A letter from the special cell of Lamia Hospital – Giannis Michailidis

The scorpion is an insect that differs little from its ancestral species, which were among the first animals to walk on land hundreds of millions of years ago. It has been observed that individuals of this species, when trapped among the flames with no visible escape route, do a remarkable thing: they turn their sting on themselves and commit suicide! A behavior that offers no evolutionary advantage, as on the slim chance that the fire would go out, the surviving animals could continue to reproduce. A behavior that contradicts the theory that insects are biological robots because they exhibit standardized behaviors.

The simplest way I can explain this behaviour is that the evolution of life does not build robots, but instead creates neural systems for information processing and decision making. Recurring patterns of behaviour emerge from the complex operation of self-organised neural circuits, which in most cases do indeed favour maximum reproductive potential. So then, these tiny nervous systems with several orders of magnitude fewer neural synapses than our brains produce a behaviour that betrays evidence of their internal functioning:

1.These animals experience pain, meaning pain as a stimulus that the animal tries to eliminate.

2.These animals experience fear, meaning fear as an internal mental projection of a future situation.

3.They have knowledge that they possess a murderous tool with which they kill their prey and defend themselves from their predators: the stinger.

4.They associate the feeling of pain with their body as they point the stinger at themselves.

5.The association of pain with self-consciousness, since pain is an elementary form of mental state, and consciousness is thought upon thought, constitutes a primitive form of consciousness. So pain is in a sense conscious.

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News from the solidarity demonstration in the framework of the international day of solidarity with the hunger striker Giannis Michailidis

On Friday, June 24, we held a gathering and demo in the Kreuzberg district as part of the international day of solidarity with anarchist hunger striker G. Michailidis. More than 60 comrades gathered at Kottbuser Tor at Kreuzberg Zentrum and after an hour moved to Marianneplatz, where the demo ended.
Continue reading News from the solidarity demonstration in the framework of the international day of solidarity with the hunger striker Giannis Michailidis (Germany) →

The health condition of hunger striker Giannis Michailidis, who is on his 46th day of hunger strike and is under guard at Lamia General Hospital, is at an extremely critical point.

First of all, I would like to emphasize and make it known that although it is legally foreseen for any prisoner to appoint his personal doctor to examine and monitor him, in this case and despite the relevant permission, I was not allowed to have a clinical examination in person, our communication was between bars and in the presence of the police officer right next to me, thus abolishing medical confidentiality since he was listening and watching all our communication.

Giannis white blood cell count has dropped so far below the lower normal limit that it now poses a threat to the striker. Leukopenia leads to severe immunodeficiency. Platelets are also very low and Thrombocytopenia can cause severe and threatening bleeding. There is anaemia that is getting worse, disturbance in liver function, hypocalcaemia.
Continue reading 8/7/22 : Medical opinion for the hunger striker Giannis Michailidis (Greece) →