On 24 May 2021, anarchist fighter G. Dimitrakis was murderously attacked with multiple blows to the head by a group of prisoners in Domokos prisons where he is currently being held. Following the attack, Giannis was transferred to the hospital of Lamia in a critical condition. Eight days on, although our comrade has escaped the danger to his life, the damage done is still very serious. Giannis’s strength and mental vigor make us optimistic that he will also come out of this battle victorious.
The cause of the attack on Giannis was his refusal to accept and subordinate himself to the authoritarian and brutal laws that the prison mafia are trying to impose on the prisoners in full consensus with the prison services. The cause of the attack is that he has steadfastly defended his ethical, value and political substance as anarchist, as an insurgent, as a social struggler. The cause of the attack was his refusal to kowtow to those who want to humiliate and violate the weaker prisoners to affirm their prestige in their sick “code of conduct”. It is his refusal to subject himself to the unfavourable correlations and mentalities that prevail nowadays in prisons and overall in social and class antagonism. So his refusal to accept prison as a life condition is ultimately his refusal to submit to the State and its mechanisms.
Strength to the anarchist fighter Giannis Dimitrakis
Giannis stay strong, until freedom!
comrades from act for freedom now!
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Urgent updated information 3 and 5 of june – Comrade Giannis Dimitrakis is in solitary confinement in Domokou prison, an isolation that in the situation of the comrade is obvious torture. Giannis survived the danger that his life was in the first hours, but the blows he received caused multiple haematomas in the head, affecting the basic functioning of his brain.
Wednesday, June 9 at Exarcheia Square at 7pm: Gathering – Microphone of solidarity with the Anarchist Giannis Dimitrakis (followed by a march in the neighborhood of Exarcheia)
I suppose my story is far from usual. It begins as a teenager, not yet 18 years old and angry at socio-economic conditions within his community.
Growing up in working-class Irish Republican areas, it was inevitable that I would be intensely exposed to that ideology and its propaganda. It claimed that all the ills in Irish society could be blamed on British state interference and that only an independent socialist state could offer a solution. The history, the romance, and the already strong presence in the community were hard to resist. I had found my answer.
Being young and inexperienced, my involvement was quite peripheral. It amount to not much more than attending street protests and distributing propaganda. However minor my role, the state took a dim view. I had dared to challenge its status quo; I was now a legitimate target.
Millions of people are in the prisons and dungeons of the world’s rulers. Countless people are on death row, others are there for days, weeks or months, and still others have been there for decades. Only a few weeks ago, it was announced in Germany that Hans-Georg would be released in 2021. It was January 20, 1962, when the Berlin prison gates closed behind Hans-Georg – he has been in custody since that day. He had shot two people after a robbery.
Long-term incarceration is in some ways similar to the death penalty; only, perfidiously, with the death penalty the state is more honest, openly wanting to kill the delinquent. With decades of imprisonment, death is also the often realistic prospect of escaping the walls, but on the way there, body and soul wither away.
International Solidarity to the 3 Imprisoned comrades
The trial of the anarchist prisoners Konstantina Athanasopoulou, Giannis Michailidis, Dimitra Valavani begins on May 31. The comrades had been arrested after an operation of the anti-terrorist unit in the area of Agia Paraskevi in a stolen vehicle in which a weapon was found. Giannis took full responsibility for this. From the first moment of their arrest, a campaign was launched to discredit and criminalize by the media.
Meanwhile numerous accusations were added to their trial in order to frame the comrade as a “criminal organization” with the implication of a more severe sentence. In the trial that starts on May 31, the essence is that the state will try to condemn the struggle choices of our comrades in order to show through their exemplary punishment the futility of the struggle. Risky and costly choices, such as escape from prison, the choice of means, practical solidarity with the persecuted were, are and will remain an integral part of the history of the anarchist struggle.
Imprisoned since his indictment on September 24th 2020, for the burning of two relay antennas in the Jura during the first confinement, today B. was sentenced to 4 years, two of which in prison.
He was tried behind closed doors, without a lawyer, the only public a journalist and two members of his family, while about twenty people were present outside the court of Nancy to show their solidarity.
A dozen cops came specially to prevent us from entering the court, and we were given a lecture by the proc on justice, sanitary version. Hearings are public but only a little. Only family members can go in “exceptionally”. He was careful not to mention that this doesn’t concern journalists.
Last week the anarchist comrade Claudio Lavazza, who has already spent almost 25 years in the prisons of the Spanish State, was extradited to France, where he has a sentence of 10 years pending (the cumulative sentence process, which will establish the actual time still to be served, is underway).
Regarding the sentences against him in Italy for his militancy in Proletari Armati per il Comunismo (PAC) [Armed proletarians for communism], the assize court of appeal of Milan declared this morning that they have expired under the statute of limitations!
To write to him (he speaks Spanish, Italian and French):
Claudio Lavazza
n. d’écrou : 11818
Centre Pénitentiaire de Mont-de-Marsan
Chemin de Pémégnan
BP 90629
40000 – Mont-de-Marsan
To peoples, individuals, communities and territories in struggle and resistance. To those who revolt in the face of this present of oppression and misery. To our families, our friends, our accomplices, compas and loved ones, throughout the world.
To everybody!
Ideas without actions are worthless, they’re just theoretical shit, so idea and action have to be and are one and the same.
-Mauricio Morales
We, the anarchists and subversive prisoners of the social war Mónica Caballero Sepúlveda, locked in the women’s prison of San Miguel, Marcelo Villarroel Sepúlveda, Juan Flores Riquelme and Joaquín García Chanks, in the High Security Prison (CAS), Francisco Solar Domínguez, in the Maximum Security Section and Pablo Bahamondes Ortiz, in module 2 of the Santiago 1 company-prison, as well as Juan Aliste Vega, in the CAS, who joins but is not on strike, for medical reasons, declare:
our decision to end our mobilization, a hunger strike (continuing to ingest liquids), after 50 days of intense agitation and action, in prisons and in the streets, in an urgent framework of control and social repression, to demand: Against life sentences! For the repeal of the amendments to Legislative Decree No. 321! And for the release of our comrade Marcelo Villarroel!
Judges don’t care about our comrades and friends being deprived of freedom for 67 days already, about the inconsistency of the evidence or disproportionate charges. In the face of this response we persist. We continue and will continue to give them solidarity and to demand their freedom.
The night of 3rd May, after more than 42 days of hunger strike of our compas Mónica Caballero, Francisco Solar, Joaquín García, Pablo Bahamondez, Juan Flores and Marcelo Villarroel.
A few minutes before the start of the curfew, we headed for the neighbourhoods where there was no banging of pots to demand crumbs from this murderous government. Neighbourhoods inhabited by those who, in spite of the pandemic situation, have increased their wealth enormously while in other parts of the territory dominated by the Chilean State, hunger and poverty are the daily lot of many people.
We attacked this symbol of money and capital, a bank in avenue Apoquindo, at the corner of avenida Manquehue, in Las Condes [commune in the rich suburb of Santiago – BancoEstado belongs to the Chilean State; French NdAtt.]. This in solidarity with the compas on hunger strike since March 22 for the abrogation of the amendments of the decree law n. 321. They are using their bodies as the only trench in their gesture of defiance against the prison structure and its judiciary.
To the Anarchist compas struggling in the prisons.
With love and hate.
A few anarchists, we visited the headquarters of the representative of the Chilean State in Porto Alegre, just before they started « work » ; we sprayed the car entrance with burnt oil, making difficult or blocking the entry of cars; we also left a burning tyre on the pavement outside the entrance and went away after leaving fliers saying:
« Combative solidarity with the anarchists on hunger strike in the dungeons of the Chilean State. Strength to you warriors, you are not alone! Long live Anarchy! »
Know that no warrior is alone.
This is our gesture full of tenderness, in support of your hunger strike.
“Last March 22nd different anarchist and subversive partners from the revolt, kidnapped in many prisons of the Chilean state, have begun a hunger strike demanding the repeal of the article 9 and the restitution of the article 1st from the decree of the law 321.
The retroactive character of this law modifies the request’s periods of conditional release, which directly harms mates with long sentences, and thousands of prisoners across the region
Technology has always been a strong ally of domination. Today, however, one could say that it is one of its most important weapons. So technology has flooded every corner of our daily lives. “Smart phones”, “Smart watches”, “Smart homes”, even “Smart cities”. Everything ready and arranged for our convenience. Behind this apparent convenience we have been given, there is huge business. A massive collection of information on each individual. Mobile phone companies clearly have their place of honour in this situation. Always available to hand over conversations, messages and any other information they have, they have proved their good cooperation with the institutions of power many times.
One of these times was the dystopian period 2020-2021. At the first warning of “mass imprisonment”, these companies hurried to comfort the people with packages of offers to gild the pill of each person, who had to stay home at all costs. Still, they have been and are one of the most basic means of social control, as movement is allowed mainly by sms, while at any time the civil protection have the ability to send out messages, with ridiculous sirens blaring.
Compartimos flyers para continuar la agitación solidaria con lxs compas en huelga de hambre. Nosotrxs los transformamos en stickers para invadir la normalidad en sus recovecos más impensados. Fuerza y amor en guerra.
Viva la anarquía!
To peoples, individuals, communities and territories in struggle and resistance. To those who revolt in the face of this present of oppression and misery. To our families, our friends, our accomplices, compas and loved ones, throughout the world.
The night of 3rd May, after more than 42 days of hunger strike of our compas Mónica Caballero, Francisco Solar, Joaquín García, Pablo Bahamondez, Juan Flores and Marcelo Villarroel.
Compartimos flyers para continuar la agitación solidaria con lxs compas en huelga de hambre. Nosotrxs los transformamos en stickers para invadir la normalidad en sus recovecos más impensados. Fuerza y amor en guerra.
