Reactions towards latest arrest in relation to Nuclei of Fire in Athens

Nov 16 2009 libcom.org

Reactions towards the latest arrest in relation to urban guerrilla group
Nuclei of Fire, as lack of evidence points at criminalisation of the
anarchist scene in toto.

After an initial freeze, the arrest of a 22 year old girl last Friday in
relation to the urban guerrilla group Nuclei of Fire Conspiracy (also
transl. as Cells of Fire), reactions start pouring both by the guerrilla
group itself, and by aspects of the social anarchist movement. Given the
only evidence for the arrest is a single fingerprint on a movable object
found in what the State calls the safe-house of Chalandri (site of the
first arrests in late September), the latest arrest seems to be a bold
motion by the State to criminalise the entire anarchist-antiauthoritarian
scene, and keep its thousands of members hostage to fear of secret
warrants, in breach of the greek constitution. Antigone, the girl arrested
on Friday, had not been notified of a warrant against her person, thus
breaching her constitutional right to present herself to the authorities
and thus claim clemency on account of voluntary surrender to the law.
Antigone had been one of the dozens of young people arrested during the
massive and riotous protest march of March 8 2007, on the day of the
parliamentary vote on an educational reform bill that had plunged the
greek universities in year-long occupations and strikes. It is striking
that the police moved to arrest her in public although Antigone has been
making a monthly testimony to her local police station twice monthly as
part of her parole from custody pending her trial for more than two years.

The state of fear desired to be imposed on the social antagonistic
movement on part of the State is characterised by endless articles in the
bourgeois press talking about "200 people encircled" by the secret
services, and "immediate arrest of 25 to 50 more suspects". At the same
time the Minister of Public Order is portraying himself as a paternal
protectionist figure, expressing his "deep sorrow and dispair" over the
future of the fugitives, who he is most theatrically pleading to surrender
in every televised opportunity.

The response of the urban guerrilla group Nuclei of Fire Conspiracy came
on Monday 16-11, with a communique claiming responsibility for the bomb
attack against the house of Mr Androulakis, a communist turncoat and
government MP. In the long communique, the guerrillas refer to the latest
arrest in the following words:

ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING THE LAST EVENTS
"Life is too vast for one to accept the consequences with no suspicion".
The scene tends to become familiar, annoyingly familiar...A few hours
after our attack against the strawman Androulakis, the Antiterrorist
Bureau arrested in Exarheia a 22 year old young girl, supposedly as a
member of our organisation. The similarities with the first arrests and
the notorious "safe-house" in Chalandri are outrageously quaint. The girls
was already known to the authorities as she gave testimony every month as
her local police station, due to an arrest during clashes in a protest
march (and this is to her honour). The guys in Chalandri were equally
known [to the authorities], as according to the police they were under
close surveillance during the period prior to their arrest. How is it then
possible that those very persons known to and followed closely by the
police, to be simultaneously partaking in bomb attacks in the same period.
And, at the same time, their arrest being symptomatically (?) made only
hours after one of our attacks. This agony of the persecuting authorities
to express their real incapability to "crack us", as a success is
troubling us.
For such successes are burdened on the shoulders of people who, though the
cops know they are unrelated to us. are persecuted so as to send a
concrete message: "as long as you keep hitting we shall be arresting more
people". An informal blackmail...The easiness with which the police is
raising at will the number of our members is by the way characteristic. In
the beginning they would talk about 1-15 people, then about 2-25, whereas
lately in some articles they refer to up to 50-60 people. Their intentions
are obvious. They are constructing an open theorem so as to be able to
charge with heavy accusations anyone expressing "deviant behaviours" with
ragard to the social norms. If in Italy the district attorneys needed to
contstuct O.R.A.I (a ghost-organisation that existed only in the mind and
for the purposes of the authorities - see the Marini Case), so as to
imprison tens of anarchists with no evidence, now in Greece their
colleagues want to "use" the Nuclei of Fire Conspiracy for precisely the
same reason".

On the social side of things anarchist, one of central Athens newest
squats, has published a condemnation of Antigone's arrest, claiming it to
be part of a general plan to intimidate the movement:

"On Friday 13/11 on midnight a group of plain-clothed policemen was hiding
at Patision and Hipeirou junction. In our squat (just 50 meters away) a
birthday party was taking place with hundreds of people. Four of them left
at dawn for their homes and reaching the junction were abducted by the
plain-clothed policemen, who put them in cars loaded with "anti"terrorist
agents wearing hoods. The next day at 15:00, 3 of the abducted were set
free, while a comrade (Antigone) was held on the bases of an arrest
warrant issued on Thursday 12/11 for her participation in the "Nuclei of
Fire Conspiracy". The incriminating evidence against her was one
fingerprint on a mobile item found in the notorious "safe-house" of
Chalandri. A "safe-house" that amounts to no more than the house of one of
the 3 people held in custody since the end of September, accused as
members of the same organisation. A house, in other words, that has been
christened a "safe-house" so as to validate the scenario that wants anyone
visiting it incriminated as "a member of a terrorist group" according to
the terror-law. This anyway was to begin with the framework of the
repressive scheme, from the initial 4 arrests, the custody of the 3 and
the immediate issuing of 6 arrest warrants and the subsequent issuing of
another 5, and the arrest of Antigone: the criminalisation of
interpersonal, social and comradely relations and the creation of more and
more "hostages" for the show-off of an "anti"terrorist performance, by
parading the arrested in the TV channels as trophies of some police
success.

The choice of arresting the comrade outside the squat and not just
anywhere else in the city (e.g. in her house or in the police station
where she had to appear on the 1st and 15th of each month due to the
student movement in 2006/07) is not at all accidental. The scenario which
has been played many more times, is replayed -in a low-key tone- this time
too: the liberated squatted spaces are refuges for the wanted and the
launching bases of arson and armed attacks. A scenario which -amongst many
others- is valorised as a war measure against the
anarchist-antiauthoritarian scene and against wider social segments which
are resisting and not assimilated to the demands of the dominant ideology.
It is a preventive war-campaign against the people who rebelled last
December and it continues, either individually or through organised
collectives, to pose a threat to the constitution of social consensus
towards the plans of the state and capital for the conservation of social
peace and exploitative power relations.

We are reserving ourselves towards a more spherical analysis in the near
future with regard to the evolving repressive scheme and its wider
prospects through the general context of the repressive strategy of the
state in the hands of the new administration, and we are setting a date
with everyone in solidarity, for the courts where, on Monday, Antigone
will be presented to the state inquisitor.

Solidarity is our weapon
The only terrorist is the state
Patision 61 & Skaramaga Squat

It must be noted that Antigone has demanded and received a permit to
appear before the state inquisitor on the 18th of November.