In Bavaria as elsewhere…

When you’re a volunteer firefighter in a small Bavarian town like Höchberg (on the outskirts of Würzburg), you’re not really hired to bring down little cats stuck in trees or to empty cellars flooded by the Kühbach river due to the spread of urban concrete. Even if you often have to deal with it. No, when you are a volunteer firefighter – in Höchberg as elsewhere – you want to fight wicked fires in the name of order and safety. You want to extinguish evil flames in defence of state control and the prosperity of commerce.

Well, for once, you could say they got what they wanted. At least those on duty the day after their binge, because it was on 2 January at around 3.50 a.m. that the alarm finally sounded in the watchful barracks. After having gone to the edge of the village, at the side of the Zeller forest, they were not disappointed on seeing a large relay antenna lighting up the night with its flames. And if many dead-to-the-world honest citizens were previously unaware of its presence among the majestic trees, even though it was doing them a great service by brightening up their meaningless existence, this is certainly no longer the case since they have been disconnected.

Continue reading Bavaria, Germany : In Bavaria as elsewhere… →

 06/12/2021

As we put the pieces together for this article, reality overtook the atrocities we were about to recount: Abdel Latif, a young man from Tunisia, was killed on 28 November, after three days in a state of mechanical restraint in Rome’s San Camillo hospital. State racism is rampant and what Abdel Latif saw of Italy was segregation in Lampedusa, imprisonment on a quarantine ship, detention in the deportation centre of Ponte Galeria in Rome, restraint in the psychiatric ward at the San Camillo.

Two of the imprisonments that led to Abdel Latif’s death have the Italian health system as a backdrop, for the rest there are the operators of humanitarian host organisations.

Recent mobilizations against psychiatric restraint offered us some reflections and we looked for information concerning the debate on mechanical restraint, a practice that the State declares it wants to abolish with a three-year implementation which should end in 2023. It must be noted that in institutional documents themselves, evaluations start off from data and notes dating back to 2001 and that from these analyses they come to “recommendations” and “suggestions” which since, 20 years on haven’t had any practical confirmation: people continue to die with violence.

Continue reading Italy – Restraints and deportations: cogs in the society of exclusion →

Godissard district, Fort-de-France (Martinique), 27 November. Ripping out the Post Office ATM with a stolen digger, looting and then setting it on fire

New night of violence in Martinique
martinique la 1ere, 27 November 2021

5th night of violence in Martinique. The events were concentrated in Fort-de-France and in the north of the territory, from Friday 26 to Saturday 27 November 2021.

The most serious incidents concerned the city of Fort-de-France. During the night of Friday 26 to Saturday 27 November 2021, rioters attacked and destroyed the Godissard post office with a digger. “They took the cash dispenser of course. They broke it, took the money and set it on fire”, said a shocked resident.

Further on, the thugs attacked a petrol station to rob the shop…before setting it on fire.

Godissard (Martinique), 27 November. Looting of the Vito service station, before setting it on fire

Continue reading Martinique : looting of ATM, police station, supermarkets, high school and shooting at cops [MaJ] →

Violence in Guadeloupe: the State imposes a curfew in the face of riots against the health pass

Le Parisien, November 20, 2021 (excerpts)

On Friday, the prefect of Guadeloupe Alexandre Rochatte announced the introduction of a curfew between 6 p.m. and 5 a.m. with immediate effect, up until Tuesday, November 23, “given the social movements underway in the region and acts of vandalism” having as a starting point the mobilization against the health pass and the mandatory vaccination of carers against Covid-19.

Roads and accesses to the CHU blocked, buildings and vehicles set on fire, schools closed… The anti-pass and anti-vax discontent that has been going on for five days, led by a collective of union and citizen organizations, is now coupled with violence committed by rioters. After a particularly violent night from Thursday to Friday, schools remained closed on Friday and, due to numerous roadblocks, activity is slowing down.

Another “very agitated” night

Continue reading Guadeloupe: blockades, looting and shooting at cops during riots against the health pass →

A comrade in the Netherlands has sent a first-hand report from last night’s extraordinary anti-police riots in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, which included Dutch police firing their guns into the crowd.

Some out-of-touch “leftists” have tried to dismiss these riots because they coincided with and/or overtook a protest called by the right wing against new government restrictions. However, something like last night’s youth uprising against police cannot be so simply reduced— as our writer makes clear.

I don’t know where to start writing about this. On the one hand I’m overtaken by emotion, still processing the things I witnessed last night. On the other hand I’m trying to make sense of what has happened from the perspective of someone who believes in social revolution. I don’t think the latter will be something that I can fit into this short, emotionally laden piece of text, but some things need to be said about this right now. What happened last night was so much more than the supposed “fascist riot” many are dismissing it as.

Continue reading Rotterdam, Netherlands: Reflections and Report on the Nov. 19 Riots →

13.10. 2021

We would like to make some comments from an anarchist perspective on the current situation in Switzerland (and similarly in some places in Europe) on the subject of COVID measures, COVID certificates, and on science and vaccines.

For too long there has been a lack of critical voices from anarchist or anti-authoritarian circles in Switzerland. Now is the time to speak out and act. The state presumes to give us back the certainty of having the solution for a return to normality. But perhaps we have forgotten that the anchors of this certainty, this normality, were long ago (for many still current… fortunately) perceived as chains that had to be broken in order to steer the ship towards anarchy; knowing that it would be a stormy sea, but towards an unknown horizon of freedom.

Continue reading About Covid certificates, vaccinations and QR codes. Political thoughts →

Health or security?

In recent weeks, with the introduction of compulsory Covid pass to access restaurants, bars, stadiums, gyms, universities, theatres, cinemas, museums, libraries and other places of gathering and public demonstrations, the Swiss government has de facto imposed compulsory tracing of the movements of the majority of people who live in the territory. After a first attempt in the summer of 2020 at introducing the SwissCovid app which had little success, in recent weeks the Federal Council has put in place a subtle rhetoric of persuasion-coercion to convince as many citizens as possible to get vaccinated, under the blackmail of being denied access to a whole range of places and services, in some cases even including work and education.

As someone wrote elsewhere: “we fear that the instruments established today in the name of public health can be easily reset in function tomorrow for security purposes, that the declaration of one’s identity and the recording of one’s movements will be standardized and that the mesh of social control will dangerously tighten up”. As soon as they are established as “exceptional measures”, instruments such as health passes become irreversible, thus strengthening police power and adding to the strings of devices which in recent years have been increasingly limiting the individuals’ freedom with the excuse of “counter-terrorism” and the “war on the virus”.

Continue reading Switzerland – Against the Covid pass and the world that produces it. →

Three people from the Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (DAF) who wrote about the October 10 massacre in Ankara Yenimahalle were detained. The detained DAF members were taken to the courthouse after being transferred to the Yenimahalle District Police Department.

The accusation made by the prosecutor against the revolutionaries who wrote “October 10 will be held to account” was “inciting the people to hatred and enmity”.

Continue reading TURKEY: THREE DAF MEMBERS ARRESTED →