Repression wegen Antifa Aktionen in Athen
Concerning the prosecution of militants for the Golden Dawn head offices attack, Athens, Greece – Campaign for financial support
On 1.11.2019 there was an arson attack against Golden Dawn’s head offices in Diligianni street, resulting in the destruction of the building’s second floor where N. Michaloliakos' office (the secretary general of the party) is located. According to the file of the case, while the perpetrators were trying to escape, police cars belonging to the “counter”-terrorist agency pursued a car. The pursuit resulted in a car collision and to the policemen's injury, with the perpetrators managing to get away.
This incident was used as an excuse to start a targeting and persecution campaign against anarchists, which reached its peak with the arrest of two anarchist militants and the manipulative police tactics that aimed to put them in provisional custody.
The bill of indictment's upgrade by the “counter”-terrorist agency and the leaks to the media created the anticipation that the two comrades would be put in custody. In this climate of terror, the comrades and their lawyers were called to fight an unequal battle.
More specifically, the state’s repressive mechanisms, with the CT agency in the lead role, fabricated according to the provisions of article 187A (anti-terrorist law) a “terrorist” group named “Taxiarchia” (Brigade) which first appeared in March 2017 with the attack against the (then) HQ of the neonazi party Golden Dawn in Mesogeion Avenue, under the name of “Pavlos Fyssas Brigade”. According to the court file, the group executed 6 attacks against structures and members of the fascist party up to its last hit against the head offices in Diligianni str. in November 2019.
In that way, the authorities made an attempt to isolate certain claims of responsibility within a plethora of antifascist-anticapitalist actions which led, together with other things, to a significant weakening of the fascist movement in the last few years. Among dozens of attacks and claims of responsibility, they chose a few which, by having the noun “Taxiarchia” as a first component, could be presented to the investigative judge as persuasive evidence of “joining and participating in a terrorist organization”. The law enforcement authorities in their attempt to patch a case together, fabricated the existence of a terrorist group in order to sentence the two comrades to dozens of years in prison. And all this for the CT agency to restore its damaged public profile after the fiasco it suffered in Exarheia.
More specifically, the court document, apart from the attack to the -then- party HQ in Mesogeion str, alludes to three more attacks against party members and the Local Organization in Aspropyrgos which led to the final shutting down of their offices. For these attacks, responsibility was taken using three different signatures, namely “Sahzat Lukman Brigade”, “Petrit Zifle Brigade” and “Abd Elsalam Brigade”. The arson against the Local Organization of Golden Dawn in the area of Menidi, which led to its shutting down for an indeterminate period of time, under the signature “Durruti Brigade”, is also referred in the court file. The same goes for the destruction of the Führer’s office in Diligianni street, an action for which no one yet has claimed responsibility.
The expanded and unfounded indictment has been composed, among others, based on anonymous calls to the “counter”-terrorist agency which has no caller ID (!!!). The indictment is full of lies and exaggerations which can easily be demolished just by reading the file. The two comrades who were arrested about two months after the Diligiani incident, are prosecuted for two attacks against the Golden Dawn offices, the one at Menidi and the one at Diligiani str. The “evidence” in the authorities' possession is that on the dates of the attacks, the comrades happened to rent cars for personal use, a fact that was considered suspicious by the CT agency.
All this is happening in a conjuncture when the Golden Dawn trial is coming to an end and the state prosecutor (Adamantia Economou)has suggested the charges against the members of the neonazi party be dismissed. In this way, the murderous violence of the criminal organization is downgraded and legitimized.
All this is happening in a conjuncture when the New Democracy government introduces bills which repress the right to strike, to protest and to the university asylum. In just a few months it attempts to take back everything the society has won in decades of struggles at a great cost and sacrifices. It launches an all-out attack on the social conquests using a policy of social genocide against refugees and migrants, while building an Orwellian racist and authoritarian police state which spies on militants and political spaces, fabricates prosecutions and indictments, aims to eradicate the resistance and to spread fear and conservatism in the society.
It's in this conjuncture that our comrades were taken to the state prosecutors on a flimsy indictment for their “crime” of continuing to struggle. The two comrades were released under strict conditions: they have to report to the police four times a month and deposit a 15,000 euro bail (per person) in order to avoid custody, until 17-1-2020. It becomes evident that way that the financial bleeding of the movement is an everlasting goal of the system and a primary instrument aiming at its eradication.
It should be clear at this point that regardless of the blatant manipulation of the case, the defense of the militant antifascism and the movement's anti-violence against the system cannot be confined in dilemmas of guilt or innocence. The movement's self-defense against the authoritarian and market-based neoliberalism, which uses the fascism in order to crush social and class resistance, is the existential position of the struggle for a better world. It is the combat position of the oppressed all over the world and one of their principal means to assert their claims. Because the organized manifestation of the class anti-violence is our only chance against capitalism and state repression. Because the anti-fascist anti-violence may not be tried in civil courts, nor is legal or illegal. It is historically imposed and fair.
Under these circumstances, we make a call to the movement as a whole to support the efforts of collecting the bail money till the set date, so that comrades will not be remanded in custody; to show again to the state and its mechanisms that the solidarity of the oppressed is the foundation stone for the formation of a revolutionary movement. This is the next fight we are called to give against the repressive mechanisms that attempt to put the comrades in provisional custody.
Solidarity is our weapon
Contact with the assembly: antifa-initiative@riseup.net - protov2free@protonmail.com
Antifacist Initiative
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