If We Are Afraid Today, We Will Be Afraid Tomorrow and Forever
It took 512 days for the authorities to finally decide that it was time to try our case, the Ampelokipi case. Just one breath before the end of the 18-month period. Not because the investigative process was truly endless, nor because new evidence was constantly emerging in the meantime. From the very first moment, the facts were more or less the same.
The choice, however, to set the trial at the last minute was neither accidental nor procedural. It was a purely political choice, a conscious method so that the process would run on a fast track and the desired decision would be produced, with the same speed. Nevertheless, in this last text of mine before the trial, I will not dwell in detail on the practices and methods that the judicial authorities employ against us. These are already known to anyone who wants to see them.
My aim is to bring things back to their true dimension, against the fabricated version that the anti-terrorist police and then the investigator and prosecutors tried to impose. That is why I want and must talk about what has already happened and what is to follow.
In two days I will be in this court, because a year and a half ago I lent the keys to an apartment to my friends and comrades, Kyriakos and Marianna, so that they could host acquaintances.
I will stand in this court accused of terrorism, with charges of membership and participation in an unknown organization, with an unknown structure, unknown roles, unknown duration, as well as for manufacturing, supplying and possessing explosives and weapons. An indictment that was drawn up overnight, based on flimsy evidence, which 2 months ago the court began to collapse with the removal of charges of this explosion and damage.
Or, to be more precise, the only “elements” that the counter-terrorism police relied on to construct this indictment were the criminalization of everyday acts, the criminalization of political opinion, and the criminalization of friendly and companionate relationships.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Thus, our case not only has a past that already counts a year and a half, but also a future. A future inextricably linked to the struggle.
That is why, in two days, I will be in this court to fight my own fight, defending my anarchist identity, the radical revolutionary struggle, my relationships with my friends and comrades, and above all the memory of my comrade, Kyriakos Xymitiris.
I will stand in this courtroom to fight to the end for my freedom — a freedom that I will not give them, not even for one more day than the 512 they have already deprived me of. And if the counterterrorism department is given institutional cover to fabricate indictments in this way, then the responsibility for my conviction on an indictment that I deny rests with the current composition of the bench.
This also concerns all those who feel that behind bars are not only the prisoners, but also a part of themselves. Those who remain present in every field of radical struggle. Because it is also in their hands to erect a mound, to not allow injustice to become law.
Nevertheless, in two days I will find myself in this court, which has a weight much greater than that of the indictments and legal characterizations. Because within this process there is also a loss.
There is the memory of our friend and comrade, Kyriakos Xymitiris, a memory that does not fit into any case file. For this very reason, this court has an importance that goes beyond the limits of a formal trial. That is why more is at stake around this trial than meets the eye. Because within these courts I will not only defend myself, but also Kyriakos himself. I will speak about my friend and comrade on my own terms, not with the language of power, nor through the filters of the case file, but through the life he lived, the struggles he gave and what he chose to defend with all his heart, dedicating his life to it. His absence, is simultaneously a deep, intense presence; because there are people like Kyriakos who, even when they are gone, continue to light the way and show with their very lives why it is worth standing up.
So my friend and comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris will be there in the knot in my throat, in the strength I find not to give in, in the need to keep alive everything we shared and everything he defended. He will be with me, next to me, like a hand on my shoulder, like a breath that reminds me that nothing is over and that the struggle continues.
KYRIAKOS ALWAYS PRESENT
HONOUR FOREVER TO THE ANARCHIST COMRADES SARA ARDIZONE AND ALESSANDRO MERCOLIANO
Dimitra Zarafeta
Korydallos Women’s Prison
Translated by Act for freedom now!