Reactions to the arrest of the 6 anarchists in Athens

Libcom.org Apr 13 2010

Journalist Union headquarters in Athens occupied by anarchists, as "police evidence" are proved to be utter lies.

On Tuesday noon 200 anarchists moved into the high-rise headquarters of the Journalists' Union in down-town Athens and after allowing all workers to exit the building declared it occupied, dropping a banner on its front in solidarity to the 6 arrested anarchists accused by the police as members of the urban guerrilla group Revolutionary Struggle. The anarchist held the building for several hours before forming a demo and marching to Exarcheia.

Police allegations against the arrested, which are being fed to the population through the media in the form of huge terror-spectacle, are between the ridiculous and the grotesque with "evidence" consisting of little more than empty suitcases, carnival clothes, bamboo grove fences and hand-written notes on guerrilla communiques readily available at every bourgeois media website.

As an example of the media strategy meant to soil the name of anarchy in greece, last night’s main news all featured the story of the police having found mobile phone conversation between two of the arrested where one is watching the 15 year old Afghan boy blown up by a bomb last month and describing the scene to the other laughing. Of course, as the state TV has finally accepted this afternoon these “evidence” have been completely fabricated and bear no resemblance to reality. Already before the revelation of the evidence sham some of the bourgeois media are casting serious doubts on all of the evidence provided by the police as well as criticism TV stations as reproducing lies. For example the daily Eleftherotypia has pointed out that the rusty bullets allegedly shot in Mt Imitus “by one of the arrested while he was being watched by the chief of the anti-terrorist bureau days before their arrest”, are first of all very old (and thus rusty…) and in fact hunting-gun bullets and not AK ones.

Update: Bourgeois media claim that the false story involving the supposed phonecall at spot of the bomb that killed the 15 year old Afghan boy in March was directly orchestrated by the anti-terrorist bureau.

What follows is a translation of the announcement of the ESIEA occupation earlier today:

Quote:

NOT ONE STEP BACKWARDS!

Six of our comrades have been arrested and accused as terrorists. A comedy rehearsed a thousand times is once again staged on the theatre of 'public opinion'. The 'busting of terrorism' is a play that has been performed so many times that even the shortest of memories can accurately predict every single act of it. A play with famous well known producers, with known sold-out theatre critics, with a known public which watches passively and with the side balconies which are struggling to ruin the performance. And as always the usual victims. Why now, why in this way? Why did they choose this moment? There are no elections ahead of us. There are no Olympic Games. Nor government reshuffles, nor (at this moment) any new anti-terrorist laws. We have something far more substantial: the practical failure of the model of exploitation of the last decades. We have the total revelation of the lie of capitalist prosperity. We have the end of the myth that subordination and consent "pay off". How retarded do they think we are, so that they expect us not to notice that the premier of the "busting" play was only a few hours away from the completion of the deal of greek power with its international siblings for the management of their new attack against society? For many months now the communication campaign that advertises the need of the poor becoming voluntarily poorer is running parallel with another campaign: repression is spreading its tentacles everywhere. From the judiciary orgy of the Chalandri case, to the Wild West of money warrants, to the attacks on open political spaces, to the preventive detentions of thousands of people, to the attacks against self-organised projects, to the activation of the fascist stay-behinds...A campaign based on more local campaigns of terror for its realisation and its salvation every time it failed. From the "sanctuary of Exarcheia" to the "university asylum" and the "anniversary of December" we have ended up in the last month in the minutely detailed pre-announcement of targeting specific struggling people, until their final arrest. Thei first but not most significant target is to muddy up the waters, to divert the attention of the TV-watchers. They are hitting the anarchists not only to shift the communications agenda, nor only to respond to their revolutionary challenges. The receptor of this message is society. If the lies and the false promises of the system are at last apparent, if all the mechanisms of securing social peace (the parties, the regime syndicalism, the ngos, the social partners...) are not convincing anybody anymore, the possibility that the oppressed will ally with their own selves, challenge the social contract, self-organise and reclaim the wealth they produce and the lives they live, is a possibility that causes terror to power and its lackeys. The 'busting of terrorism' has its eyes fixed on the coming battles, not on the battles already given. It attempts, along side other terror-campaigns, to break the teeth of the struggle of the oppressed, before it stops moaning and considers to bite. Supposing that they could exploit the "numbness" of the breaking news, that they would have, as in the case of the 17 of november, a "charity period" so that they could direct the scene, they attacked. But they are deluded. 2010 is no 2002. And if they are hoping for the law-abiding whimpering of the regime bound left and of the "progressive eponymous world", they are placing their hopes on an empty cell. Today they will not get a second of foreground, Our comrades are not alone. They shall not be alone for a single minute. Because, on the one hand, as anarchists we do not accept their social contract, nor do we recognise in their democratic legality anything more than the perpetuation of exploitation and heteronomy. And on the other hand, because as the exploited and the oppressed we know what struggles we must engage in, we know who is "ours" and who is an "other". Solidarity is our weapon. A very powerful weapon. All those "others" should rethink their error. Yes, our comrades will be hit. They are being dragged in court, libeled against and imprisoned. But the cops will find us outside the homes of the persecuted. They will find us in the courts, on the streets, in the squares. The judges will confornt us in their court rooms and will confess out of them. The Chrisochoidis men will realise that in the race of political climbing, they have mounted a lame horse. The journalists that the lies about their "vocation" is over and that the revelation of their being under police orders has started. We have occupied ESIEA, that trade-unionist lair of journalistic aristocracy, so as to make clear to all that we see and understand and will fight against the holy alliance of power. The tentacle called media sometimes comes to play an even more elevated role. The arrested MUST be condemned, the evidence MUST be enough, the case MUST be conclusive. They are no longer even pretending in their evening news in their angst to perform the job asigned to them. It is we who first called them "snitching scum", in a totalising and levelling way, and today not even a dozen of them can be found to be able to claim we have done wrong to their trade. It is we who never crawled to beg for their TV time, who based ourselves on our one means to project our positions and struggles. It is we who never became just one more flower in their flower-pot, and it is for this that our roots are so strong. It is we who have resisted to the 'sirens' of talking to the 'public opinion' and have insisted on talking with society. I is we whose existence in the last 35 years is the sole proof of their weakness. It is us they cannot blackmail. Te eponymous parrots of the security will be abandoned to ridicule and disvaluation. In our eyes there is no begging, but knowledge and rage. And if some feel we have wronged them, if some journalists fantasise that in this barrel of rotten apples they can remain fresh and honest, what can we say, hic Rodus hic salta. If they manage to perform their self-criticism before they rot, the better for them. This struggle is only beginning. We know what comes next. We shall stand on the side of our comrades unwaveringly, as we shall stand on the front line of the social war, on all its fronts and in all the coming struggles. To the final victory.

FREEDOM TO THE IMPRISONED COMRADES
ALL TO THE COURTS ON 14&15 APRIL TO SHOW OUR SOLIDARITY TO THE 6 ARRESTED COMRADES
ALL TO THE PROTEST MARCH ON THE 15/4 19:00 FOR THE LIBERATION OF MARIOS Z.
ALL TO THE PROTEST MARCH ON 27/4 18:00 FOR SOLIDARITY TO YANNIS DIMITRAKIS

anarchists/ antiauthoritarians