OCCUPATION OF ATHENS UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION BUILDING
IN SOLIDARITY WITH THESSALONIKI 7
photographs from the occupation 1
2 3
"...We don't want to be presented as good boys because we aren't. We are anarchists, whether public opinion likes it or not, and we want to destroy the world of consumerism, poverty, exploitation and submission, pollution and death..."
Fernando, Diavata prison, July 2003
DEMOCRACY DID NOT WIN
5th - last- announcement
from the Occupation of Athens University Administration,
November 27.
On the 26th of November, the seven Thessaloniki prisoners were released after five months in prison.
The state didn't manage to succeed the physical extermination of the hunger-strikers, to prolong their confinement, to break the strength of solidarity and resistance, nor to abstract society's consent for a continuing imprisonment which would mean a conviction to death.
The repressive methods used upon the seven (tortures during arrest, in prison and hospital, five months prison without trial, exhausting the limits of the hunger-strike) were one more operation for the consolidation of state terrorism which is escalating in sight of the Olympic games' capitalist fiesta: Trials in court-martial style, isolation "white" cells, persecutions, international extradition agreements, "zero tolerance", surveillance and social control.
We have a very important reason to celebrate the liberation of our comrades, since it was their own determination and the multiple solidarity actions by thousands of people in many different countries that managed to subvert the plans of the state mechanisms. They proved that solidarity and the passion for freedom are capable to sabotage the progress of the modernized repression storm and to obstruct its rooting in society.
Nothing was gratuitous. A battle was won, and has become a valuable experience for keeping up the struggle in every front of the state and capitalist aggression. And now we have every reason to continue this struggle with more strength than before.
The occupation of Athens university administration building was one part of the growing resistance. It started on November 20 to function as a place for convergence, counter-information, self-organization and action for the case of the seven prisoners and the hunger strike of the five of them. Soon the occupation that was initiated by an assembly of anarchists and anti-authoritarians became a point of reference for hundreds of people who supported and participated in it. From the first day there were open general assemblies, film shows, solidarity concentrations, street blockades and thousands of flyers distributed. All day (and night) there was music from the loudspeakers and comrades were reading the communiqués of the occupation, letters from the prisoners and solidarity statements, while inside there were initiatives such as a self-organized kitchen and pirate-radio station.
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n the course of the following days a wave of solidarity occupations erupted: the University Annexe ("Parartima") in Patras, the Administration of the Polytechnic School, the university department of Communication and Media and the Architecture School in Athens, the Theological Faculty in Thessaloniki, the University Administration of Chania Polytechnic and the Administration of the Polytechnic in Xanthi.After yesterday's demonstration with motorbikes and cars to Nikaia hospital and Koridallos prison to salute the hunger-strikers, and after an all-night party at the occupation where we welcomed comrades Michalils T. and Dimitris F. who had just got released from Avlona prison for minors, today we announce the end of the occupation.
We continue the struggle for a free world, globalized from below, without prisons and borders, without states and bosses, oppression and exploitation.
RESISTANCE - SELF-ORGANISATION - SOLIDARITY
THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES
the Occupation of Athens University Administration
Excerpt from the 4th announcement of the occupation, Nov.25,
considering the statements of professional politicians for Thessaloniki seven
There is an evident attempt to obscure the fact that our comrades are kept hostages from a moment of the social-class war. Either through hypocritical statements of "sensitivity" by representatives of the regime, who only care to save the democratic facade of the state. Or with the victimization of the seven fighters, and especially the hunger-strikers, through the dominant discourse of the "progressive" media and the "humanitarianism" or the reformist left, who does nothing but de-politicizing ways of resistance and concealing the militant position that the seven prisoners have expressed in their letters and in their struggle in general.
It is clear that solidarity and the struggle for their immediate liberation is the continuation, the widening and intensification of resistance against the world of class slavery and social oppression, submission and death.
OCCUPATION of the UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION BUILDING –ATHENS- IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE 7 THESSALONIKI PRISONERS
3d announcement – Saturday, November 22
The occupation of the University Administration, in solidarity to the 7 Thessaloniki fighters, demanding their immediate liberation, continues for the third day, by decision of the assembly held in the occupied building.
Five of the seven prisoners who are prosecuted for participating in the demonstration of resistance against the E.U. summit in Thessaloniki last June, are on a long-running hunger strike, while their health condition is critical.
Fernando Perez and Carlos Martin Martinez (49th day of hunger strike) along with Spyros Tsitsas (46th day) are detained in Nikaia public hospital. Soleiman Dakdouk “Kastro” (63d day) and Simon Chapman (49th day) are in Koridallos prison hospital.
The greek state continues to hold hostage people who struggle for freedom using their life as their only weapon as an attempt to physically and politically exterminate them.
Furthermore, this acts as a message of terror to anyone who resists the projects of domination and power, the wars and “peace” that spread death, exploitation and repression.
A moment of struggle against this reality were the actions of resistance in Thessaloniki, where we demonstrated with thousands of people against the fiesta of Europe´s political bosses, rejecting compromise, manipulation and mediation.
From the occupied University Assembly:
- We call all the resisting people to eexpress their active solidarity to the 7 imprisoned fighters of Thessaloniki.
- We announce that the provocations andd the pitiful attempts of intimidation by the police, such as the attacks made by plain-clothes cops against some squatters, cannot stop us and will not go unanswered.
- We express our strong solidarity to oour seven comrades detained in Nikaia hospital, Koridallos prison and Avlona prison for minors, and to all the imprisoned fighters.
To all those who struggle for the liberation of the 7, in Patras, Thessaloniki, Kavala, Xanthi, Komotini, Mytilini, Volos, Ioannina, Larisa, Corfu, Heraklion, Chania and Rethymno.
To all those who protest, demonstrate, occupy greek embassies and mobilize by any means necessary in England, Spain, Canada, Ireland, Scotland, France, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Netherlands, Poland, Turkey, USA, Argentina…
To all the people who fight for a world without exploitation and oppression, states and bosses, borders and prisons.
FREEDOM TO THE 7 IMPRISONED FIGHTERS
OF THESSALONIKI
SOLIDARITY TO THE HUNGER STRIKERS
THEY ARE INSIDE FOR US – WE´RE OUTSIDE FOR THEM
The Assembly of the Occupation
Anarchists and antiauthoritarians in solidarity to 7 Thessaloniki fighters