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Anti-anarchist witch-hunt in Athens
@@ - 12.04.2010 01:34
An anti-anarchist witch-hunt against anarchist has been unfolding in Athens since the early hours of Friday with at least 6 people until now detained in relation to "terrorism". The media have launched a rumors campaign indiscriminately disclosing names and accusing the detainees of being members of the Revolutionary Struggle. As a response the Athens Polytechnic has been occupied by anarchists in solidarity.
The Athens anti-anarchist witch-hunt started in the early hours of Friday, with anti-terrorist police breaking into three houses and detaining four people in relation to "domestic terrorism". After the first information were leaked to the usual parrot-blogs and parrot-journalists of the Ministry of Public Order the greek public has been bombarded by images of the stormed houses, dubbed "terrorist lairs", and with thinly veiled information about the detainees which the media portray as having been arrested despite no such official police proclamation. The media campaign identifies at least two of the detainees with historical figures of the anarchist movement in greece, well known for previous imprisonments, hunger strikes and the mass movement in solidarity these led at the time. Naturally we are not going to reproduce the names or more info on the persons here. Then followed more operations, with more houses of anarchist broken in, with allegedly two more people detained, a fact not clarified by the police. This led to renewed anti-anarchist allegations and propaganda in the media, which by then were reproducing wild stories about the alleged connection of the detained with the assassinated anarchist Lambros Foundas, and about "weapons and communiques found in the lairs". What seems to be the case is that the police has found "material that could be use to construct explosives" i.e. any domestic cleaning powders, some engine oil etc, and "written material and notes that could be used for writing communiques similar to the Revolutionary Struggle", i.e. any marxist or anarchist literature. Moreover another anarchist was stopped while walking in the streets of Athens and arrested as a suspect for "armed robbery" in a supermarket. The police led him to his parents house where his great-grandfathers 1914 hunting gun was confiscated as evidence of the crime. The man has been led to to the state inquisitor this morning.
The reaction of anarchists in Athens has been the occupation of the down-town Polytechneio and calling a general assembly this afternoon to coordinate a solidarity campaign.
Meanwhile, riots broke out outside the Salonica Aristotelian University last night, during a party in solidarity to an evicted squat. Last Monday the rector had moved in bulldozers and demolished the squatted "lyomena" buildings housing the punk collective Street Attack and the dance-party anarchist collective Freeteza. The notoriously right-wing rector did not hesitate to order riot police forces in the academic asylum. Lawyers have pressed charges against the rector for preventive breech of the asylum and for illegal demolition of buildings with dangerous lime roofs. It is believed that yesterday nights riots in Salonica were fueled by the demolition of the "lyomena".
It must also be noted that yesterday fascist scum attempted to burn down Agros, the squatted area in Tritsis park in Athens. Earlier the same day, a dozen of fascist para-state elements attacked african street-salesmen in Monastiraki. The immigrants managed to hold their gorund until motorised police came to help the fascists in their racist pogrom which had been pre-announced on the internet as a "campaign against illegal trade".
There will be updates on the case of the detained comrades, which is widely believed to be more serious than the usual NFC-fingerprint-arrest parades.
Update: The police has announced the names of five men and one woman as arrested, with their pictures published. As the publication of both names and photos of people arrested but not condemned is in breach of any ethical code (let alone of the bourgeois constitution of the country) I will abstain from reproducing them here before the arrested themselves make public announcements signed by their names. It must be noted however that one of the arrested is an all-time usual-suspect favorite of the police who has suffered for years in the cells of the republic.
The sixth man was arrested today and kept handcuffed in his apartment in Exarcheia for many hours while the police searched his apartment. The prolonged process caused the gathering of around 100 anarchists outside the building, leading to clashes and use of tear gas by the police, with temporary barricades erected in defense by the protesters.
The police claims that it has found a hard disk containing old communiques of the Revolutionary Struggle (easily downloaded online from bourgeois websites) as well as "a plan of a communique for a future terrorist attack", probably indicating only notes of general anarchist political analysis.
Rumors that the Revolutionary Struggle was planning a major attack against the Police National Headquarters (GADA) as well as that the police has found the printer with which the communiques of the Revolutionary Struggle were printed are being spread across the bourgeois media, but are not verified by the police. The police has announced that another 10-12 people are wanted. However all information spread by the media are suspicious, especially after two anarchists claimed to be amongst the detained with their names leaked in the media have not been in fact apprehended by the police.
Update2: Another solidarity demo took place today afternoon, this time in Petralona, outside the house of a comrade under search by the anti-terrorist police. The protesters chanted slogans against the anti-terror spectacle and came under attack by riot police forces. Then the protesters formed a march to Ekaterini square chanting slogans against police-rule like "when they break into your houses too, only then will you break out of your cages". Meanwhile TV crews outside one of the alleged "lairs" in Nea Ionia came under attack by protesters.
According to radical electronic media the arrested are refusing food and water.
 http://libcom.org/news/anti-anarchist-witch-hunt-athens-11042010
 Website: http://libcom.org/news/anti-anarchist-witch-hunt-athens-11042010
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