Category: Texts

Some very first thoughts on my detention

1. This letter does not constitute an overall political analysis of the anti-terrorist operation which began on December 4th, but rather a first political reading of my detention; of its meanings and wider aims.

2. It is a fact that I find myself in prison exactly because I am an anarchist; because for 15 years now I am continuously active through this radical political element. A reading of the legal documents of my case, together with the cynical statement by the chief of the greek police – that I was arrested because I was released in the High-court case*- are indisputable proof of this. I find myself locked up here, and I am deeply convinced of this, for our reactions to the murder of Christoforos Marinos in ’96, for the barricades outside the examination centres in ’98, for the anti-war demonstrations in ’99, for the demonstrations against the european leaders’ summit in Thessaloniki in 2003, for the student protests in ’06-’07, for our solidarity to the prisoners’ struggles and to all those prisoners who refuse to bow their head, for the December insurrection, for…, for… For being everywhere, with our smaller or larger forces, where nothing seemed certain and social entropy gave again a meaning to our lives and strength to our struggles.

3. On the 4th of December we were taken to police headquarters together with my friend and comrade Kostas Barlis, from outside a café in Exarchia by police officers from the Delta force and the antiterrorist unit. My friend is released approximately 16 hours later. I am handed the report of my arrest 26 hours after I was taken in. And then the madness begins. Because if during the last period we can see in a series of cases the criminalization of relationships of friendship and comradeship, in my case they can’t even “invoke” that. I am in prison for a case in which I do not even know my fellow accused. No witnesses recognize me, no police officers are claiming that I met with anyone of my fellow accused, none of the phone taps have a mention of my name and as far as the search carried out in my house the only thing worth mentioning is that they stole my shaving machine, so also my DNA (I will note that this is not even mentioned in the confiscation report). However, according to the antiterrorist unit the first “incriminating” evidence was that on the night of November 24th they saw me moving parallel to Praxitelous street in Piraeus. So what if on Iroon Politehniou street, three side-streets down the road, is were my attorney’s office is situated. So what if I paid him a visit that night as in a few days I had to present myself to the interrogator in regards to the High-court case. The second “indisputable” piece of evidence is that I had a drink in Exarchia, the area in which I socialize with dozens of people everyday, with an “unknown person” who according to the antiterrorist unit had eaten earlier a souvlaki with one of my fellow accused. Each can come to their own conclusion. Of course, for that whole week that I was kept in the antiterrorist division I remained isolated in a 1by3 cell, without a window and with the light constantly switched on. And then came the pre-determined decision for my detention and not only that but in Grevena. Grevena is a high-security prison where only long-term convicts are held and not those accused pending trial, plus it is situated 500km away from Athens, making any communication with friends, comrades, family and lawyers almost impossible.

4. The two very serious prosecutions against me within the space of two weeks and my detention should not spread confusion and be considered only as a continuous effort for me personally to be placed in a regime of suffocative control. On the contrary, this whole setting of extermination lies in the heart of modern repressive policy; in the heart of a multilevel plan aiming at the intimidation and the imposing of discipline on the new “dangerous classes” and the neutralization of the regimes’ political rivals. Aiming at the stultification, in other words, of the projects of self-activity, direct action, solidarity and the struggle for the re-appropriation of life; at the undermining of the anarchist and anti-authoritarian dynamic inside social fermentations. So that the recent general strike and the dynamic demonstrations of December 15th last for only a day, so that resistance is devalued, those in struggle are scorned, Keratea becomes simply an area a little outside of Athens, December is forgotten and celebrated like the 17th of November. And for the kingdom of death and order to be established, for the victorious attack of the capitalist world to triumph, it is necessary to multiply all those that find themselves targeted. The penal spectrum must be widened and legal concepts must be expanded with a permanent character of intentional vagueness; to lose every meaning or rather, even better, to acquire their full meaning with the enforcement of a state of emergency. Without any reserve, the interrogators and the prosecutors keep proving that their only preoccupation is how to crush the enemy within. And after, it’s the turn of the monotony of the correctional facilities and the pure, raw violence of incarceration.

5. The fabricated and canalized prosecutions based on the scenarios and fixations of the antiterrorist unit resemble cluster bombs. They aim somewhere in order to strike in a large radius around them, to destroy a wider area. This prosecution is not about me personally. This prosecution wants to instill fear in everyone. To make us cautious with who we talk. With who we go fly-posting. With whom we bring out a pamphlet. With whom we walk side by side in demonstrations. With who we exchange points of view at different events. And of course where we go. To infuse our everyday life with suspicion and fear. The clerks of the troika offer us generously the permanent “alibi” of obedience, a transient security and the false certainty of submission. Because who will dispute, without making a complete fool of themselves, that if we wanted nothing, if we were anarchists until we finished high-school, if we were “relieved” with the signing of the memorandum, if we hated immigrants, if we were fuming against the koukouloforoi (hooded-ones), if we were in fear of the “terrorists” neither myself nor many others who resist would have suffered the consequences of repression.

6. The struggle, however, will not retreat. The regime and its various officials will never feel neither joy nor relief. We stand by the imprisoned anarchists, the prisoners in struggle. Until their liberation. We continuously contribute to the –theoretical and organizational- composition of our class and we develop the necessary strategic planning for achieving its victory.

Let’s stand up. And let us take the next step. For the social/class counterattack. For the proletarian storming of the heavens.

P.S. As a good comrade once said to me: “Patience. Strength. Faith in the cause. We are right. Final.” These words will be my guide in these truly difficult moments.

Christos Politis

Grevena Prison

16/12/2010

* On May 22nd , 2008 and around noon on the way to get my motorbike which I had left near Panormou metro station I was taken to Police Headquarters where I was asked various questions on my whereabouts the previous night. After some hours I was released. On the previous night an arson attack on vehicles had taken place within the perimeter of the high court of Athens. From this moment in time and onwards published articles start to appear based on police scenarios, which link me in the beginning with the arson attack against vehicles at the high court and later on present me as participating in various organizations and attacks, many times as being a leading figure. Last November they actually reached the point of announcing through the television an arrest warrant against me, which in reality did not even exist. At the same time, for long periods I had visible police surveillance. And the highlight, 2,5 years later I was summoned to defend myself as I was accused for the High court case. Indeed I presented myself to the interrogator on December 2nd and was released (for 2 days!).

On December 4th, 2010, a wide “anti-terrorist” operation took place with comrades being detained and police raids on houses, resulting in the pre-trial imprisonment of Giorgos Karagiannidis, Alexandros Mitrousias, Kostas Sakkas, Stella Antoniou, Dimitris Mihail and Christos Politis. The cops had already targeted and accused the 2 first aforementioned people for the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire case following the arrests that took place in Halandri in the Autumn of 2009, while now they tried to capitalize on the operation using various speculations and scenarios and presented it through the media as an operation by which they dismantled, more all less, all known armed groups. Although their scenarios were not confirmed, they went on to provocatively apply the anti-terrorist law and for the first time they set up a case about participation in a “terrorist group” without naming the group and about “terrorist” action without considering it necessary for any illegal action to have been committed. In the cases of Stella Antoniou and Dimitris Mihail, a well-known tactic used often by the authorities nowadays was yet again put to use, and their prosecutions were based on their personal relationships with some of the other accused. In the case of Christos Politis the authorities went a step further, as there was no pre-existing acquaintance or any prior contact with the other people. In his case, it seems it was enough for the authorities to target him as being generally suspect, an image they themselves had promoted and reproduced for more than a year now through “terror-reports” and articles concerning his person.

Letter from Christos Politis – Some very first thoughts on my detention

Sorry, this entry is only available in Ελληνικά.

Thursday, October 7, 2010, 8:40 p.m.: After being followed on motorcycle for about a kilometer by pigs from the DIAS squad, I inadvertently got stuck in a dead end. I was immobilized, restrained, and brought to the nearby police station on Bournazi Street in the Peristeri neighborhood for identification, since it was impossible to confirm my details on the street due to the rain. During the pat-down at the station, they found an incendiary device I had on me.

The theatrics that followed are well-known by now: threats, advice, and attempts to “talk things over as friends” from every rank of neighborhood pig guarding me at the time. This went on until 11 p.m., when they transferred me to the sixth floor of Police Headquarters. Almost immediately, I was brought to the office of the head of the department (Security and Order), who—alongside another high-ranking official—bluntly proposed a collaboration: If I promised to snitch, they would release me immediately and the charges would be forgotten. After they got the response they deserved, they stopped talking to me, and the treatment I received from then on became more “crude.” Later, accompanied by the prosecutor, about 20 undercovers searched the house where I live with my parents—the inside as well as the backyard and surrounding area. We ultimately returned to headquarters, where at 2:10 a.m. they informed me that I was under arrest. During this entire period, I was isolated with my hands cuffed behind my back, unable to communicate with anyone. Despite asking them repeatedly, they wouldn’t tell me what was going on. At 4 a.m., I was finally allowed to speak to a lawyer. I remained locked up in the seventh-floor cells until noon on Monday, October 11, when—escorted by a horde of undercover and counterterrorist agents—I was brought to court to plead before the duty judge and the prosecutor. The two of them had a disagreement over whether or not to stick me in pretrial detention, so they released me on probation and referred my case to a judicial committee. Quite a while later, the committee reached its decision: “pretrial detention for being a danger to public safety.” On November 17, I was brought to Korydallos Prison, which is where I am now.

I have no doubt whatsoever about what led the judges to their decision. It wasn’t a question of evidence (or the lack thereof). Rather, it was my lengthy presence in the antiauthoritarian milieu, where my activities have been known to the pigs for years. From the 1998 student movement that occupied schools in protest against the dumbing-down of education, to the November 17 march that same year, until today: Even in times of expensive consumer goods and cheap ideals, I took part in most of the important moments of the social struggle. Of course, those activities led to quite a few detentions at Police Headquarters—some of them “circumstantial,” others less so. Once they even came for me at my house. All this, combined with my “bad little habit” of frequenting the Exarcheia neighborhood during those years and the “coincidence” of the currently prevailing antiterrorist hysteria, formed a set of prior conditions used to criminally persecute me on the basis of an additional charge—the legal instrument that criminalizes political ideas and friendships with a vengeance that only the dregs of inhumanity are capable of legitimizing and applying.

All of the above would already constitute sufficient analysis to explain the reasons why I was imprisoned, but in my opinion the thrust of my case is different. The imbeciles of legality speak the language of Domination, which aims to subjugate and lower the standard of radical discourse, distancing it from its natural habitat in order to declaw it and turn it into easy “prey” for the sterilized analysis of “specialists.” The scientific perversion of Justice, after imposing rules whose object is to delineate and define the personality of the individual and/or her acts, condemns subjective dialectics to the malice of the aforementioned language of Domination, which by definition excludes and eliminates anything foreign or alien to its terminology as “too insignificant to mention.” Keeping in mind this idea, which has always been considered immutable, I will make no further reference to the legal aspects of my case, nor will I use terms like “innocent,” “guilty,” “set-up,” or others that might leave room for Power’s words to assert and impose themselves over my own words. I take active responsibility for my foundation of values and I will uphold those values until the very end, because through them I take a stand as a fighter, not as someone who infringed on a few paragraphs of the fundamental rules of conduct decreed from above called the Penal Code. I accept no one’s Right to judge me unless that Right is conferred by prolonged revolutionary combat, which is nothing less than the impetus for the Struggle against capitalist gangrene; the impetus for all who, each in their own way, contribute to the destruction of authoritarian subjugation and act in the interest of popular emancipation. I therefore consider myself a political prisoner, not to disassociate myself from “criminals” but because—from my point of view—I am where I am because of my political decisions and my tactics, which are consciously hostile toward those of my mortal enemy: the regime. At the same time, I am paying the consequences for an error I made (understood by the many whom it’s a pleasure to consider my comrades, and the few who happily consider me their friend), about which I don’t want to divulge anything more.

Regarding the generally repressive climate of the times: The state is most certainly preparing its defenses in view of the growing popular rage provoked by the fierce oppression—especially on an economic level—battering larger and larger social sectors, and the best proving ground for the state’s repressive methods is the antiauthoritarian milieu. Plus, past experience has shown that the only real “danger” capable of creating situations that are literally subversive lurks within this milieu. However, these facts shouldn’t excuse inactivity or shackle rebels to the beginning of a campaign of victimization and defeatism. Now more than ever, reorganization is required in order to create an indivisible attacking front capable of demolishing the crumbling edifice of Order that tyrannizes our daily lives. The Struggle always continues, even from inside prison cells, and each person can contribute to it from their own barricade. Subversive ideas will invariably be forged on the Streets, which is above all where those ideas are reflected in each of our liberatory experiences. Nevertheless, even prison and its unique conditions can be a point of resistance where Dignity is preserved by opposing the barbarity of imprisonment.

I declare my solidarity with every self-organized and collective project that supports comrade prisoners, like the Solidarity Fund for Prisoners in Struggle and the Solidarity Assembly. I also declare my solidarity with every individual or group that—through its practice and discourse—wishes to express its solidarity, however it may choose to do so, on the sole condition that its attitude isn’t hostile toward the general theoretical core of antiauthoritarian revolutionary processes.

With combative greetings from the cells of “Democracy”,

Panayiotis Giannos
Korydallos Prison, D Block
November 19, 2010