3/12/08 GREEK PRISONERS COLLECTIVE HUNGER STRIKE & COMRADE'S LETTER
ON 3/12/08 A COLLECTIVE HUNGER STRIKE IS ORGANISED AROUND MOST GREEK PRISONS. SOME OF THE DEMANDS:
PRISON AUTHORITIES STICKING TO THE PENAL CODE, AND IMPROVEMENTS OF THE PENAL CODE.
DRUG USERS CAN GO OUT AFTER 3/5 OF THE SENTENCE AND NOT 4/5.
NO TO EXCESSIVE MISUSE OF THE PRE-TRIAL IMPRISONMENTS.
MORE DAYS-OFF.
HUMAIN VISITING CONDITIONS.
PENALTIES AGAINST PRISON-GUARD VIOLENCE.
LOCAL INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS FREE TO ENTER PRISONS AND DO RESEARCH AND REPORTS
more than 14.000 persons are imprisoned in Greece (~1,3/1.000 citizens).
Following is a quick translation of a letter of our comrade Polys' circulated also within prisons:
ON THE PRISONER MOVEMENT AND THE HUNGER STRIKE ISSUE
Not many words are needed to describe the conditions that reign inside prisons. One word would fit: Dahaou.
Crushing incarcerations, equally exterminative penalties (the only ones really paying for the judge's racket scandal coming to light are the inmates), prolonged captivity through un unmeasured use of disciplinary charges, minimum or zero medical supplies (with the exception of constant drug pills dispensation, to produce Pavlov's dogs), overcrowding of the prisons (Concerning just the Dahaou of Ioannina where I am kept, more than 200 prisoners live in a prison built to "house" 80 persons. Prisoners are packed like sardines in a can, even in the corridors!).
This overcrowding could end with a few simple ways:
1) Reduction of pre-trial imprisonment
2) End of captivity of the vindictive disciplinary charges
3) Abolishion of the 4/5 of time rule for the drug cases (in Greece all drug addict prisoners are labeled as dealers, leading to the "dealers" being more than the users...)
Inside these miserable conditions we have millions of reasons to revolt, and none to remain passive. With full consciousness that whatever measures they take to disburden the prisoners are nothing more than painkillers, since for as long as this authoritarian/class society stands, the miserableness of prison will stand by it. I join forces with the prisoners struggle, as I did in solidarity with them, while I was outside the prison bars.
On the other hand, I can't keep to my self my disagreement on the weapon of hunger strike, that was suggested, and I regard as useful to express this disagreement open and in public. I regard as by NO means necessary to eliminate ourselves and move into actions that only waste our forces, the same time that there are still many other ways to resist and fight (as much for the inmates as for the out of prison bars solidarious). Our health, our bodies and our minds should be kept fit and strong our ENTIRE lives, and not surrender in a wilful decay.
Our clash with the society that gives birth to the prison misery should continue until we finally become food for the worms, and for this reason our full physical and mental health should be safeguarded as the apple of our eye.
Maybe a hunger strike will bring some short term positive results (draw some support, sensitizing), but in a long term it acts only as a deleterious effect. It's simply one step forward and two steps aback.
Moreover, it creates fighters of many levels. The same time that 50-100 persons in a self-sacrifice spirit risk their physical and mental health, thousands of other inmates will eat typically their "zwan" meat.
I consider more useful the decision making through collective processes, so that every means of struggle we use must concern EVERY prisoner in struggle.
By no means do I wish to break apart the unity that prevails among prisoners. This text was written aiming only to make clear my stance on the issue of the hunger strike (an issue the radical movement deals with for many years now) and not to criticise the comrades that selected this means. All I do is striving for the sportiness of words and actions I strived before my imprisonment, and nothing more than that.
It is obvious that I will put all my efforts in the prisoners fight for Dignity.
UNTIL THE DESTRUCTION OF EACH LAST PRISON
Polikarpos Georgiadis
(Ioannina Juridical Prisons)
Not many words are needed to describe the conditions that reign inside prisons. One word would fit: Dahaou.
Crushing incarcerations, equally exterminative penalties (the only ones really paying for the judge's racket scandal coming to light are the inmates), prolonged captivity through un unmeasured use of disciplinary charges, minimum or zero medical supplies (with the exception of constant drug pills dispensation, to produce Pavlov's dogs), overcrowding of the prisons (Concerning just the Dahaou of Ioannina where I am kept, more than 200 prisoners live in a prison built to "house" 80 persons. Prisoners are packed like sardines in a can, even in the corridors!).
This overcrowding could end with a few simple ways:
1) Reduction of pre-trial imprisonment
2) End of captivity of the vindictive disciplinary charges
3) Abolishion of the 4/5 of time rule for the drug cases (in Greece all drug addict prisoners are labeled as dealers, leading to the "dealers" being more than the users...)
Inside these miserable conditions we have millions of reasons to revolt, and none to remain passive. With full consciousness that whatever measures they take to disburden the prisoners are nothing more than painkillers, since for as long as this authoritarian/class society stands, the miserableness of prison will stand by it. I join forces with the prisoners struggle, as I did in solidarity with them, while I was outside the prison bars.
On the other hand, I can't keep to my self my disagreement on the weapon of hunger strike, that was suggested, and I regard as useful to express this disagreement open and in public. I regard as by NO means necessary to eliminate ourselves and move into actions that only waste our forces, the same time that there are still many other ways to resist and fight (as much for the inmates as for the out of prison bars solidarious). Our health, our bodies and our minds should be kept fit and strong our ENTIRE lives, and not surrender in a wilful decay.
Our clash with the society that gives birth to the prison misery should continue until we finally become food for the worms, and for this reason our full physical and mental health should be safeguarded as the apple of our eye.
Maybe a hunger strike will bring some short term positive results (draw some support, sensitizing), but in a long term it acts only as a deleterious effect. It's simply one step forward and two steps aback.
Moreover, it creates fighters of many levels. The same time that 50-100 persons in a self-sacrifice spirit risk their physical and mental health, thousands of other inmates will eat typically their "zwan" meat.
I consider more useful the decision making through collective processes, so that every means of struggle we use must concern EVERY prisoner in struggle.
By no means do I wish to break apart the unity that prevails among prisoners. This text was written aiming only to make clear my stance on the issue of the hunger strike (an issue the radical movement deals with for many years now) and not to criticise the comrades that selected this means. All I do is striving for the sportiness of words and actions I strived before my imprisonment, and nothing more than that.
It is obvious that I will put all my efforts in the prisoners fight for Dignity.
UNTIL THE DESTRUCTION OF EACH LAST PRISON
Polikarpos Georgiadis
(Ioannina Juridical Prisons)
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