On Friday 8th of November 2019, the anarchist comrade Vaggelis Stathopoulos is arrested by the Greek Anti-terrorist Service with the excuse that he took part on a robbery in a gaming agency in Holargos, Athens on the 21st of October2019. During the next day of his arrest, within a crescendo of terror-hysteria reaction, he is suddenly being announced that he is also accused of participating in the organization “Revolutionary Self-defense”. Our comrade’s arrest is accompanied with an alloy of radio and mud towards his face, from the government’s right hand, the massive media, through various press publications and television reports which reproduce fabricated accusations and present him as the “domestic terrorist” and “the Kung Fu teacher who gives classes of military defense in order to create an army”.
Τhroughout the whole period of his pre-trial detention, we witness the “theater of the absurd” which the Anti-terrorist Service and the Ministry of Citizen Protection has carelessly set up, since every single clue that they are trying to present is shaked down – DNA tests, accusations for specific attacks of the “Revolutionary defense” organization during which the comrade was in prison for a prior case, supposed evidence for his participation in the robbery while at the specific time he was teaching in his martial arts’ school in the center of Athens, and so on…
From the first moment of his arrest, our comrade is denying the accusations, both of the robbery and his participation in the “Revolutionary defense” organization, and as he has personally stated: “All this spectacle in my face is part of a repressive policy of the current government against the anarchists and the anarchist movement. The authorities spread lies for the way we act as anarchists; basically I have been charged with half of the criminal code simply because I showed solidarity in an injured person.Under the spectrum of solidarity I admit that I have helped a person who was injured. I am an anarchist, I am an active member of the anarchist movement… I deny all the accusations for the robbery and the “revolutionary defense”.
Our comrade’s trial starts on the 17st of March, 2021. The specific accusations he has been charged with are of a criminal character (I.e. participation on armed robbery and participation on a criminal organization), At the same time he is being called to raise a huge amount of money for his court fees, during a period of generalized precariousness and crisis,with unpaid employees, with meager allowances of 534 euro and the launch of unemployed people in the country, whilst public events for solidarity and financial support are impossible for us.
Having completed 1.5 years of pre-trial detention without any evidence to justify it, and having suffered professionally and financially, he continues to fight within the walls,in the first line on the fight of prisoners in Larissa prisons regarding the management of Covid-19, but also more recently, by going on hunger strike in solidarity with the revolutionary Dimitris Koufontinas.The only incriminating evidence against our comrade is the fact that he didn’t cooperate with the Anti-terrorist Service, is his anarchist identity, is his long-term participation in the anarchist movement, is his morale that did not bend and the fact that he is still fighting and showing solidarity inside the prison.
Form our side, the side of those outside the walls, we use our most powerful weapon, solidarity, and we won’t let any revolutionary alone on the State’s hands and its conspiracies.
Immediate release of the anarchist Vangelis Stathopoulos!
Solidarity gathering in the Court of Appeal, Loukareos, 17/3/21. No one left alone on the State’s hands!
