“We are guarded by thousands of fears: The fear of being buried alive in a prison, the fear of dying in action, the fear of being left alone without the cheers of the crowd or the fear of being isolated by our own comrades. Overcoming these fears would make us more lucid. Many struggles are built on these fears, they are products of these fears. Fear poisons us; compromise is its toxic fruit. Then, with eloquent words, comfortable theories, convenient long-term strategies, they make sure to embellish the whole humiliation by recommending wisdom and drawing us into political realism. Unfortunately, however, shit, no matter how pink you paint it, is still shit.” – Alfredo Cospito
The Direct Action Cells claim full responsibility for the arson attack on the home of judge Elias Kanellopoulos in the Cholargos area (a suburb in Athens). Our attack is an action of solidarity with the mobilizations of the prisoners in the prisons of the territory. It is also a continuation of the strategy of the personal targeting of those involved in the constant tightening of criminal repression and the repressive management applied in the field of prisons. From the architect of the new penal code, Lambros Margaritis, to the head of the Inspection and Control Body of the Prisons, Spyridoula Presvia, and now to Ilias Kanellopoulos, an appellant seconded to the Ministry of Justice, who was one of the close associates of the former Minister of Justice, Kostas Tsiaras, during whose days the new penal and penitentiary code was created and passed.
Our message is clear. The Direct Action Cells do not forget the people behind bars, the families who are suffering and tormented by the methods of the judges, the police and those prison officers who have the impression that they are untouchable. We do not forget the political prisoners who are paying the price for their choice of joining the revolutionary struggle. The explosions outside the homes of those who, in one way or another, choose to make the lives of prisoners a nightmarish reality, brings home, even if only on a symbolic level, the combative reality of the permanent anarchist threat.
As we previously stated, following the attack on the home of Lambros Margaritis:
“We are not finished with this particular issue. For us, any attack on the rights of prisoners that were won through painful struggles is taken very seriously, and in this regard we will try as hard as we can to keep it high on the priorities of the militant formations acting within the combative movement. We call on them to become a shield of protection for the rights of political prisoners in the prisons and to target those directly responsible for this anachronistic penal code that takes us back many decades.”
For months now, hundreds of inmates in dozens of prisons across the country have been mobilizing with a series of demands against the new penal and prison code, as well as the recent announcements of a new revision of the previous code that was made by the former government. The legislative changes have resulted in the deprivation of liberty for even longer periods of time, the separation of loved ones and the loss of already scarce leave licenses, the extension of the exemption regime to larger groups of prisoners, while the state is introducing an increasingly harsh requirement of submission and repentance before the inquisitors of the judicial councils. The tightening of criminal legislation and the prison code has specific objectives. The satisfaction of the audience of the law and order doctrine which feeds the New Democracy party with votes. The increasing enslavement of prisoners either as collaborators of the police, or as victims in the net of the para-judicial circuits of the big lawyers who are in direct alignment with the government of New Democracy and who, with the corresponding remuneration, hold in their hands the key to release by exploiting the legal windows on which the corresponding amount of money is written.
In a situation where individualism, resignation and the logic of capitulation are gaining ground, there are examples of struggle that, with their deafening dignity, disrupt the legality of subordination (often with a corresponding protest version on the outside). The intense hunger and thirst strikes of the political prisoners Dimitris Koufontinas, Yannis Michaelides, Thanos Hatziangelou, the 11 Turkish fighters of the Popular Front, Alfredo Cospito, the dozens of hunger strikes of solidarity, and a series of prisoners’ resistance movements throughout this period show that even in very difficult conditions the battles that build barricades of resistance are not wasted but necessary and imperative.
We consider it our duty to take a stand, through practical solidarity, in the war raging on the prison front. To target the architects of the legislation that dismantles the already scarce rights of prisoners. The cartel of judges who extract payment from the scum at the top of the social pyramid, while the impoverished workers and the declared enemies of the system suffer at its hands. The wardens, sergeants and the henchmen of the prison regime who remain the stooges and proxies of the minister of the day and attempt to intimidate the prisoners and break their morale.
The fear Kanellopoulos felt when he jumped out of bed at the sounds of the explosion and saw the fire from his balcony. It is a small cost of the other side of the psychological battlefield in which he takes an active part as a cog in the state bureaucracy that strangles people in the name of the law. We say this to be clear. The transfer of fear into their camp is a necessary condition if we are to talk about militant struggle in the present day. No more hollow words, no more misery, no more academic blurring and false content. There is a clear and absolute distinction that clears up the confusion around us. Anyone who decides to risk their freedom in the name of freedom is our ally. Anyone who talks too much without saying anything is at best worthy of our indifference.
Solidarity to those persecuted for the comrades case, Kostas Dimalexis, the D.S. and R.Z.
Solidarity and complicity with Francisco Solar and Mónica Caballero. Solidarity with all political prisoners fighting for subversion around the world.
Honor forever to the revolutionary communists of the Popular Front – Harika Kızılkaya, Burak Agarmış, Özkan Güzel and Erdoğan Çakır: Because the passion for a new way of life cannot be suppressed. If it is crushed a thousand times, it will be reborn from the flames a thousand and one times.
To defeat the fear instilled by the system through repression to render us inactive.
To build with actions the permanent threat.
Direct Action Cells
