoise Judicial Police Pole, Clichy-sous-Bois police station, Chartres Hight Court, and the French Polynesia detention centre in Tahiti. We dedicate this action to everyone who fights for freedom and against all authority, in particular the anarchist comrades Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar, who are facing heavy prison sentences in the hands of the Spanish state, who don’t renounce a word of what they think nor what they are. Fire to the prisons. Fire to those who build them. Received March 13th 2016 from Boston, Massachusetts: ![]() See also: Chronology of resistance from Rabble and posters in solidarity here.
On March the 2nd we attacked the French Institute in Athens with molotov bombs. With this action we send a message of class solidarity to the persecuted migrants and fighters who struggle against the French state. The French Institute portrays the hypocrisy of the French Republic where behind the unfulfilled revolutionary slogan Freedom-Equality-Fraternity lurks the brutality of capitalist domination. In the region of Calais, next to the border between Britain and France, migrants who arrive there hoping to cross over to the UK or who have been evacuated and persecuted from other refugee camps, have built a self-organized shanty town. The story of the so-called Jungle, as this favela of the downtrodden has been named, begins in 2002. Migrants who have been persecuted from their homes either due to war or to poverty, their persecution knows no end when arriving in the E.U. Hunted by border patrols, cops and fascists, many of them having passed through prisons and concentration camps, the new residents of Calais take a piece of their lives into their own hands. Despite the numerous attempts of the state in the past years to crush it, this huge community of migrants is resisting and self organizing life with perseverance in the most adverse circumstances of sheer poverty and constant repression. Makeshift restaurants, schools, kid spaces, art spaces and places of worship have been set up and are run by residents together with people in solidarity inside the Jungle. On the one hand, the Jungle reflects the brutality of the regime which traps and isolated migrants into urban ghettos and concentration camps condemning them to a permanent life on the borderline. The imposition of total control is how the rulers attempts to deal with all those who defy them and who self-organize. Whatever doesn’t fall in line with capitalist “development” is attacked and subject to repression. The cops and Civil Guard often raid the Jungle gassing and brutalizing residents destroying homes and communal infrastructure, displacing and imprisoning migrants. On the other hand the Jungle is a declaration of struggle of the oppressed, struggle for survival against the plans of state domination. The existence of the Jungle and the determined resistance against eviction is a characteristic example of the struggle against persecution and imprisonment. Last month the French state announced the evacuation of the south part of the Jungle, home to around 3,000 migrants, on the pretext of a sanitary risk to the area. The state in order to curb the resistance of the migrant residents initially attempted to lend humanitarian motives to the evacuation, by stating that the people will be moved to heated containers, while those who don’t fit will be moved to other concentration camps throughout France, not by force but by the”force of argument”. Finally the latest eviction attempt begun this week and bears the familiar face of state violence and terrorism. Those who will be confined in concentration camps will be separated from people with whom they have built a community, they will be registered (fingerprints, photos, e.t.c.) and will descend to state of totalitarian control, dependence and exploitation by the state. The evacuation of the Jungle is a straightforward attack against migrants’ self determination. Consequently it is an attempt to crush the self-organisation of the oppressed. The strategy of the French state is part of the common European “management of the refugee flows” which whether it is invested with right wing or humanitarian rhetoric aims to control the oppressed and to fill the pool of debased human resources to be exploited by capital. The resistance against the attempt to demolish the Jungle is a struggle against the worst conditions of class subjugation. In the clashes taking place in Calais, what comes to the surface is the colonialist history of France and its imperialist interventions such as today in North Africa; what is revealed is the inherent fascism of bourgeois democracy and its hypocritical humanitarians. We bring to mind once again Remi Fraisse who was murdered in October 2014, fighting for the Siven forest, murdered by the same bastards in uniform who are now attacking the Jungle. RESISTANCE AND SELF ORGANISATION OF THE OPPRESSED EVERYWHERE COPS OUT OF THE COMMUNITIES OF THE PRESECUTED LETS TEAR DOWN PRISONS AND CONCENTRATION CAMPS VICTORY TO THE STRUGGLE OF THE JUNGLE SABOTAGE THE FRENCH STATE AND THE EUROPEAN FORTRESS From the neighborhoods of Athens During the weekend of 5th-6th March 2016, La Madeleine church in Besançon, located in the Battant neighbourhood, was tagged in solidarity with the anarchists Mónica and Francisco, who are in the hands of the Spanish state and have already spent too many years behind bars. Strength and courage to comrades! These posters were pasted in various locations of the Basque Country in solidarity with anarchist prisoners Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar, who are facing trial in Madrid from 8th to 10th March 2016. Now more than ever: tear down the prisons, freedom for Mónica and Francisco! Death to the State and long live Anarchy! Informative and agitational video in solidarity with comrades Francisco Solar and Mónica Caballero, imprisoned in Spain since November 13th 2013. On 8th, 9th, 10th March 2016, Mónica and Francisco will face a trial in which they are looking at 44 years in prison. Anarchic, Insurgent and Internationalist Solidarity with comrades Francisco and Mónica! in Spanish Posters also published in French On March 3rd 2016, the Koridallos prison court sentenced all co-accused in the second trial against Revolutionary Struggle with regard to the attack with a car bomb containing 75kg of explosives against the Bank of Greece’s Supervision Directorate in central Athens on April 10th 2014; the shootout in Monastiraki on July 16th 2014 (when comrade Nikos Maziotis was injured and recaptured by police); and expropriations of bank branches. Revolutionary Struggle member Nikos Maziotis was sentenced to life in prison plus 129 years and a fine of 20,000 euros. Revolutionary Struggle (fugitive) member Pola Roupa was sentenced to 11 years in prison on misdemeanor charges (if arrested, she will stand trial on felony charges, too). Antonis Stamboulos was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Giorgos Petrakakos was sentenced to 36 years in prison plus a fine of 9,000 euros.
Discussion with a compañera from Uruguay concerning the threat of eviction of the squatted social centre La Solidaria in Montevideo and broader anarchist struggles in the region Squatted Gini building* inside the Athens Polytechnic School * Following an initiative of Themistokleous 58 squat, in collaboration with solidarians, Gini building has been squatted since February 29th 2016 to meet the housing needs of migrant families currently stacked in Victorias Square. Published on February 25th via MIA: No injuries, nor arrests, instead numerous facades revisited Nearly 400 people marched in Nantes in the context of the week of resistance. The lead banner, decorated with the cartoon bird “the king and the mocking bird”, called for resistance against the states of emergency, whilst referencing Kobane to Kurdistan, Ferguson to the United States, and Notre-Dame-des-Landes in France. 300 police offices were supposed to prevent access to certain areas but they couldn’t prevent the redesigning of facades of some public buildings, banks, estate agencies and the Socialist Party office located on the path of the demonstration. Demonstrators dressed in black, masked, and some with gas masks – with fire-extinguishers, paint and egg bombs – were able to indulge in paint and political graffiti on the walls of the city. The police used several tear gas grenades following throws of projectiles, but the procession continued it’s course despite the gas that momentarily seperated the demo into two. The shields carried by demonstrators then formed a wall intended to protect the demonstrators from the police’s flashball and LBD-40 shots. The police tried to tighten pressure around the march in the centre’s little streets, but without success. The BAC [Anti-Crime Brigade] were even fightened when they found themselves on the route of the demonstrators. Without injuries nor arrests, the demonstration dispersed at Nefs, with €1 beers. Photos via Le Chat Noir Emeutier | in German
Strength to those who defend La Solidaria squat! (in Spanish) |
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