March 18th, 2016
Prison is a milestone in the revolutionaries’ path towards freedom. It’s an intermediary stop, but not the end.
The authority often chooses the subtraction from mathematics. Like when they subtract lives with bombings in the warzones of their energy-generating and geopolitical interests, like when they subtract refugees from the cityscapes, entombing them in isolated concentration camps, like they subtract the smallest crumbs of the underpaid wage slavery, beating more brutally with whips, bodies that have gotten used to rickets, like when they want to subtract everyone who defies them, by locking them up inside prisons…
In this way, every revolutionary anarchist is facing the biggest contradiction. They are fighting for freedom and yet they’re flirting with the captivity of the prison, they love life so much and yet death from the guards of authority wants to ambush them.
In these years that we are in prison, our steps have gotten used to be calculated inside the barbed wires, our eyes have learnt by heart every centimetre of these few cubic meters of the forecourt, but our minds have never been captured by the iron fences.
How can you let yourself capitulate, when you are facing on one side the provocative wealth of those in power and on the other side tearful eyes of a child at a concentration camp, on one side the mafia of the politicians, judges and journalists who are counting people like louses of the earth and on the other side men and women who are committing suicide because of the standoffs of the economic crisis, looking in garbage to find food, sleeping in the streets, on one side armies of happy slaves being dazzled from the storefronts and the screens of a fake life and on the other side the bad bevy of loneliness and silence being your only companion.
We don’t intend to capitulate with the tyranny of authority, neither get used to living like slaves.
We know that freedom isn’t something that can be given away… neither can it be bestowed… Our freedom blossoms from the blood and the sacrifices of our struggle. Even if once again, our desirable rendezvous with freedom has been postponed because of the dastardliness of one pilot- former policeman- and the helicopter that never reached its destination, that doesn’t mean that we will give up…
We are fully aware that the recovery of our freedom will be only achieved through revolutionary violence, which will attack against the monopoly of the sadistic violence of the power.
A freedom that in our opinion is the SAME with the continuation of urban guerilla, in order to escalate the anarchist struggle. A freedom that will walk on top of the debris of this aged world and its monuments… prisons, courts, parliaments, police departments, concentration camps, labs of the technological totalitarianism…
With certitude and determination of those who will risk everything for liberation, putting again the conundrum at the table… “Freedom or Death…”
A decision… we are fighting till the end
Never repentant
Never defeated
The struggle continues…
Comradely greetings to the anarchist member of Revolutionary Struggle Pola Roupa
The members of Conspiracy of Cells of Fire – FAI/IRF
Giorgos Polydoros
Olga Economidou
Gerasimos Tsakalos
Christos Tsakalos
Radiofragmata Translation Project
* The Free Besieged is an unfinished collection of poems composed by Dionysios Solomos that was inspired by the third siege of Missolonghi (1825–1826), where the Greek rebels held out for almost a year before they attempted a mass breakout, which however resulted in a disaster, with the larger part of the Greeks slain.
Tags: Christos Tsakalos, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Gerasimos Tsakalos, Giorgos Polydoros, Greece, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), International Revolutionary Front, Korydallos Prison, Letter, Olga Economidou, Pola Roupa
Posted in Prison Struggle |
March 17th, 2016
Osman Evcan, who is imprisoned in the prisons of the Turkish state from 1992 and identifies himself as a vegan anarchist since 2003, is fighting a tough struggle for the rudimentary conditions of living, like the achievement of mail, telephone communication, information etc, with the main point being the vegan alimentation right. Since the 22th of February, he is carrying his 4th hunger strike for the same reasons, in a very short period of time from the last one, as they transferred him recently in L type prisons, losing everything he had achieved till now with his former exhausting hunger strikes.
We barely know him personally, but we cannot help but feel moved by the fact that in a country-war zone, an imprisoned comrade is choosing and insisting to raise the matter of total liberation of life from the shackles of civilization and authority. An imprisoned comrade who refuses to feed himself with corpses of animals, which have been tortured by the meat industry and all the derivatives of pain, who refuses to become a cogwheel in this bloodthirsty capitalist machine which is destroying and plunders the earth.
We ourselves have experienced the disdain and irony in our non anthropocentric struggle attitude; even inside the antiauthoritarian milieu in Greece, usually in the name of “something more important”, as if there can be an impartial prioritization of the struggle. That’s why this has an additional importance for us to point out the hunger strike of this comrade in Greece as well, aside from the obvious support and solidarity that Osman needs at this tough moment.
UNTIL THE LAST CAGE IS DESTROYED
NO ONE IS FREE
Dimitris Politis
George Karagiannidis
Yannis Michailidis
Radiofragmata Translation Project
Tags: Dimitris Politis, Giorgos Karagiannidis, Greece, Letter, Osman Evcan, Turkey, Yannis Michailidis
Posted in Prison Struggle |
March 17th, 2016
“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. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Alabama, Holman Correctional Facility (Atmore), Prison Riots, USA
Posted in Prison Struggle |
March 16th, 2016
Also see reports for days 1 & 2.
Today, Thursday, March 10, the third and final hearing in the trial of our comrades Mónica and Francisco took place. There was mainly the summing up of the lawyers for both the defence and the prosecution, and that of the Public Prosecutor.
The hearing began with the expert witnesses called by the defence, who submitted reports on the comparative study of DNA from a number of objects found after the explosion, and DNA of Francisco and Mónica extracted from objects taken from their cells. They confirmed what had already been exposed in the reports: there is absolutely no correspondence.
Subsequently, the judge asked whether the parties confirmed their initial conclusions, a question to which the lawyer of the specific accuser, the woman who was in the Pilar at the moment of the explosion, confirmed wanting to maintain the charges of “damage” and “injury”, but asked for the charges of membership and conspiracy to be dropped, significantly lowering the request to 12 years and a day for each and asking for compensation of 102,000 euro. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Francisco Solar, GAC (coordinated anarchist groups), Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), Insurrectionalist Commando Mateo Morral, International Revolutionary Front, Monica Caballero, Trial
Posted in Prison Struggle |
March 16th, 2016
[The following piece is a greeting from Conspiracy of Cells of Fire- Metropolitan Violence Cell at an event of the anti-authoritarian library “Las Lecheros” where a video projection of the Phoenix Project and an exposition for the book “Our day will come” has been made.]
With all eyes set towards the other side of the world, we are sending these few lines to express the kinship that we feel towards our brothers and sisters who are being present during this event. We address our most heartfelt greetings towards the comrades that took the responsibility to organize this event and to present the Phoenix Project along with the book “Our day will come”.
The Phoenix project is a vital part of the Black International of the anarchists of action, as it was the crossroad where comrades from all parts of the world were met, with a common desire, to breathe new life into an informal organization of anarchist action internationally.
The wick of Phoenix Project was fired from the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire/Sole-Baleno Cell, who blew up the car of the director of Korydallos Prison in Greece, officializing basically the comeback of CCF to the battlements of the anarchist aggression. Subsequently, comrades from the whole world reciprocated to this call for an informal coordination of attacks. We saw the fires of the anarchist insurrection to heat up in Indonesia, Russia, Chile, and Germany and then back again in Greece. The fumes of these fires reached the prison where the members of Conspiracy of Cells of Fire are imprisoned, who with a joint letter greeted this action of Sole-Baleno Cell.
This letter delivered the message that Conspiracy of Cells of Fire does never give up, but lives through every subversive attack against the existing system. This proved to be an excuse for further persecutions to the already imprisoned members of the CCF about the incitement of actions regarding the Phoenix Project, something that proves that those in power feel daunted by the anarchists who don’t obey neither in captivity.
Through this video you will meet the imprisoned members of Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, as it is their voices that you are going to hear, achieving even like this, a form of escape.
Furthermore, through the book “Our day will come” the story of our plan to escape from prison is unfolded, which after all never happened. Through this story, it seems that the ceaseless agonies for freedom and for anarchist action can never be suppressed and captivated. That’s why the authority is relentless with those who demand on their own, with their own rules, the wild freedom of the unlawfulness. And this was proved by the arrests of family members of the CCF which were reviled in the media and imprisoned. It took two hunger strikes to set them free with terms that constitute exile, as they can’t even visit their loved ones inside the prison. This time now they’re in trial in which they cannot even attend.
For us it’s a fact that the authentic anarchist relationship is beyond the legal-illegal separations and in that way it will always find ways to bring comrades together.
That’s why we feel that we are among you and we also feel dominated by the same complicity in the conspiracy of the unstoppable insurrection worldwide. A complicity that here in the Greek territory we share with more and more comrades, which by pressing on the basic imperatives of Black December now they meet through Insurrectional connection between theory and action.
And so, the Black December passes on the torch to a lively anarchist process, a platform of coordination that promotes the autonomy and the diversity of anarchist action and which expects to overcome the national borders and to meet with other anarchist collegialities and individualities everywhere. We participate in this action because we love challenges.
From Greece to Chile…
Conspiracy of Cells of Fire – Metropolitan Violence Cell
radiofragmata.espivblogs.net
Tags: Black December, Black International of Anarchists of Praxis, CCF - Metropolitan Violence Cell, Chile, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Greece, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), International Revolutionary Front, Las Lecheros (Library), Phoenix Project
Posted in Autonomy |
March 16th, 2016
Ongoing eviction in the Hambach forest! Support needed!!
15.03.2016 – Yesterday morning 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 tripods 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!
Come to the Hambach forest, we need food, water, blankets and most of all more people with fresh energy!
For more information: www.hambachforest.blogsport.de
Tags: Eviction, Forest Struggle, Germany, Hambach Forest
Posted in Eco Struggle |
March 15th, 2016
Received from blackdiamondprisonersupport:
To all Revolutionary prisoners and Anarchist comrades:
After my imprisonment in 1988 for armed robberies in California, I became politicized through participation in the 1991 Folsom Prison Hunger Strike. After more than a decade in solitary confinement in Pelican Bay SHU, where interacted with members of the Black Guerrila Family (BGF), Aryan Brotherhood (AB), and Mexican Mafia (EME), I had become deeply involved in political struggle with the prison abolition movement. I was convicted for Prisoner Resistance actions in two 1995 attacks on an Associate warden at New Folsom state prison and a Sacramento District Attorney prosecutor in the courthouse, I was beaten and tortured in multiple ‘cell extractions’ by armed teams of pigs. I was sentenced to multiple 25 years-to-life terms in state prison. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Black December, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), Jennifer Gann, Letter, USA
Posted in Prison Struggle |
March 15th, 2016
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
A car dealership near Côtes-des-Neiges was attacked using incendiary devices causing damage to luxury vehicles in the honor of the courageous imprisoned comrades of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire and of Revolutionary Struggle.
Solidarity means attack.
Long live anarchy.
A thousand years to the Black International
Tags: Arson, Black International of Anarchists of Praxis, Canada, Car Burning, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Côtes-des-Neiges, International Solidarity, Montreal, Revolutionary Struggle
Posted in Direct Action |
March 15th, 2016
English Translation
Reivindicación de amenaza a párroco de iglesia Los Sacramentinos
La iglesia y sus mutaciones a lo largo de la historia ha logrado prevalecer como símbolo y ejecutante de poder en el mundo, con pequeñas reinversiones han logrado que su moral y divina autoridad sigan siendo legitimas, permaneciendo así como forma de control para la humanidad. La sangre derramada por la inquisición en su época es reemplazada hoy por cánones morales, rutinas de comportamiento que no son más que el reflejo de una sociedad enferma. Heteronormatividad, supremacía del hombre por sobre todo, monarquías, justificación de la explotación humana y animal, vicios como machismo, pedofilia, el poder llevado a la escala más pequeña, la imbecilidad legitimada en más imbecilidad, y por supuesto no podría estar ausente el castigo más “duro” al que se puede someter a un bastardo pederasta: Una vida de oración.
A lo largo de la historia la iglesia siempre ha sido un blanco de ataque para quienes luchan contra el poder. No podemos olvidar como Mateo Morral atentó contra los reyes católicos en el año 1906. Acá en Chile el ataque tampoco ha sido la excepción, en el año 1915 el poder montó una cacería contra compañerxs anarquistas tratando de buscar a los responsables de ataques dinamiteros contra conventos religiosos. La Brigada de la Muerte en la España de 1936 saqueaba iglesias, profanaban tumbas de sacerdotes y asesinaban a los que se mantenían vivos por salvaguardar el fascismo en pequeños pueblos.
En la actualidad en Chile estas acciones han continuado, distintos células insurreccionales han bombardeado iglesias con cargas explosivas e incendiarias. Hasta en protestas han sido blanco de ataques, por ejemplo: La Iglesia de la Gratitud Nacional ubicada en plena Alameda. Su puerta principal fue incendiada por insurrectxs en una manifestación el 25 de agosto del año 2011. Esta nuevamente vio las llamas el 23 de mayo del año 2015 en la conmemoración por la muerte del anarquista Mauricio Morales, y días después, el 28 de mayo -nuevamente en una manifestación- sus puertas fueron alimentadas por el fuego anarquista.
Sin más, mediante este correo electrónico reivindicamos el envío de una carta a Rafael Cáceres Olave, párroco de la iglesia Los Sacramentinos en los días previos al juicio que enfrentaban lxs anarquistas Mónica Caballero y Francisco Solar en España acusadxs de distintas explosiones en iglesias adjudicadas por el Comando Insurreccional Mateo Morral. La carta contenía un mensaje por nuestrxs compañerxs y balas. Elegimos a este sujeto por ser párroco de la iglesia a la que Mónica había sido acusada de atentar en el denominado Caso Bombas en Chile.
El incendio, el ataque, la amenaza contra cualquier representante de la iglesia y el poder esta plenamente justificada. Tenemos las armas y nuestra voluntad para atentar contra ellxs. Sus días de jolgorio han acabado.
Derribando su historia, falsa moral, poder y autoridad…
Nos erigimos y gritamos fuerte:
¡Mónica Caballero y Francisco Solar a la kalle!
¡Muerte al estado/capital/iglesia y que viva la anarquía!
Brigada de la Muerte FAI/FRI
Tags: Brigada de la Muerte FAI/FRI, Chile, Francisco Solar, Fuck the Church, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), Insurrectionalist Commando Mateo Morral, International Revolutionary Front, International Solidarity, Mauricio Morales, Monica Caballero, Santiago
Posted in Direct Action |
March 14th, 2016
via contrainfo:
Below is the first part of the comrade’s long letter; originally published in Greek on Athens IMC (March 8th 2016).
Under other circumstances, this text would be written by Revolutionary Struggle. However, the outcome of the attempt to break out the comrade Nikos Maziotis of Koridallos prison obliges me to speak personally.
On February 21st [2016], I attempted to break out Revolutionary Struggle member Nikos Maziotis by helicopter. The operation was planned so that other political prisoners could join us, who wished to make their way to freedom. Details of the plan, how I managed to evade the security measures and board the helicopter armed, have no special significance and I will not refer to them; despite the fact that there has been a lot of misinformation. Just for the sake of clarity, I will only mention that the plan was not based on any previous helicopter prison escape, it is not associated with any findings of plans not yet implemented, and I do not have any relation to another fugitive person despite media portrayals to the contrary. Also, this attempt was not preceded by any escape plan that “was wrecked”, as reported by some media.
A quarter of the journey after our takeoff from Thermisia in Argolida, I took out my gun and I asked the pilot to change course. Of course, he did not understand who I am, but he realised it was an attempted prison break. He panicked. He attacked me pulling out a gun – a fact he “omitted”. Also because they will likely try to refute the fact he was armed, I remind everyone that there are publicly available reports about the discovery of two mags in the helicopter. One was mine, but the second wasn’t mine. The second mag was from his own gun, which he dropped from his hands during our scuffle during flight. And as for me, of course I had a second mag. Would I go to such an operation with only one mag?
He lost control of the helicopter and shouted in panic “we will get killed”. The description that was presented of a helicopter substantially unmanageable is true. But these images did not result from my actions, but his. The helicopter was losing altitude and swirled in the air. We flew a few meters over electricity wires. I screamed to him to pull up the helicopter, to do what I tell him so no one will get hurt.
Within no time at all, we were on the ground. Those who speak of a dispassionate reaction of the pilot, apparently judging from the result, don’t know what they are talking about.
Instead of doing what I told him to do, he preferred to risk crashing with me in a collision of the helicopter, which didn’t happen by chance. It goes without saying that upon entering the helicopter and trying to gain control of it, to direct it to the prisons, I had made my decision. If he refused to do what I told him, I would naturally react. Those who claim I was responsible for the uncontrolled descent of the helicopter, from 5,000 feet to the ground, what did they expect? That I would have said “if you don’t want to come to the prisons, never mind”? I fired my gun and we engaged – both armed – in a scuffle during flight.
He preferred to risk crashing with me on the mountain than to obey. When we finally landed on the ground with speed, even though I knew the operation was lost, I had every opportunity to execute him. I consciously decided not to do so. Although I knew that with this decision I was endangering my life or freedom, I did not execute him even though I had the chance. He himself knows this very well. The only factor that held me back was my political conscience. And I took this decision, risking my own life and possibility to get away.
Regarding the prison escape operation itself, it’s obvious that all possible safety measures were taken in order to safeguard the undertaking against the armed guards patrolling the prison perimeter, and I even carried a bulletproof vest for the pilot as well. In this case, the purpose was to make the prison break happen in a way that would ensure the lowest possible risk for the helicopter, the comrades and, of course, the pilot. I acted with the same thought when we landed on the ground; despite the fact that the operation failed because of the pilot; despite the fact that he was armed. I essentially put his life over my own life and safety. But I am to reconsider this specific choice.
Organising to break out Nikos Maziotis was a political decision, as much as it was a political decision to liberate other political prisoners as well. It was not a personal choice. If I wanted to only liberate my comrade Nikos Maziotis, I wouldn’t have chartered a large helicopter – a fact that made the operation’s organising more complex. The aim of the operation was the liberation of other political prisoners as well; those who actually wanted, together with us, to make their way to freedom.
This action, therefore, despite its personal dimensions that are known, was not a personal choice but a political one. It was a step in the path to Revolution. The same goes for every action I have carried out and for every action I will make in the future. These are links in a chain of revolutionary planning aimed to create more favourable political and social conditions, for broadening and strengthening revolutionary struggle. Below I will refer to the political basis of this choice; but first I have to talk about facts, and the way I have operated until now in regard to some of these facts.
As I previously mentioned, every action I carry out concerns an act related to political planning. In the same context, I expropriated a branch of Piraeus Bank on the premises of Sotiria Hospital in Athens last June [2015]. With this money, in addition to my survival in “clandestinity”, I secured the organising of my action and financing of the operation for the liberation of Nikos Maziotis and other political prisoners from Koridallos women’s prisons. The reason I refer to this expropriation (I couldn’t care less about the penal consequences of this admittance) is because, at this time, I consider it absolutely necessary to disclose how I operate in regard to the safety of civilians, who in certain circumstances happen to be present in revolutionary actions I am involved in, and my perspective about this issue on the occasion – always mutatis mutandis – of the prison escape attempt.
In the case of the expropriation of Piraeus Bank branch, what I mentioned to the bank clerks when we walked into the bank was that they should not press the alarm button, because this would endanger their own safety, since I wasn’t willing to leave the bank without the money. I did not threaten them, nor would they ever be in danger because of me. They would only be in danger because of the police, if cops arrived at the spot and we subsequently had an armed clash. And the police would only arrive if any clerks pressed the bank alarm. This was a development which they themselves wanted to avoid. Because people who happen to be present in every such action are not afraid of those trying to expropriate, but instead the police intervening. Besides, it’s really stupid for anyone to attempt to defend money belonging to bankers. And for the record, when a female clerk told me “we ourselves are also poor people,” I suggested to her that we step over to a “blind” spot, where cameras can’t see us, to let her have 5,000 euros, which she did not accept, apparently out of fear. If she had accepted the money, she can be sure I would not speak publicly about it. And one detail: what I was holding was a medical apron to conceal my gun while waiting outside the bank; it was not a towel(!), as mentioned several times.
In every period of time, in the struggle for Revolution – as is also the case in all wars – at times the revolutionaries are obliged to seek the assistance of civilians in their fight. The historical examples are too many – an attempt to document them would fill an entire book, and this isn’t the time to expand on the matter – both in Greece and in armed movements and organisations in other countries. In such cases, however, we essentially ask them to take sides in a war. Once someone refuses to assist, their stance is not just about the particular practice, but an overall hostile stance against the struggle. They endanger or cancel undertakings, they put the lives of fighters in danger, they throw obstacles in the way of a revolutionary process. They take a position against a social and class war.
Neither at Piraeus Bank branch nor during the attempted helicopter escape did I make my identity known. Therefore, no one involved in these cases knew that those were political actions. But after the failed escape attempt, and given that – as I already mentioned – I had the opportunity to kill the pilot but I didn’t, risking my own life, I have to make the following public: from now on, whenever I need the assistance of civilians again, and if I deem it necessary, I will make my identity known from the outset. Since my mission in any case concerns the promotion of the struggle for overthrowing the criminal establishment, let everyone know that any possible refusal of cooperating and effort of obstructing the action will be treated accordingly.
I am, of course, aware of the personal details of the pilot, but I did not threaten his family. I would never threaten families and children.
This is my balance sheet after the escape attempt, one I must make public.
THE PRISON ESCAPE OPERATION WAS A REVOLUTIONARY CHOICE
[…]
I ATTEMPTED THE PRISON ESCAPE FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION
ALL MY LIFE I STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION
I WILL CONTINUE TO STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION
Pola Roupa
member of Revolutionary Struggle
Tags: Greece, Korydallos Prison, Letter, Nikos Maziotis, Pola Roupa, Revolutionary Struggle
Posted in Prison Struggle |
