Thessaloniki: Anarchists claim responsibility for destruction of mobile phone antennas (Greece)
Modern capitalistic society is a society of control. And this because the system engages in an unending and total attempt to maintain the normality of social life. From this condition of control, the technology of surveillance could not be absent, as the technological development is directly related to the progression of authority and its ways it imposes itself.
State and capital, as active users of technology, shape this form of surveillance, aiming at profits and their own further imposition. From cameras in big cities and public transport for the security of those “who have nothing to hide” (and for this reason prefer to show everything) to the cameras in work spaces in order to “secure” our productivity and normality in consumerist procedures. And from the new biometric IDs to personal files on everyone, which is formed in relation to visited internet sites, preferences, music listened to, books read, financial transactions, data that is recorded by various colossal companies that have identified a big part of our lives with targeted ads and product promotion for consumption.
As years pass, as much as technology develops, we will have to deal more and more with inventions that, consciously or not, contribute to repression. This is a logical consequence since a big part of research on this field is financed and guided by state and inter-state authorities, as well as multinational companies that try to solve their concern for better fortification and profit production. After all, we have a whole industry that works to create advanced technological systems of control and repression, which range from weapon systems used in war situations to technological means for the protection of the regime against domestic enemies. The latter include crowd repression systems (water cannons, systems that bring confusion to crowds through unbearable heat or noise production etc.), cameras and EYP’s surveillance toolkit (National Intelligence Service) used to build case files and sentences, the development of suspect matching techniques through biometric characteristics (like fingerprints and DNA), but also the technological upgrade of prisons with cameras and automated functions. Despite the different styles, their target is common: on the one side, to create an atmosphere of fear through strengthening the image of an omnipotent state and, on the other side, to discipline those who don’t compromise with sovereignty’s commands for social peace.
A pillar of the technological progress of the last decades has also been the development of the telecommunications sector, necessary, in its turn, for the control and smooth functioning of the techno-industrial system. Modern control and repression systems are totally based on and partly supported by telecommunications technology.
Telecommunications companies, using our “need” for communication and networking inside and outside urban centres, record our conversations as well as our position with gps systems. In good/flawless cooperation with relevant state/private bodies, they allow at anytime the collective lifting of telecommunications confidentiality calling upon national security and have often contributed to the manufacturing of charges against fighters based on wire-tapings. Among other things, Vodafone in 2006 was responsible for massive wire-tapings, while today they cooperate with Group4 Security and the Ministry of Justice for the implementation of the repressive project which has to do with the electronic surveillance bracelet destined for house arrest and control of detainees. Also, OTE (Greek Telecommunications Company) provided the necessary material and technical infrastructure to Frontex for the operational programme “Poseidon 2010” in order to secure the sea borders.
In the name of profit, telecommunications companies see the air as their own chiefdom, placing more and more camouflaged antennas on building rooftops, the owners of which get handsomely compensated.
The levels of transmitted radiation increase continuously because of the increased needs of the network and also because of the use of new faster transmission technologies and have already been characterised by the World Health Organisation as possible carcinogenic.
On 5/2 we destroyed 3 Vodafone mobile phone antennas, 1 OTE mobile phone antenna and 1 Wind mobile phone antenna on rooftops in the areas of Faliro, Botsari and Papanastasiou by setting them on fire with inflammable liquid, and on 7/2 we smashed 1 Vodafone mobile phone antenna on the facade of a mezzanine of an apartment building in Kato Toumba. It is an act of resistance against the ever-increasing control complementing the continued struggles against mobile phone antennas. Our action is dedicated to comrades T.Theofilou and G.Tsironis whose trials are on 24/2 and 5/2 (it was postponed indefinitely) respectively.
P.S. Understanding that resistance against social control is an important piece of diverse and constant anarchist struggle, we salute the initiative of the comrades from Volos for “Cameras destruction”
Anarchists
-via actforfree
Tags: Arson, Greece, Grigoris Tsironis, Sabotage, Tasos Theofilou, Thessaloniki
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 24th, 2016 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Direct Action.
