Category: Texts

As of today March 3rd 2015, A.M. and E.K., two of the women incarcerated under appalling conditions in the female section of Neapoli men’s prison in Lasithi (on the island of Crete), abstain from prison food in a display of solidarity with the political prisoners who have launched a collective hunger strike. In the text that they delivered to the prison administration they mention their willingness to escalate their protest in the coming days.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF INITIATION OF HUNGER STRIKE
BY THE NETWORK OF IMPRISONED FIGHTERS (DAK)

We begin by stating that which we should never forget. Everything is won through struggle. If it is possible in prison today to have books, tv, free phone contact, permits, sentence suspensions, if the guards don’t beat us it is because of the bloody revolts and hunger strikes of prisoners before us.

Today is our turn to fight and to win. The time has come for the long prison sentences so profusely passed to be reduced, for permits and suspensions to be compulsorily granted at the time when the law provides for them, for the life sentence to be reduced to 12 years mandatory serving and 4 years labour, for the possibility of suspension to be given after serving 2/5 of the sentence in the rest of the cases, for pre-trial detention to be reduced to 12 months, for prisoners to have access to the internet, for unobstructed prison visits, for conjugal visits to be guaranteed.

An end to prisons of sensory isolation, like those in Malandrino, Trikala, Grevena, Domokos, Chania, Nigrita, Drama, where prisoners have no contact to the external environment, where they even see the sky only through a metal grid. The existing ones must be transformed so that they stop focusing on the prevention of uprisings and escapes placing living conditions on the bottom of the priority list.

Concentration camps for migrants must be shut down. These are all demands that all prisoners must fight for and win. On the occasion of the struggle we are embarking on now, we want to bring these demands forward and we ask all prisoners in all prisons to take these into account in the struggles that are to come.

Prison and repression in general comprise the basic foundations of the capitalist system. In the currently prevailing neoliberal model of capitalist management, repression takes on a central role in state policy, its expression condensed in the dogma of Law and Order. The abandonment of the previous Keynesian welfare state has led more and more people into impoverishment both within the western metropolis as well as in the capitalist periphery. Since a large part of the population cannot be absorbed into the process of production and consumption, its management can only be achieved through repression.

This efficient repressive management has imposed a state of exemption setting a particular framework for illegal acts. Acts which are not treated according to their penal significance, but rather according to the risk they pose for the smooth running of the regime.

Cracking down on the internal enemy comes under this state of exemption (with the application of the “anti-terrorist” law for those accused of armed struggle, of the “anti-hoodie” law for those arrested in demonstrations), as well as cracking down on the so-called “organised crime” or in other words the “black” capitalist market, and on migrants who are now imprisoned not for offending but simply for existing. On hooligans persecuted on special sports laws, on women stigmatised as a potential plague to society (the case of HIV-positive women imprisoned in the spring of 2012) and the list goes on. Anything that could potentially disturb the efficient function of the system is dealt with by some special legislation.

In Greece this legal process began in early 2000 and has been evolving ever since. In 2001 the Greek state in line with the so-called “war on terror”, which on a global level also advanced the war against the internal enemy, passed article 187 concerning criminal organisations. In 2004 it passed article 187A concerning terrorist organisations.

At the same time, the first maximum security prisons were set up in Malandrino, where the most undisciplined prisoners were transferred experiencing a special correctional treatment entailing sensory isolation, confinement in depopulated wards and difficulties in getting any permits or sentence suspensions.

In 2002 the prisoners of the 17 November (17N) case were incarcerated in the underground ward of Koridallos women’s prison, in conditions of sensory and physical isolation. The operation of Malandrino prison as well as the underground ward of Koridallos for penal and political prisoners respectively was the first application of special incarceration conditions in Greece in the post-dictatorship era.

With the articles 187 and 187A the legal framework is expanded to fit more acts and the severity of punishment is increased. The application of these legislations provides for special judges and prosecutors, special court rooms, absence of jury, greater sentences for each crime and finally, the persecution of the intent to commit a similar crime. This is a blatantly vindictive legislation which aims at the extermination of prisoners.

A particular case here is the case of severely wounded rebel Savvas Xiros, who for 13 years now has been facing a slow death in prison.

The latest application of the state of exemption is the operation of type C prisons. Sentences served in these prisons are greatly lengthened through the enhancement of the legal framework that determines their operation. And this is on top of the physical and sensory isolation that comes with the confinement in type C prisons.

A particular characteristic of this state of exemption is that its application began as a pilot scheme and was subsequently broadened. As, for example, with the application of article 187, which originally concerned only a dozen prisoners and now around 30% of all prisoners are indicted on this article.

Another example is the applicability of type C prisons, where, aside from those originally defined as type C prisoners (those indicted on article 187 and 187A), any prisoner deemed undisciplined and dangerous may be transferred there.

The state of exemption is reflected in the forensics field as well as the legislative one. DNA analysis has established a new type of police-judicial approach which presents its findings as undeniable truths.

Genetic material is by its nature an extremely unreliable piece of evidence as to the conclusions that can be drawn by its analysis. The ease by which it can be transferred from person to person or to objects, as well as the mixture of DNA from more than one person in any sample, leave as many open possibilities as the outcomes one may want to derive by using this as evidence.

Even though this is well known as much to the scientists as to the repressive mechanisms that use this evidence, collection, elaboration and recording of genetic material is the new repressive penal weapon, owing its strength to its dubiousness.

The insufficiency of this particular method is obvious from the stark absence of biologist police officers in court who could support their findings as opposed to the number of arresting officers, interrogators, pyrotechnists and other such witnesses.

It is clear how the repressive practice prioritises DNA analysis, by the extent to which it is increasingly used as evidence in court. People have been prosecuted on various crimes based solely on a mixture of genetic material found near the scene. Despite the fact that, internationally, the scientific method deems the analysis of mixtures unreliable, there have been numerous convictions based only on mixture findings.

Besides, the insistence of the cops on violently extracting DNA, which is not only allowed but enforced, turning the whole procedure into a form of torture, is yet another indication of how important it is for the state to create biological data bases.

For all the above reasons we believe it is politically imperative for a boundary to be set in the way genetic material is evaluated.

There is no doubt that the state uses every means permitted by the prevailing social interrelations for the maintenance of its class hegemony. It would be dumb, therefore, to expect from those who are damaged by the revolutionary struggle not to take measures.

What we can demand from the bosses and the state, through the cost we shall make them bare, is to retreat by abolishing:
• Article 187
• Article 187A
• The “anti-hoodie” law
• The legislation that determines the operation of type C prisons.

And for restricting the use and processing of genetic material, we specifically demand:
• The abolition of the court order that enforces the violent extraction of DNA from persons.
• The access and evaluation of the genetic sample by an expert biologist chosen by the accused, if they so wish.
• The abolition of use of samples that contain a mixture of genetic material from more than two persons.

We also demand:
• The immediate release of Savvas Xiros, so that he can receive appropriate medical care.

We have no confidence in the promises of any government and we never forget that everything is won through struggle. For this reason we begin a hunger strike on the 2nd of March until the vindication of our demands.

Network of Imprisoned Fighters (DAK)

In the past 15 years and especially since the war on “terrorism” was waged, the capitalist system throughout the world has become increasingly totalitarian in order to impose the dictatorship of the markets, the interests of the supranational financial elite, which has emerged from the globalisation of the system after the end of bipolarism. In this context, repression, the reinforcement of the legislative and penal arsenal of states in this new globalised environment against the political enemies of the new order and especially against the threat of armed revolutionary action, is of great significance and is applied for the reproduction of the system, especially in recent years since the outbreak of the global financial crisis.

The Greek state, which is fully integrated into supranational capital, has adopted the neoliberal reforms dictated by the European Union, and has upgraded its legislative and penal arsenal to the demands of the international “war on terrorism”. Thus, in 2001 the state passed the first “anti-terrorist” law, article 187 of the penal code (criminal organisation), in 2004 it passed the second “anti-terrorist” law, article 187A (terrorist organisation), in 2009, shortly after the December 2008 uprising, it passed the anti-hoodie law (a law criminalizing covering one’s face in demonstrations), and in 2010 it modified article 187A rendering it even more repressive. In 2012, by order of the state prosecutor it established the use of violent means in retrieving DNA samples from suspects, and finally, during the summer of 2014, as a logical sequence to its repressive policy, it passed a law establishing type C maximum security prisons for political prisoners.

This gradual upgrade of the state’s repressive attack in these past years has intensified in conjunction to the neoliberal reforms imposed by Greek governments. However, this attack peaked after the outbreak of the global financial crisis, after the December 2008 uprising, and the country’s subjection to the authority of the IMF, ECB and EC by signing the first Memorandum in 2010.

In these conditions – where the establishment has lost the social consensus it enjoyed prior to the crisis, due to brutal policies unleashed in the past 6 years – repression and “anti-terrorist” legislation comprise the foundations and prerequisites for perpetuating the system.

Because the de-legitimisation of the establishment in the eyes of the social majority due to the greatest social robbery ever perpetrated against it, where hunger, poverty and misery plague the people, with thousands of deaths from suicides, from diseases, from the lack of basic necessities, with thousands of homeless people and those who eat from garbage or depend on soup kitchens to survive – all of this create the appropriate conditions for the prospect of revolution and of overthrowing a regime responsible for the crisis and all the suffering that has resulted from it.

The takeover of power and of the management of the capitalist crisis by Syriza after the elections of January 25th 2015 doesn’t essentially change anything. Despite the pre-election promises for the abolition of memorandum agreements and the trimming of the debt, the policy that the Syriza government is committed to follow is no different to that of its predecessors. This is obvious from the fact that they requested the extension of the existing bailout program, regardless of their communicative spin to rename the memorandum, or the IMF/EC/ECB troika into “institutions”. The fact is that the Syriza government has accepted both the memoranda and the debt and will sign a new memorandum-bailout program following the extension of the existing one, with all that this entails.

As a member of the Revolutionary Struggle and as a political prisoner in type C prisons, I believe that only the way of subversion and of armed popular and social revolution present a way out of the crisis and can reverse memoranda, loan agreements and erase the debt. As a member of the Revolutionary struggle and as a political prisoner in type C prisons, in the context of the combative mobilisation of political prisoners against the special “anti-terrorist” legislations, special courts and special prisons, I participate in the hunger strike since the 2nd of March, demanding:

1) The abolition of first “anti-terrorist” law of 2001, of article 187 (criminal organisation).
2) Abolition of second “anti-terrorist” law of 2004, of article 187Α (terrorist organisation).
3) Abolition of the anti-hoodie law.
4) Abolition of the law for type C prisons.
5) The release of convicted 17N member Savvas Xiros on health grounds.

Nikos Maziotis, member of the Revolutionary Struggle
Type C prison of Domokos

We, Kostas Gournas and Dimitris Koufontinas, political prisoners in the type C prison of Domokos, go on hunger strike as of today Monday the 2nd of March.

We fight for the abolition of articles 187 and 187A of the Penal Code, for the abolition of the entire legislation comprising of special measures with which the Power seeks to criminalise and destroy its political opponents.

We fight for the abolition of special courts, or emergency courts-martial, this extermination factory of people who resist, with their special composition of judges, special unconstitutional laws, special unscientific and fraudulent use of evidence (e.g. DNA), and special fabrication of evidence.

We fight for the abolition of all special repressive laws against protesters and against popular mobilisations.

We demand the immediate abolition of type C prisons, which acts as a symbol of a state of exemption for political prisoners and of intimidation of the society that resists.

We demand the immediate release of Savvas Xiros. The authorities, for 13 years now, have been methodically and vengefully exterminating him, resulting in irreparable damages to his health, with the index of his disability reaching 98%.

Because repression is the flip side of austerity, the struggle of the people’s movement against austerity is inseparable from the struggle against repression and particularly against a permanent state of emergency. For this reason we ask for the support of the entire struggling society.

This struggle of political prisoners, their mobilisations and hunger strike, sends a message of resistance to the Greek people: we and only we, assuming the cost of our choices, need to take our lives into our own hands, united and determined. This is our duty for our dignity, for future generations.

Hope comes only through struggle…

Type C prison of Domokos
2nd of March 2015

Kostas Gournas
Dimitris Koufontinas