Archive for the ‘Prison Struggle’ Category
Conspiracy of Cells of Fire – FAI/IRF: The Free Besieged (Greece)
Friday, 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
Solidarity letter from imprisoned comrades in Greece to Osman Evcan (Turkey)
Thursday, 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
Call for actions in solidarity with prison rebels in Alabama (USA)
Thursday, 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. (more…)
Tags: Alabama, Holman Correctional Facility (Atmore), Prison Riots, USA
Posted in Prison Struggle
Last day of the trial against anarchist comrades Mónica and Francisco (Spain)
Wednesday, 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. (more…)
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
Letter by Jennifer Gann on the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire and Solidarity with FAI-IRF (USA)
Tuesday, 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. (more…)
Tags: Black December, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), Jennifer Gann, Letter, USA
Posted in Prison Struggle
Open letter of Pola Roupa about the attempt to break Nikos Maziotis out of Koridallos prison (Greece)
Monday, 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
Demonstration zum Tag der politischen Gefangenen in Berlin – Demo for political prisoners (Germany)
Tuesday, March 8th, 2016
Freitag, 18. März 2016 um 18 uhr
S-Bhf Sonnenallee
(Siegrief-Aufhäuser-Platz)
Join us for March 18 – Day of action for the liberation of all political prisoners! Resist and fight against the justice system of the bourgeoisie and the imperialist oppression!
Freedom for all political prisoners….
The internationally-operating Rote Hilfe (‘Red Help’) – until present the most meaningful and largest solidarity organisation for workers’ and peoples’ movements – was officially founded not for nothing by the Communist Internationale on March 18, 1923. It was the anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871 – the first attempt of the working class to take over the power and carry it with the goal of reorganizing the society. France’s and Germany’s ruling classes united to drown in blood this struggle of the oppressed. 30,000 men and women, workers, fighters and revolutionaries were hanged, 363,000 appeared before court. To commemorate this massacre and honour the fallen, this day has been known up until now as the international day of action for the liberation of all political prisoners.
Even today it remains in the nature of things for the universal imperialist system of exploitation to produce copious amounts of hardship, poverty and war, calling forth the exploited and the oppressed to commit to a most decided resistance. To assure their continuous rule and profits, the bourgeois countries, their armed institutions and their justice system resort to various forms of political repression: intimidation, spying, news-baiting, monetary fines, tightened laws, bans, trials, imprisonment, isolation, counter-revolutionary violence, torture, planned disappearances, murder and terror are in the program of the so fully ‘democratic’ dictatorships of the bourgeoisie in the imperialist capitalist system. (more…)
Tags: Ahmad Sa’adat, Berlin, Demo, DHKP-C (Democratic People's Liberation Party-Front), Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, Germany, GG/BO (Prisoners Union), Gülaferit Ünsal, India, Kurdistan, Leonard Peltier, Maoist Communist Party - Turkey (MKP), Mumia Abu-Jamal, Palestine, People’s War of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Repression, Revolutionäre Aktionszellen, Revolutionäre Linken, Rote Hilfe, Turkey
Posted in Prison Struggle
CCF Escape Case: Evi Statiri and Athena Tsakalou are not allowed to attend their own trial (Greece)
Friday, March 4th, 2016
Regarding the trial for the escape plan from Korydallos prison against the members of the C.C.F. something truly incomprehensible is unfolding…
Two of the defendants, Athena Tsakalou and Evi Statiri cannot be present at court during the trial because of certain restrictions as part of their conditional release from pre-trial detention.
During the three times the court convened so far, the same thing happened: the judge calls their names to register their attendance and every time the exact same dialogue follows. The defence attorneys have to explain that both women are under conditional release and if restrictions are violated they will be re-arrested. These restrictions are in the form of house arrest for Athena Tsakalou who lives on Salamina island, while Evi Statiri is not allowed to cross the 1km radius from her residence. (more…)
Tags: Athena Tsakalou, Athens, CCF Escape case, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Evi Statiri, Greece, Korydallos Prison, SY.RIZ.A., Trial
Posted in Prison Struggle
Letter from Conspiracy of Cells of Fire – Urban Guerilla Cell : ‘For Monica and Francisco’ (Greece, Spain)
Friday, March 4th, 2016
Regarding the international call of solidarity for Monica and Francisco we are sending these few words, written with our hearts in complicity…
From 8th to 10th of March the trial of the comrades Monica Caballero and Francisco Solar takes place in Madrid’s High Court. They are accused of an explosive attack at the Basilica del Pillar in Zaragoza. The claim of responsibility was signed by “Insurrectional Commando Mateo Morral”, which according to the indictment belongs to the Coordinated Anarchist Groups that constitute the Spanish division of Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI/IRF).
The arrests of Monica and Francisco at the 13th of November 2013 were just the beginning of a series of anti-anarchist expeditions of the Spanish State (Operation Pandora, Operation Pinata). Their target was the friends and comrades of these 2 imprisoned anarchists, as well as anarchist collectives and squats. More than 40 people were arrested.
On the 28th of October 2015 the Spanish authorities decided to extend the remand of Fransisco and Monica for 2 more years in the midst of constant transfers under the custodial regime FIES 3 (special custodial conditions). The district attorney has already suggested 44 years of imprisonment to each, while in her venomous peroration, she used the international terrorism hysteria, after the Paris attack from ISIS, and she even compared the anarchist cells of action to jihadists!!!
Monica and Fransisco were already in the “black list” of the authorities, from their former imprisonment in the Chilean prisons because of the “Bombs Case”…
We are not lawyers to talk about the evidence of this case… but we know that a bomb in a church is a liberating action… Every temple is a monument of the defeat of Man.
Thousands of robe-wearing scarecrows are making loads of money by putting to sleep willing crowds of believers. They are selling a spot at their fake heaven, while they themselves go around in ironclad limos, private jets and luxurious yachts.
They are offering crumbs of philanthropy; at the same time their personal bank accounts are overflowing with money in banks where they are themselves shareholders…
They are merchandizing “Hope” in order to be able to manipulate the fear of the economic crisis, of the existential dead ends and of the dissimilitude.
They are preaching resignation and blind submission, in order to hide the fumes of the child pornography scandals and the plague that prevails in their social circles.
For this reason, we choose to be profane against the pious people…
Every time a church is blown up, freedom obtains some meters of earth above the
debris of the explosion.
Monica and Francisco won’t be alone in the court. Every revolting heart will pulsate at the rhythm of their hearts.
Our bet is to synchronize our hearts with our actions to take back our freedom… for Monica… for Francisco… for everyone…
Never repentant
Never defeated
Conspiracy of Cells of Fire – Urban Guerilla Cell FAI-IRF
Tags: Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire - Urban Guerilla Cell, Francisco Solar, Greece, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), International Revolutionary Front, Letter, Monica Caballero, Spain, Trial
Posted in Prison Struggle
Athens: Prison sentences in the 2nd trial against Revolutionary Struggle (Greece)
Thursday, March 3rd, 2016
UPDATE: Post-sentencing statement of Nikos Maziotis.
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.
-via contrainfo.
Tags: Antonis Stamboulos, Athens, Giorgos Petrakakos, Greece, Korydallos Prison, Nikos Maziotis, Pola Roupa, Revolutionary Struggle, Trial
Posted in Prison Struggle
