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Posts Tagged ‘Revolutionary Struggle’

Soli-Poster for imprisoned members of Revolutionary Struggle (Greece)

Sunday, January 22nd, 2017

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Revolutionary Struggle members Pola Roupa and Konstantina Athanasopoulou arrested in Attica, Lil’ Lambros-Viktoras held hostage, thirst and hunger strike by RS imprisoned fighters (Greece)

Sunday, January 8th, 2017

Update: According to Athens Indymedia a new order was issued by the prosecutor on 08.01.16 terminating the detention of Lambros-Viktoras Maziotis Roupas, the 6 year old son of Revolutionary Struggle members Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis, and awarding temporary custody of the child to his grandmother. The child has already left the hospital with his relatives. Comrades Pola Roupa, Nikos Maziotis and Konstantina Athansopoulou have ended their hunger and thirst strike. A decision on final custody of the child will take place in six months time.

International solidarity is our weapon

According to Greek media, the comrade Pola Roupa, member of Revolutionary Struggle, has been arrested at a home in the Attica region. Pola is the partner of Revolutionary Struggle member and political prisoner Nikos Maziotis and was one of the most wanted fugitives in Greece. According to media reports Pola was at the house with her young child and a 25 year old woman when police raided. The 25 year old woman was also arrested. There are unconfirmed reports that two more people may have been arrested as well. More information as it becomes available.

Solidarity with Pola Roupa and Revolutionary Struggle!

–

From our comrades in Greece we have learned that during the arrest of comrade Pola Roupa (member of Revolutionary Struggle and partner of the comrade Nikos Maziotis, also a member of Revolutionary Struggle), that the police kidnapped and detained her 6 year old son.

The child is being held in a hospital room under armed guard and the police are refusing to allow family members or legal representatives to see him. Although we do not know if he is being interrogated it is worth noting that it is illegal under Greek law to interrogate a minor without the presence of a parent / guardian or lawyer.

In response to the state’s vengeful kidnapping and detention of their son, comrades Pola and Nikos have begun a hunger and thirst strike to demand that their child be released from police custody and into the care of close relatives. The 25 year old woman comrade who was arrested with Pola has also begun a hunger strike with the same demands as Pola and Nikos. She is being held under guard in hospital with a serious injury to her arm. (more…)

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Statement of imprisoned comrade Nikos Maziotis at the ongoing trial of Revolutionary Struggle (Greece)

Friday, November 4th, 2016

The armed attack of Revolutionary Struggle against riot police in Exarchia was one of the most important actions of the organization. It was a legitimate political and social action in retaliation for the murder of 16 year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by the policemen Korkoneas and Saralioti, which took place on December 6, 2008. This murder was the result of the intensification of police violence in recent years, and was formed under conditions of intensive neoliberal reforms and the “war against terrorism” in the same period.

In particular, this development took on larger dimensions in the spring of 2007, when there were violent clashes and attacks in the center of Athens between students, youths and anarchists against squads of riot police, in the protests that were against the bill of the Ministry of Education to promote the privatization of education.

The then minister of Public Order, Byron Polidoras, when taking office truthfully addressed the police as “Praetorians”, and when after these riots followed anarchist attacks on police stations in Exarchia and Papagos, he had stated that “the police have steady nerves” and can safely pull out their guns. Essentially, this more or less gave the green light to fire against unarmed demonstrators, youths and anarchists. At the same time there was a climate promoted by the state and the Ministry of Public Order, with declarations from this same minister and also the police union, promoting the cleaning of anarchists from Exarchia, speaking of the reclamation of Exarchia for the state. A similar debate and counter-debate exists now between Syriza government and the main opposition party of New Democracy. (more…)

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Interview with Nikos Maziotis, imprisoned member of Revolutionary Struggle (Greece)

Wednesday, June 29th, 2016

Some Questions and Answers with N. Maziotis, event at Karditsa self-managed space, June 2016 [excerpts]

Q. How can the anarchist/antiauthoritarian space change from being reactive into a real revolutionary movement? In your opinion, what political characteristics should it have, and what kind of organization and aims?

A: It is a question of political positions. Anarchy, or Libertarian or antiauthoritarian communism is a social proposal and organization. The condition to create a truly revolutionary anarchist movement is the existence of political positions and proposals in order to make clear to the people, the masses and workers, what we believe and what aims we have as anarchists. This means that we must take positions on the burning problems and issues of our time that are the result of the capitalist crisis- such as debt, memoranda, the dilemma of staying in or leaving the European Union, and to make clear what is our goal as anarchists, which is none other than the overthrow and destruction of capital and the state and the creation of a stateless, classless society.
These are issues for which the masses of people, the people affected by the crisis and the policies for rescuing the system, have searched and still search answers, yet the anarchist/anti-authoritarian space had nothing different to offer them compared to the proposals of the mainstream parties (besides slogans perhaps). Also beyond the formulation of political positions and proposals it should be clear by whom or in what ways and means our struggle will promote and implement these political positions and proposals- in other words, how we will make Anarchy a reality. (more…)

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Posted in Interviews

Athens, Korydallos Prison Court: Statement of Giorgos Petrakakos when leaving the trial procedure, the reading of which was forbidden by the judge Ifanti (Greece)

Tuesday, June 28th, 2016

On February 15th 2016 began my second trial, concerning robberies for which I am accused of since 2002. This trial takes place at different times, but on the same days, in the same court room and by the same judges who are trying the escape case of members of the CCF.

Just like in the case of the CCF, there were repeated attempts by the judges to provocatively bypass the strike of the DSA (Athens Bar Association).

Specifically, the chairwoman Mrs Ifanti initially proposed to me to be tried without an advocate, because according to her my legal representation will offer me nothing, since I accept the charges and because I have already been convicted and sentenced to 36 years for another case. So either way my final sentence will be merged to 25 years! Thus, she proved to me that she perceives my trial as mathematical equation which will simply add years to my sentence,
without even examining the real incidents.

I refused her proposal and insisted on my initial choice to be represented by a lawyer. In the following session Mrs.Ifanti came back with a new proposal, suggested to my appointed advocate Athanasios V. Stamou, to bypass the decision of DSA so they can “get it over with”, for her to receive mine and my advocate’s refusal. (more…)

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Athens Polytechnic: Solidarity banner for imprisoned anarchist fighters (Greece)

Wednesday, April 27th, 2016

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Some excerpts from the presentation by Nikos Maziotis, member of Revolutionary Struggle, at Pikrodafne squat, Athens (Greece)

Wednesday, April 27th, 2016

31/1/2016

“We have to sabotage the implementation of the Third Memorandum”

Q: What are the reasons, in your opinion, for the decline in the level of social resistance and struggles against capitalist restructuring and austerity measures and how can we get out of this impasse? What should be the strategy in the anarchist space currently?

A: The cause of the lessening of social resistance is precisely that it had and continues to have a defensive character in face of the unprecedented onslaught of capital and the state after 2010. The capitalist machine has been malfunctioning since 2008, neither finding profitable investments for pumping out ever greater profits nor capital to offset its losses, so it attacks social gains and the working class. And it attacks social security, salaries and pensions, it confiscates property due to debts, reduces labor costs, and seizes public property through privatization.

To compensate for its losses, capital pushes through rescue programs, that is to say the memoranda, wiping out sections of the population that it neither wants to nor can exploit, leading to their destruction. The redistribution of large-scale social wealth by confiscation applies a large-scale policy of theft from society and societal genocide to save the powerful.

Faced with this unprecedented attack that has already left thousands dead and the majority of society immiserated and impoverished, the solution is not to struggle to restore the system and social order to pre-2008 conditions- when the system worked, the banking system was “prosperous” and giving loans, with a welfare state (which in Greece was never well-developed) and a social consensus on the neoliberal reforms of that time. (more…)

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Posted in Interviews

Presentation of Nikos Maziotis: “Armed Struggle, Revolutionary Movement, and Social Revolution” – Athens Polytechnic, 2014 (Greece)

Wednesday, April 27th, 2016

Presentation of Nikos Maziotis:
“Armed Struggle, Revolutionary Movement, and Social Revolution”
Athens Polytechnic, November 2014

[The talk began with various brief greetings to comrades attending the presentation, those of the squat KVOX for organizing the event, a reference by Maziotis to the government preventing him from speaking by phone to a prior meeting, etc. After this presentation, there were also some questions and responses which are not yet translated]…

This presentation deals with the theme, “Armed Struggle, Revolutionary Movement and Social Revolution” and has as its goal to show the clear and undeniable connection of armed struggle with the creation of a revolutionary movement that is a necessary precondition for social revolution, for the overturn of State and Capital.

I also believe that such a discussion is a good opportunity to begin political work that will aim at the creation of a certain form of political structure, that is to say a revolutionary movement that will try to overturn the rule of state and capital in the present-day Greek territory. Our goal as Revolutionary Struggle is the creation of such a revolutionary movement, and we have pursued this with our acts and our words. I believe with these words and acts we have brought political armaments and analysis into the anti-authoritarian space which can be used to build the base of a revolutionary movement. I would underline that a similar presentation in Thessaloniki at Terra Incognita squat at which I spoke, also fueled conversations and efforts to begin political work to form a revolutionary movement. (more…)

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Posted in Autonomy

Dark Nights #45 : ‘Without a Trace of Remorse’ by Aggeliki Spyropoulou & ‘April’s Dream’ by Eat (ACN)

Saturday, April 9th, 2016

Bringing together two escape attempts, a dream, letters, claims of responsibility, interventions and the perpetual destruction of the existent…

Dark Nights #45

1. ‘Without a Trace of Remorse’ by Aggeliki Spyropoulou.
2. ‘April’s Dream’ by Eat.
3. Coverage of the CCF Escape Case Trial.
4. ‘The perpetual move towards freedom…’ by Christos Tsakalos, CCF / FAI-FRI.
5. Message from CCF / Metropolitan Violence Cell to Las Lecheros Library, Chile.
6. CCF – FAI/IRF: The Free Besieged.
7. Open letter of Pola Roupa about the attempt to break Nikos Maziotis and members of CCF out of Korydallos prison.
8. Intervention of Christos Tsakalos at an event in the self managed hangout in Karditsa.
9. Direct Action Chronology

http://325.nostate.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/dark-nights-45.pdf

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Posted in Library

Greeting of Nikos Maziotis at the yearly meeting of International Red Help

Sunday, April 3rd, 2016

I salute the comrades who participate in the yearly meeting of International Red Help. Comrades from Greece participate for the first time in this meeting, members of the solidarity assembly for political prisoners in Greece who surely will inform you about the situation in Greece with regards to political prisoners, solidarity and generally the political situation in Greece.

From my side I will inform you about some recent events that took place here. On February 21st the wanted comrade, Pola Roupa, on whom a bounty has been set, attempted to hijack a helicopter in order to break myself, as well as other political prisoners condemned for armed struggle, out of the prison of Korydallos. Unfortunately, the hijack failed due to the reaction of the pilot, who turned out to be an ex-policeman and was armed. Fortunately, the comrade got away safe and unhurt. (more…)

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Koridallos prisons: Revolutionary Struggle member Nikos Maziotis on the escape attempt and life sentence (Greece)

Thursday, March 24th, 2016

Text of Nikos Maziotis about the operation of escape from Koridallos prison and the sentence of life imprisonment handed down in the 2nd Revolutionary Struggle trial

The attempt to escape from Koridallos prison by helicopter on February 21st 2016 – an operation carried out by comrade Pola Roupa, member of Revolutionary Struggle – was a revolutionary act, a guerrilla action for the liberation of political prisoners. It was a means of continuation of Revolutionary Struggle’s activity, a response to the State’s repressive operations against our organisation and other political prisoners, comrades who are in prison for armed activity as well. It was therefore an exemplary solidarity act of great and unique importance. The prison escape operation was a step towards continuing armed revolutionary activity; promoting the struggle for the overthrow of the State and Capital; overturning the establishment’s policy of bailout programs imposed by the troika of the country’s supranational bosses, the EC, ECB and IMF, to which the ESM has been added with the enactment and implementation of the third memorandum program by the SYRIZA-led government. Armed struggle in the present circumstances is more timely and necessary than ever. The failure of this operation won’t bend us. We will struggle as long as we live and breathe. (more…)

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Montreal: Arson attack at a luxury car dealership in solidarity with imprisoned members of CCF & Revolutionary Struggle (Canada)

Tuesday, 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

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Posted in Direct Action

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

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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.

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Posted in Prison Struggle

Dark Nights #44 : ‘Turn up the Heat’ & ‘Communique by CCF – Urban Guerilla Cell′ – Feb 2016 (ACN)

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2016

Dark Nights #44

1. Turn up the Heat.
2. Communique by CCF – Urban Guerilla Cell.
3. ‘Forever Guilty’ – Text by Panagiotis Argirou on the trial for the 250 attacks of the CCF / FAI-IRF.
4. ‘Against the Slander of Civil Anarchism’ by Sureños Incivilizados (Chile)
5. Civitavecchia, Italy: FAI/FRI take responsibility for an explosive attack on the city court.
6. Athens, Greece: FAI take responsibility for two incendiary attacks.
7. Athens, Greece: FAI take responsibility for an explosion at Tax Office.
8. Direct Action Chronology.
9. Police allege helicopter escape attempt by revolutionary comrades held hostage in Korydallos Prison, implicate comrade in clandestinity Pola Roupa of Revolutionary Struggle (Greece)

http://325.nostate.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/44-dark-nights.pdf

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Posted in Library