Hunger strike from 12/5/23 of the anarchist Giannis Michailidis
Recognizing that there are social issues more important than my release from prison, I am making a second attempt to publicize the dirty war I have received from government and judicial mechanisms. I will refrain from going into what had happened up to this time last year to avoid tedious repetition. I will pick up the thread from the suspension of the hunger strike last July. A misguided choice that came after unrealistic promises on the part of the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Court judge who is the umbilical cord between the judiciary and the government to immediately grant my request on the extortionate condition that I would first suspend the strike and that this would not be exposed..
According to him, I had to suspend the strike, make a new application for suspension in Amfissa and he would pick up his phone as long as it did not become public, otherwise the agreement would cease to be valid. I made the mistake of assuming they would fulfill their promises because they would calculate their exposure, which in a controlled media environment proved to be a disastrous illusion. My isolation under the special detention regime of the Lamia hospital, which cut me off from my close comrades, contributed to this false choice as I was unable to consult the only people who had both the facts and the political acumen to recognise in time that this was a fraud.
The result was that I lost another year of my life, slowly and agonizingly waiting for the decisions of the judicial councils. Unexplained bureaucratic delays of the decision that would supposedly release me in September, until December. At this point I should have already started anew, but realizing the blow to my credibility as I was drawn into the State trap, it was not an easy choice at all. So I decided to wait until the statute of limitations had expired on the trumped-up case that was used as a pretext to have my licenses cut off, postponing the next battle. They then took every care to deprive me of any legal right to any leave, educational or tactical, that could possibly pave the way for my bloodless victory. At the same time, the tribunals demanded statements of legitimacy by asking me questions along the lines of “does your ideology allow you to never again violate the law?” And the renunciation of ideas and partner relationships is made a condition for an eventual release, which if so, may it never come.
Now, from the intervening events, I clearly understood the role of this Supreme Court judge who I wrongly thought would count on its prestige when he put it in tatters by covering up and concealing the wiretapping scandal on behalf of the Prime Minister, while from the dirty role he played in ending my strike to get the government out of trouble, I can assume that various scandalous decisions of the self-styled judiciary were implemented in the previous period.
The latest act in the succession of dead-end waiting was my transfer to Korydallos prison for educational reasons, finally answering the repeated requests that have been pending for over 3 years.
Coincidentally, my transfer was announced as soon as I informed people close to me that I had already decided to start a hunger strike while in Malandrino prison, resulting in its postponement. This was followed by the rejection of the educational leave to which I was entitled on Friday 12/5/23 on the cheap excuse that I had been in Korydallos prison for too short a time.
My immediate reaction was to restart a hunger strike on the day of the rejection. As soon as I was informed, a barrage of promises began which resulted in me postponing the announcement of the strike until today in the hope of seeing something materialize.
After this treatment I have no choice, of course. Even if I had, I would not have to choose it. I owe it to myself to be politically present and attempt to repay the cost by exposing the government gang of racketeers intertwined with the self-styled justice system. And because my word, even if it succeeds in breaking the wall of silence, will be refuted, the very choice to continue and escalate the hunger strike will highlight the issue, but also distinguish the lie from the truth. That is why everything will be said at the right time.
At the moment when the killers in *ties are bragging about their exploits, let the vindictive treatment I am receiving be the occasion for a struggle that will recall the institutionalized injustice of all these years: the defiant release of rapists because they belong to the friendly entourage of government officials. The kids murdered by the police whose killers didn’t even get a day in jail for appearances’ sake. The migrants and refugees drowning at Europe’s fortress borders with systematic pushbacks.
The total destruction of entire ecosystems, as in Northern Evia. The elderly murdered by the dismantling of the health care system in the midst of a pandemic. The lost childhoods because an authoritarian government chose curfews over strengthening the health care system.
And of course the success of incarceration was confirmed on a mass level by the increase in youth aggression. After all, how right Foucault was when he wrote that prisons are factories for the breeding of crime. I would add that they simultaneously strip crime of its intrinsic anti-authoritarian characteristics to incorporate it into the dirty underground economy. After all, what statistics prove that the prison institution has any social utility? It is simply a deterrent to maintain the established order of inequalities. A tool so that wealth is never taken out of the hands of the occupiers.
For the reasons I have given, I am starting a new hunger strike for my release. Against the State and its appointed bureaucrats, who are making a career on the backs of me and every wretched prisoner, simply because they were appointed judges. In my case, special anti-terrorism laws required that I never be tried by a jury, but that I serve more than ten years in prison from cumulative sentences. Yet this is what they have the audacity to call justice. Decisions made by appointed government officials at the dictates of a system that determines their careers.
In concluding this brief first statement I feel the need to clarify that I understand that my case is much harder to support this time. Mainly because of my own mistake in accepting the blackmail offer to suspend my strike last year in order to be released from prison. So I understand anyone who will view my new effort with caution. However, I want to position this strike, not as a stake of an exclusively individual demand, but as a contribution to highlighting systemic injustice at a politically critical time. As a trigger for a struggle that promotes direct action and participation, against the mentality of delegation promoted by the system of representation.
Until the destruction of the last cage
Giannis Michailidis
E’ Fifth Ward of Korydallos Prison
Translated by Act for freedom now!
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