Letter from Panayiotis Masouras

On Wednesday September 23 and at 8.15 as I was leaving my house in Galatsi on my way to the gym, I was arrested by 25 persons of the anti-terrorist squad.

In a matter of seconds I found myself on the sidewalk, hands cuffed behind my back, while at the same time they were informing their senior officers that “everything went well” and that they “have me”. I was taken to the 12th floor of Police Headquarters (note: anti-terrorist division). The next day I am informed that at the same time with me another two friends of mine have also been arrested.

In the meantime the show has already started. Without any sleep for 48 hours and physically exhausted, with my face to the wall and then a long questionnaire following, while at the same time some police officer goes from office to office announcing in a delirium of pleasure that what is happening is called war.

After that comes the interest for my career, the friendly chat, the bravado and the humane approach to the misguided youth that followed the wrong path in his life while they self appointed themselves to straighten me out and to make me see reason, not for them as they said but for my own good, to help myself by speaking to them about situations and persons that I know nothing about. Later I was informed from an officer that I was the stupid asshole of the 12th floor because the others as he said had “snitched on me” and “cleared themselves” and that if I didn’t speak I would go down for things other people have done, so I was yet again called upon to answer about situations unknown to me.

The guard shifts started: “good” cops with a sensitive touch and childhood traumas, as they said, that recognized injustice and wanted to help. On the other hand the “tough” commandos wearing full-face masks, “stern” appliers of the law and representatives of morality, acting in an absolute way leading to physical and mental exhaustion, as a means of revenge as they said because “I kept my mouth shut”.

That I refuse the charges against me does not mean that I would ever refuse my political “identity” and “origin”. I would never hide under the carpet of incarceration my dignity, overlooking the fact that I am a political entity which also takes its position against the values and institutions of this society by the means of critical revolutionary thought and practice. I am an anarchist and I am on the side of revolution and at the same time of myself.

The reason why at the present my two friends and I find ourselves in prison is crystal clear. Even the most naïve mind can perceive that fixed situations due to the elections play a role in the present condition, situations moving in the service of political and communication interests.

The hyperbole surrounding the situation, the armed to the teeth EKAM escorts (note: Special Forces Police) and the role of those despicable snitches the journalists in combination with the political condition of these days was enough to create a feeling of order and safety to the average Greek in face of the elections, so he can move sleepwalking in the role of the active citizen towards the voting poll in order to deposit yet again in someone else’s hands his share of responsibilities for his being. It is well known nowadays that public opinion has no opinion, so someone has to take on the role of shaping it. The tone of these days was mostly set by the lowlifes of the media and their all-devouring thirst for “maniacs in Galatsi” and “monsters in Chalandri”, for serial bombers who have ties with “renown” revolutionary organizations from which they take orders to accomplish missions. About guns and bullets found at my house up to money that was suddenly a product of robberies because it was well hidden-next time I’ ll leave it outside the front door.

Society is not divided into classes but only into choices and consciousnesses. So let as learn from pain and pleasure, from blood and the street. We were born to exist as a whole in our inapprehensible uniqueness, inapprehensible because we can stand the pain, unpredictable because we were taught on the streets, ruthless because we will move against everyone, because we will learn to meticulously tie steel on our skin and paint the cement with revolutionary blood.

We execute morality as a prologue for destruction, we whisper with rage biting the words: WAR-ATTACK because there is only beauty and strength, but some cowards in order to balance came up with justice.

Wherever there are barbed wires, let there be bloodied hands that rip them apart, wherever there is cement let there be cries full of rage that tears it down, wherever there are bars let there be souls like corrosives that destroy them, wherever we are buried alive let us bury with us morality.

We owe it to ourselves to bite on our shackles even if it is that we die biting. Because we are nothing more then our own choices.

For honour, dignity, revolution.

FREEDOM FOR THE COMRADES: V. PALLIS- Y. DIMITRAKIS- Y. VOUTSIS-VOGIATZIS- P. GEORGIADIS- I. NIKOLAOU

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF MY FELLOW ACCUSED H. HATZIMICHELAKIS- M. YIOSPAS

Panayiotis Masouras

Avlona Prisons

21/10/2009