In the text below Nikos Maziotis, member of Revolutionary Struggle, suggests the creation of meeting of solidarity for all political detainees and prisoners in struggle. At the same time this is an open call to all comrades and companions of the anarchist / antiauthoritarian domain to participate and support this endeavor.
The text is also sent to all political detainees and imprisoned fighters.
Comrades, companions- this text addresses you concerning the Type-C prisons, and my proposal for the transformation of that meeting as much as it concerns the issue of solidarity.
Comrades, companions- passing legislation of the Type-C prisons is an expected development in the repressive attack of the state against the armed Revolutionary Organizations and against armed action. Subsequently it brings into legislation changes and reforms that have been under way for about 14 years and is directly linked to the political and economic conditions, applicable for years internationally, including none other than the “war on terror” and the neoliberal reforms intended to impose the dictatorship of the markets with its doctrine of supranational capital.
As Revolutionary Struggle, since the beginning of our activities in 2003, I believe that we properly analysed the political and economic conditions in the early nineties when we first started our activities: conditions relating to the globalisation of the capitalist system. This includes both the neo-liberal reforms that led to the economic and civilian-relevant nature of globalisation and were designed by the dictatorship of transnational capital and the “war on terror” launched in 2001 following the attacks on the United States. The system, therefore, in order to impose the dictatorship of markets proceeds with increasingly harder crackdowns and tends more and more towards the totalitarian.
In Greece that same year the economy was opened to transnational capital after the so-called “scandal” of 1999. This resulted in the stock market integration in EMU (economic and monetary union) in the Eurozone in 2002. It is therefore no coincidence that in the same period, even whilst lagging behind Western Europe and the US, the Greek State is proceeding to legislate the first anti-terrorism laws in 2001, the Organised Crime and Terrorism Bill facilitated by Justice Minister Michalis Stathopoulos. The law was passed after pressure from the US and Britain and targeted members of the armed Revolutionary Organizations and more specifically N17 which was the only guerrilla organization active at that time. This law was named the “law against organized crime” and it was done with the obvious purpose of serving the tactics of the state: to deconstruct the political characteristics of armed revolutionary organizations, to depoliticize and clean them of the language of ideological action and to present them as a ordinary criminal offenders . All those accused and on trial for N17and ELA actions in 2003 and 2004 respectively are on the receiving end of this law.
Despite the fact, however, that this law originally targeted members of the armed Revolutionary Organizations, the state also uses it for the hardening of general law enforcement regarding illegal incriminations. They are aggressively utilising the provision of “criminal organization” using the device of “conspiracy” and this has resulted in an increase of total sentences. However, do not confuse cause and effect: the law ‘Stathopoulos’, the first anti-terrorism law, was made primarily for members of the armed revolutionary organizations, but the result has been generalised and increased in scope to also apply to cases of organized delinquency.
Three years later, in 2004, during the government of Karamanlis and New Democracy, the second anti-terrorism law- the law ‘Papaligoura’, is enacted in order to clarify the definition of “setting up a terrorist organization” and “terrorist acts”, which “in a manner and to an extent circumstances, it is possible to harm the country and destroying the fundamental constitutional political and economic structures of the country.” Despite the fact that the system does not recognize political enemies, the law ‘Papaligoura’ recognizes the existence and activity of armed organizations that threaten the fundamental constitutional, political and economic structures of the country thereby bringing the political reality of these actions into the equation. The same law is also aggressively using the device of “address[ing] terrorist organization” in order both to increase the penalty for those accused and convicted as directors or heads of a “terrorist organization” and to confirm the status that there is no other form of social organization apart from the existing hierarchical organization of today’s society, dominated by capital and the state. This law, which was enacted after US pressure on the eve of the Olympic Games in 2004, was subsequently used in all of the trials of the armed Revolutionary Organizations of both the Revolutionary Struggle and the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire.
The lawmaking thus for prisons Type-C is the coherence and consistency of the two anti-terrorism laws of 2001 and 2004, and the 2003 law that establishes international cooperation on a police and judicial level in the field of counter-revolutionary armed action between Greece, the European Union and the US. These laws then fill a gap in Greek repressive policies and are made to align with the European Union and the US; as we can see in Europe and the US, apart from the anti-terror laws that are from the 70s and 80s when many countries faced serious problems due to action of armed Revolutionary Organizations, there now exist prisons with special detention regimes for members of these organizations.
The same happened in Turkey in the early 2000s where the Type-F prisons were built, primarily for members of the leftist Revolutionary Organizations engaged in armed struggle, and we all remember the struggle of the prisoner members of these organizations who were on hunger strike to the death or set themselves on fire to try and prevent their transfer to the Type-F prisons.
We should make A / A space to do the obvious and see things objectively. The Type-C prisons are primarily for those accused of armed struggle, whether they assume political responsibility for their participation in belonging to these organizations or deny the allegations. And this does not detract from the fact that in these prisons they will keep convicts serving long sentences and other offenders who have been convicted by the Law of “criminal organization”. It is completely inappropriate that a written text of the Convention on the Type-C prisons should be used “to construct the guilty.” Let us not seek some idiom where there are none. The lawsuits are against comrades for participating in a “terrorist organization” for “terrorist acts”, which could harm fundamental constitutional, political and economic structures of the country, trials are aimed at the specific sentencing of armed revolutionary organizations at a time, and this regardless of whether these trials are comrades who deny the charges or not. Being an anarchist is not a sui generis- at least for now.
However, both the anti-terrorism legislation and the prison in which they intend to isolate us give a clear signal to the A / A space and society from the side of the state. It demonstrates that whoever chooses the armed struggle as a form of action will receive a predatory criminal treatment, if arrested, and kept in a special status such as the Type-C prisons. That’s why the state is aware of the hazards of armed struggle, especially in the conditions of the global economic crisis that has erupted since 2008 when the regime, which the economic and political system is legitimized in, lost the social consensus which it enjoyed before the crisis; because it is in these conditions that the armed struggle is a strong subversive and destabilizing factor for the system. And this regime has confessed these factors by referring to them when the Revolutionary Struggle were arrested in 2010 for the first time as well as with the recent arrest of anarchist Anthony Stamboulou accused of participation in the Revolutionary Struggle, or when the Minister of Public Order Vassilis Kikilias connects direct action or the threat of hits by the revolutionary organisations with the destabilization of the system during a particularly sensitive time for it.
The introduction of the Type-C prisons can be seen as the consistency and continuity of the state repressive attack against militants who have opted for armed struggle, intended to break them through the isolation of members of the armed revolutionary organizations and those accused of involvement in these organizations, and are intended degrade them as political entities and to elicit statements and renunciation of armed struggle from them.
Anyone staying in Type-C prisons in addition to the minimum of four years under the law would be regarded as unrepentant and the prosecutor, who will determine the continuation or not of a sentence after four years, will decide on not only on importance of the acts but also of the character and personality of the prisoner. It therefore goes without saying that anyone who is unrepentant and immovable in their belief in the struggle whilst in prison would be considered a threat to public order and security, and would find their sentence extended indefinitely in detention in the Type-C prisons.
The action against the Type-C prisons can only be part of solidarity with all political prisoners and imprisoned fighters located in the Greek jails and Type-C prisons. This is regardless of the diversity of cases, whether the prisoners have taken political responsibility for their participation in the organizations they belong or belonged to or accused of involvement in guerilla organizations and deny the charges, or whether they are anarchists accused of bank expropriations.
Companions, comrades- because the action against the Type-C prisons can only be a part of solidarity with all political prisoners and prisoner fighters I propose the transformation of the Assembly for Type-C prisons in a solidarity meeting for all political prisoners and prisoner fighters , not only to those convicted or accused of involvement in armed rebel groups but also comrades and companions that faced state repression of other forms of struggle, demonstrations, sit-ins or street clashes with the police.
It is contradictory and paradoxical to mobilize against a prison type, and can not show solidarity with their fellow prisoners for the Type-C prisons. It is a serious political deficit: there are dozens of political prisoners and imprisoned fighters and not a solidarity meeting for them. Solidarity is a political position and attitude. It is a key element of a movement or a political space that wants to have kinematic characteristics. Solidarity means that the detained militants and forms of struggle they chose and have been in prison for are part of the common struggle, of the struggle for the revolution for anarchy and communism. Solidarity means that we believe that the armed struggle and guerrilla warfare is part of the struggle and movement for the Social Revolution. Anyone who disagrees with this principle can not therefore be in solidarity or play with solidarity with his companions and comrades who are prison and advocating armed struggle as an option of struggle.
This does not mean that solidarity, the space or the movement can not do critiques on the positions or the reason of actions of armed Revolutionary Organizations, provided such criticism is made in good faith with a purely political arguments rather than mud, hubris and aphorisms . To ultimately prove that “solidarity is not a identification” is sincere and not an excuse and those who disagree condemn the armed struggle and guerilla warfare, but to have the political courage to say so openly and publicly and selective ‘solidarity’ for those who claim innocence and deny the charges, while turning their backs on those who advocate armed struggle and assume political responsibility for their participation in the organizations they belong to.
Solidarity is not selective because otherwise there is no solidarity. Solidarity has criteria: personal, friendly, relatives or family. Solidarity is not the distinction between the innocent and the guilty, not the distinction between assumptions of organizations or individuals. Solidarity does not make distinctions between Anarchist and Communist prisoners, nor does it have any national characteristics. Solidarity is not the separation of the forms of struggle, the promotion of the bipolar ” mass or armed struggle”, “legality or illegality”, the separation of armed struggle and the movement, or the dividing line between “confrontational but non-armed track of anarchy and “armed anarchist section.” I repeat that solidarity has only one political criterion, that prisoners and those forms of action chosen as the armed struggle, guerilla and any other form of action that were found in prison is part of the common struggle and movement for the overthrow of capital and the state: for Social Revolution. Those who does not apply this criterion are informers and renouncers like Corcis who denounced companions in case of N17, without pressure, violence and torture and Giotopoulos condemning the action of N17 in court.
I therefore propose to transform the Assembly for Type-C prisons into a solidarity meeting for political prisoners and imprisoned fighters. Not only those imprisoned for armed action but also for any form of struggle. In the solidarity actions of this assembly it is logical that they shall also include it in their activities in relation to Type-C prisons.
It’s time to put each partner and each comrade in front of their responsibilities and take a clear and explicit position on the issue of solidarity. Any subterfuge demonstrates that solidarity is not only a weapon, but that is a word empty of content. It becomes yet another corpse in the mouth. So I invite all companions and comrades inside and outside of prison to take a stand and ask them politically to open up a dialogue on the proposal to create solidarity assembly.
If Anarchist – anti-authoritarian space wants to forget the prisoners of the state and let them just rot in jail and then they also forget the struggle.
Nikos Maziotis, member of Revolutionary Struggle
Diavata Prison
Greece
Translated by solidarians and friends of Nikos Maziotis