DEPRIVING PRISONERS OF MEDICAL CARE IS TORTURE

Hands off anarchist comrades Marianna M. and Dimitra Z.

On 31/10/24, following an explosion in an apartment in Ampelokipi, the anarchist armed fighter Kyriakos Xymitiris fell in the battle for social and class liberation, while the anarchist comrade Marianna M., who was also in the apartment, was severely injured, hospitalised and guarded in the ICU of the “Evangelismos” General Hospital. The following days, comrades Dimitra Z., Dimitris and Nikos R., as well as A.K., were remanded in custody.

From the very beginning, state violence was applied to comrade Marianna. With her transfer to Korydallos women’s prison just one day after the second operation she underwent, her hospitalisation was violently interrupted while she still had open wounds on her face, she could not walk or fully care for herself, was dizzy and in pain. The “Evangelismos” General Hospital discharged her as a patient in this condition, knowing full well the miserable environment of the prison to which she would be transferred, where there is not even any kind of hospital and therefore no possibility of providing her with extremely necessary medical care before she fully recovers.

Her torture in Korydallos prison continues to this day. Her serious health condition, as well as the risk of long-term complications, are the result of the deprivation of necessary medical post-operative care. From the very beginning they deprived her of the provision of pharmaceuticals and forced her to stay in cells full of cockroaches, in extremely poor sanitary conditions. While to this day – four months later – necessary and urgent diagnostic tests have not been initiated. To her request to be assessed by a doctor and immediately initiate a brain CT scan requested by an outside doctor who visited her a long time ago, the response of the prison neurologist was “if you don’t fall down with an epileptic seizure, we won’t take you to hospital.” A response that accurately reflects the condition of vindictiveness, punishment, and torture that the rulers impose on anyone who finds themselves captured in the cells of democracy.

To the already heavy situation of confinement was added the appearance of intense rashes and itching in comrade Dimitra. A short time later, the comrade Marianna also showed similar symptoms and only then was the diagnosis of scabies made, while they have been torturing Dimitra for two months with their icy indifference, attributing the symptoms to psychological reasons and administering sedatives to her without having ruled out pathological causes.

The climax of the insult to our comrades was the torture suffered by the comrade Dimitra on Saturday 29/3 evening. After showing a sharp deterioration in her symptoms and developing a fever, she was transferred to Korydallos “Agios Pavlos” hospital, where – among other things – the doctor in charge addressed her by saying “for us you are just numbers”, indicating the already well-known perception of such scumbags about the lives of prisoners. Despite these conditions, the comrade demanded and achieved the obvious, her transfer to the Nikaia State Hospital.

In a clear decision to exacerbate the physical and psychological exhaustion of the comrade, the EOM, following central orders, called the hospital doctors to the transport van, inside which the comrade suffered the torture of a dermatological and gynecological examination using cell phone lenses and in the presence of the cops, with the comrade repeatedly asking them to turn away during the “examination”-torture. She was then transferred to the pathology clinic, as it was deemed necessary to carry out medical examinations. When the comrade requested to speak to the doctor again regarding a problem, the cops refused, saying “we know what they told you, there’s no need.” Tension prevailed, in which a nurse was involved in defending the comrade, who, true to their thuggish methods, the cops pushed away and took the comrade back to the prison.

The comrades are walking the path that hundreds of prisoners take when they are imprisoned. Their torture reminds us of how the state apparatus takes revenge on those who challenge its monopoly of violence, but also on those it considers “excessive”. The sadistic way of treating and torturing prisoners through the deprivation of medical care is yet another means of trying to discipline and oppress them. The lives of prisoners are devalued, considered inferior, thrown to the sidelines, forcing them to claim the obvious and pushing them towards deterioration, physical and mental extermination.

In Korydallos women’s prison, the medical examinations performed on prisoners are minimal and superficial, while when examinations are required in hospital, the wait can be up to three months. In addition, many of the treatments that prisoners were undergoing before being imprisoned are generally prohibited and forcibly interrupted, with serious consequences for their health. The necessary medication that each one needs is prescribed by the prison doctors, but the medicines finally reach the prisoners after even two months. Ultimately, as is largely the case outside the walls, access to basic medical care acquires clear class characteristics, since prisoners are forced to resort to external private doctors to visit them in prison, a process that only those who have the corresponding financial means can support. The rest, the majority, are left to their own devices, victims of the indifference, bureaucracy and vindictiveness of the state machine. Such impositions of state power clearly constitute torture and potential murder.

We remember the dozens of murders of prisoners due to lack of medical care and utter neglect, the dozens of immigrants who are murdered daily in concentration camps, detention centres and police stations, the suicides and the hundreds of complaints by prisoners about inhumane and unsanitary conditions inside prisons. The examples are many and fresh in our memory.

However, we also remember the hundreds of struggles and uprisings carried out by prisoners inside prisons, the fighters who gave their lives to demand basic needs and care inside the cells of democracy. Struggles that continue to this day and will find us by their side, uniting our voices with those of the prisoners.

Comrade Dimitra needs immediate hospitalisation, while comrade Marianna must be taken immediately for a brain CT scan. The administration of Korydallos women’s prison with director Triantafylli Konstantopoulou, the “Evangelismos” General Prison with commander Anastasios Grigoropoulos and deputy Batis Veniamin, the State Hospital of Nikaia as well as the Ministries of Health and Pro.Po. (ministry of justice) bear full responsibility for the torture of our comrades, for the serious risk of deterioration of their health – but also of not fully recovering – to which they have been exposed. We make it clear in all directions, whatever happens to them will have consequences and will not go unanswered.

HANDS OFF THE ANARCHIST PRISONERS MARIANNA M.

AND DIMITRA Z.

 KYRIAKOS XYMITIRIS IS ONE OF US, A COMRADE FOREVER

IN THE STREETS OF FIRE

SOLIDARITY WITH THOSE PERSECUTED FOR THE AMPELOKIPI CASE

UNTIL THE DESTRUCTION OF THE LAST PRISON

Solidarity Assembly for Prisoners,

fugitive and persecuted militants

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via: athens.indymedia

Translated by Act for freedom now!