Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Solidarity with those arrested during the events of 6 December 2014

December 6, 2014 marks six years since the cold-blooded murder of 16-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by the cop Korkoneas.

This anniversary coincides with the hunger strike of 21-year-old anarchist Nikos Romanos who is requesting furlough to attend university classes.

The day and night found tens of thousands of people demonstrating in the streets of many cities of Greece. The particularly massive afternoon demonstration in central Athens was succeeded by hours of clashes and street fighting mainly in the area of Exarchia. The police detained more than 200 people, of whom 43 were the arrested. Some of those arrested face felony charges, and are still being held at the police headquarters.

Clashes between anarchists/anti-authoritarians and the forces of repression took place in many other cities, such as Thessaloniki, Patras, Volos, Larissa, Ioannina, Agrinio, Mytilene, Heraklion, Chania, Kalamata and elsewhere. Specifically, in Patras there were six arrests (of which two on felony charges), in Thessaloniki seventeen, in Agrinio three, while about 100 people were detained in other parts of Greece.

Once again, the state attempted to unleash terror with the imposition of so-called "zero tolerance" by attacking marches, detaining protesters, and bringing charges of heavy and vengeful character to those arrested.

Once again, the rulers are wrong. Their imposed police state will achieve nothing more than to spread an intensify even more the hubs of resistance throughout Greece. Their suppressive machine does nothing more than to cause the spread of circles of subversion.

Hope lies in the militant and uncompromising attitude of anarchists hunger strikers Nikos Romanos (from 10 November), John Michailidis (from 17 November), Andrea Bourzoukou and Dimitris Politis (from 1 December).

Hope lies in the thousands of people who marched and are marching in the streets of Greece against state and capitalist barbarity.

Hope lies in the numerous hubs of resistance that have been created in the occupied town halls, universities and labor centers.

Hope lies in the neighborhoods of Istanbul where Turkish comrades marched in solidarity with N. Romanos and clashed with riot police there, in the streets of Ferguson, and wherever people are in the streets of revolt.

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Η μικρή ΔΕΗ, η μεγάλη κομπίνα


( ή, «πως, εκτός από την κατσίκα του γείτονα, θα κάνουμε και τη δική μας κατσίκα να ψοφήσει»).


Έχουμε ξαναπεί σε αυτό το ιστολόγιο, για την διάχυτη αδιαφορία που επιτρέπει στους κάθε λογής κομπιναδόρους υψηλού επιπέδου, να αυξάνουν τα κέρδη τους εις βάρος της κοινωνίας, με την συναίνεση της ίδιας της κοινωνίας.
Η διαμορφούμενη κατάσταση στον χώρο της ενέργειας είναι ακόμα ένα κλασικό τέτοιο παράδειγμα.
Τι διακυρήσσει η κυβέρνηση οτι θα γίνει και λέει οτι περιμένει ο μέσος μαλάκας τηλεθεατής να συμβεί με την «απελευθέρωση της αγοράς ενέργειας»; Να πέσει στο ιστορικό χαμηλό η τιμή του ρεύματος, λόγω του «ανταγωνισμού», για να μπορεί να αποβλακώνεται μπροστά στο χαζοκούτι με το μικρότερο δυνατό κόστος, ή να μπορεί να βάζει και πάλι τέρμα το καλοριφερ με ανοιχτά τα παράθυρα, όπως τον «καλό καιρό». Το οτι σε κανέναν «απελευθερωμένο» τομέα της οικονομίας δεν έχει γίνει κάτι τέτοιο είναι λεπτομέρεια. Το οτι στο γάλα, στα καύσιμα, στα τρόφιμα, τα καρτελ κρατάνε ψηλά τις τιμές με την προφανή συνενοχή των κρατικών μηχανισμών ή στην καλύτερη με την αδυναμία επιτυχούς παρέμβασής τους είναι άσχετο.
Αφου λοιπόν αυτα είναι άσχετα, ας δούμε τα σχετικά:
 Στην Ελλάδα, όσες ενέργειες έγιναν για την «απελευθέρωση» της ενέργειας ήταν υβρίδια μεταξύ φιάσκου και κομπίνας:
-          Οι ιδιωτικοί πάροχοι ενέργειας που εμφανίστηκαν προ τριετίας, «χρεωκόπησαν» (σε εισαγωγικά διότι η ακριβής έκφραση είναι άλλη) αφήνοντας όχι μόνο φέσι στην ΔΕΗ αλλά και την υποχρέωση στην ΔΕΗ να καλύψει τους εξυπνάκηδες που πήγαν στους ιδιώτες (δηλαδή διπλό φέσι). Ο ορισμός αυτού που έλεγε ο Ωνάσης, οτι  «…Η Ολυμπιακή είναι ένας κουβάς με σκατά που όλο του προσθέτουμε. Ε, μόλις ξεχειλίσει και μας πνίξει η μπόχα, θα τον δώσουμε στo γκουβέρνο...»
-          Η ισχύουσα αυτή τη στιγμή ημι-απελευθερωμένη κατάσταση, όχι μόνο δεν βελτίωσε τις τιμές (ενα λιγάκι ρε παιδί μου, να πειστούμε οτι πάμε προς την σωστή κατεύθυνση....) αλλά αντίθετα, βλέπουμε βιομηχανίες να κλείνουν επικαλούμενες το κόστος του ρεύματος. Και άν μεν οι βιομήχανοι μπορεί υπερβάλλοντας, να χρησιμοποιούν το ρεύμα ως “πάτημα”για απολύσεις και άλλους δικούς τους λόγους, σίγουρα δεν ισχύει το ίδιο πχ για τους αγρότες.η για τα νοικοκυριά, όσο και να προσπαθεί η κυρία Βούλτεψη και οκύριος Γεωργιάδης να μας πείσουν οτι ο ήλιος ανατέλλει από τη δύση.
Αυτά όμως είναι ψιλά γράμματα. Στον προηγμένο κόσμο λέει, η πλήρης απελευθέρωση της αγοράς ενέργειας έχει θετικά αποτελέσματα. Ποιά; Που;Ακόμα και με ένα απλό γκουγκλάρισμα με τις λέξεις California Energy Crisis , ο οποιοσδήποτε θα μπορούσε να δει πως δουλεύει στην πραγματικότητα μια «απελευθερωμένη αγορά ενέργειας»: Υπερτιμολογήσεις, Διακοπές Ρεύματος, Εκβιασμοί, Εσκεμμένη καταστροφή επιχειρήσεων, και λοιπά και λοιπά. Και άμα μας πιάσουνε, κάνουμε διακανονισμό και δεν τρέχει και τίποτα.
Μια πολύ ωραία περιγραφή όλων των ανωτέρω (και άλλων πολλών τέτοιων, για να μην πλατειάζουμε....) μπορείτε να βρείτε εδώ.
Αλλά αυτά είνα ψιλά γράμματα, το είπαμε.
Ούτε είναι θέμα ουσίας το οτι ο κάθε «επενδυτής» (διάβαζε κοράκι ή λαμόγιο) παίρνει μπιρ παρά δημόσια περιουσία (ναι ρε κρετίνε, δημόσια, όχι κρατική, δεν μπορεις να καταλάβεις την διαφορά; Κρατικός είναι και ο στρατός, αλλά δεν έχεις δικαίωμα να πάρεις ένα ABRAAMS να πάς βόλτα, ενώ τον αέρα που αναπνέουμε, ενώ δεν είναι ούτε κρατικός ούτε ιδιωτικός, δεν έχει κανένας δικαίωμα να σου τον περιορίσει) όπως δημόσια γη, δημόσιο υπέδαφος, δημόσια νερά και τα κάνει αποκλειστικής δικής του χρήσης. Ούτε κάν το οτι ο ίδιος επενδυτής μπορεί να χρησιμοποιήσει και δεσμεύσει ιδιωτική περιουσία τρίτου για ίδιο όφελος, χωρις να του ζητήσει την άδεια και φυσικά χωρίς να τον αποζημειώσει (όπως για παράδειγμα η δουλεία διέλευσης των γραμμών υψηλής τάσης, η οποία συστάθηκε για λόγους «δημοσίου συμφέροντος», και πλέον γίνεται ιδωτικού συμφέροντος). Όχι, δεν είναι αυτή η ουσία.
Η ουσία είναι οτι ο μέσος μαλάκας τηλεθεατής –follower του Άδωνις, είναι διατεθειμένος σε οποιαδήποτε θυσία προκειμένου να τιμωρηθούν οι «τεμπέληδες δημόσιοι υπάλληλοι» (φωτογραφία ενός τέτοιου «τεμπέλη» βλέπετε εδώ δίπλα: άραγε πόσοι απο αυτούς τους μάγκες που θεωρούν συλλήβδην τους δημόσιους υπαλληλους τεμπέληδες, είναι διατεθειμένοι να ανέβουν στο στύλο ή στον πυλώνα νυχτιάτικα με αέρα ή/και βροχή;). Όλα τα προβλήματα αυτής της κοινωνίας, προσωποποιούνται γι’αυτούς στο μούσι του Φωτόπουλου, σε ένα σύγχρονο ανάλογο της ιστορίας του εξοστρακισμού του Αριστείδη.
 Τρόμπες μέχρι το τέλος, όπως τότε που φώναζαν οτι «δε πα να τους πληρώσουμε χρυσούς, εγώ νιώθω υπερήφανος που πήραμε τους Ολυμπιακούς Αγώνες». Βέβαια μετά οι μισοί φώναζαν «αλήτες προδότες πολιτικοί» (αλλά πάλι από τον καναπέ) και οι άλλοι μισοί λέγανε «α ρε τρόικα/χούντα που θέλετε/θέλουμε». Τώρα όμως, δεν έχει άλλοθι.

Friday, February 15, 2013

As long as you are not resisting


So what if there is chaos in the bleachers of the basketball finals and knives are pulled 

out. The police are nowhere to be seen. As long as you are not resisting in the streets.So 


what if random immigrants are attacked with knives in the streets. The police are 


nowhere to be seen, and so are the perpetrators. As long as you are not resisting in the 


streets.So what if people are killed in the train tracks chased by cops. Justice is nowhere to be seen. As long as you are not resisting in the streets.

So what if young armed anarchists are brutally beaten and their pictures publicized, demonstrating what their civilization is today. Justice is nowhere to be seen. As long as you are not resisting.
That is all that matters to them, nothing else. As long as you are not resisting.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

...


 
"Blue face
Blue faces. Swollen eyes. Fractured jaws. Police violence. Children with kalasnikovs. Bank robbery. Abduction.

Grigoropoulos dead. Every day, again and again.

Unskilled photoshop. By choice. They wanted us to see these faces. No...
t some police officers from the province. The choice came from the center. Otherwise they would have shown us their id pictures. Here they are. We have them. We can do anything we want to them. Male dominance. One of the oldest instincts.

Torture.

No one denied it. They said that they slapped them around a little bit when they were arrested. Policemen with some karate moves immobilized fully armed robbers. I have seen this in a movie. Some do not even care. Some rushed to anticipate the denial and say that torture during interrogation is necessary at times and we should not blind ourselves to reality.

Guantanamo?

Cannibalism for the mother. For the bourgeois origins. Those spoiled rotten kids, why didn’t they sit quietly? What was lacking from their lives?

“Why am I sitting quietly, when I am lacking everyting?”

Here are the cops, children of the workers again.

The good kids. Who if they do everything that they are told will climb up a class and they will become like the spoiled ones that they envy. Hard work is rewarded. The children of the workers.

False values. Fake society. Society of cannibals. Hypocrisy.

The police guard the thieves instead of chasing them. The politicians of the representative parliament represent only themselves. Justice awakes only when her wages are affected. The financial proposal of the government is that we have too many immigrants. A civil war climate is continuously cultivated. Fist, order and security. The people want security, like a warm blanket to sleep under at night, on the bench where they will end up.

Shame. That they do not act like their class. They should join DAP [a conservative university student organization, aligned with New Democracy, the ruling conservative party]. Criminal offense? If it was criminal we would not even learn who they are. The very attitude of the state reveals a political stance.

It expresses a deep concern, this attitude of the state, of society. The concern of one caught with his pants down.

16 years old he was holding his dying friend in his hands.

Didn’t he see this positively? Should he forget it. Life is hard and you must know how to deal with it.

He is not a victim. He is representing himself. Can his critics say the same?

The photo with the bloody face is the absolute proof that this society does not condemn violence regardless of the source. This society requires violence to maintain itself, otherwise it will collapse like a house of cards. This society adores violence like a fetish. And who better to justifiably exercise violence towards than the ones who are reminding society how rotten it is?"

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Support the struggles of the Greek comrades

The National Congress of the FAI, reunited in Milan, expresses its solidarity with the Greek comrades who in recent days have been violently attacked by the police Hellenic. We have seen evacuation of Villa Amalias and Skaramaga, historical squat symbol of the Athenian movement and the arrest of hundreds of solidarity that had reoccupied the building of Villa Amalias.
The anarchist movement in Greece has built up, in recent years, a strong response from the bottom up for the ruthless raid conducted against the workers.
A response made with direct actions, reappropriation of physical spaces, organizing popular assemblies in neighborhoods, self-management in the workplace. A response that refuses whatever form of delegation that imprison the will to change this system that shows every day, his limitations. A response that has been able to gather around if 'tens of thousands of people, workers, students, unemployed, Greeks and immigrants, because the fight is all the exploited, whatever their origin. An answer that scares the bosses and the state not only because it shows that there is an alternative to social atomization, alienation and exploitation but that this alternative is needed now more than ever.
It is necessary because it is now clear that the domain of state and capital do nothing but destroy any social relationship that is not mediated by money or by relations of domination. Necessary because the crisis is impoverishing the working classes and the middle classes is nothing more than yet another robbery carried out by those who manage money and power.
The Greeks comrades have been able to build a response to this crime and for this reason they are under attack by the police, who said he wanted to clear all occupations, supported in this by the paramilitary Nazi Golden Dawn. It is no coincidence that in times of crisis and popular mobilizations apparatuses of the state use the low level manpower of the fascists. So it was in Italy in the Red Biennium, so it is in Greece in 2013.
In fact, Greece is not far from the Italian peninsula. Here, too, the state is wiping out the results of a century of labor struggles and popular. Here too the state is attacking the social movements, evacuates the sites occupied, raid against the workers in struggle, shooting tear gas against students, beating up the ones who opposing to environmental devastation and to militarism. For this it is necessary to reject the nationalist vision of the crisis, the one nonsense of monetary sovereignty and national level as response at the Europe of banks, of the anthropological differences that create the crisis, referring to racist's theses and sad, a distorted vision that will ensure a greater strengthening the mechanisms of discipline and domination of the state and which is expressed in its most
The struggles of anarchists in Greece are our struggles, our struggles are those of the Greek anarchists. So how are our struggles of those who, throughout the world, oppose to the exploitation classist, racist and sexist, and builds, daily, a society of free and equal.
We invite the whole movement at the maximum possible solidarity.
 complete form, in the sacrifice of the subaltern classes on the altar of nationalist wars.

The Italian Anarchist Federation, Milan 13_1_2013

Friday, January 11, 2013

Solidarity with anarchists in Greece


A video for solidarity with the 93 arrested anarchists in Greece:



The statement by the arrested, from inside the police HQ:

“We will do it again, as many times as it takes”:

Nothing less than our non-negotiable position for social spaces that we support and they support us in return. Nothing other than what we say and what we do all these years in squats, in self-organised spaces, in demonstrations, at strikes and in the streets. For this reason, the authorities that placed armed guards outside Villa Amalias could never cause us to be disappointed, to break our morale, to make us stop, to give up. ---- Today, January 9th, us comrades re-occupied the building of Villa Amalias under the nose of the repressive forces that were guarding it. A building linked with the history of the subversive movement for the past 22 years, but also with the ideals that it signifies for us.
From the first moment a banner was unwrapped and a PA system was set up in order to read out texts. At the same time, hundreds of people in solidarity gathered around the squat.
Two hours later, and without the presence of an attorney, forces of EKAM [police's anti-terrorist unit - the SWAT equivalent -- trans.], backed by all sorts of police units plus a helicopter, raided the squat, arresting us. Soon thereafter, comrades occupied the HQ of the governmental party Democratic Left (DIMAR), highlighting the complete alignment of this party with the choices of [PM] Samaras and [Minister of Public Order] Dendias. After a police intervention, all 40 comrades were detained. The state, in its attempt to halt the solidarity actions that unfolded, chose to raid yet another social space, the squat of Patision 61 and Skaramanga, arresting yet more 8 comrades of ours. We re-occupied the guarded Villa Amalias knowing that we will be attacked and obviously that we would be arrested. We will do it again, as many times as it takes, for this and for any other social space of resistance of those from below that might come under attack.
We say it once again, tirelessly: neither their weapons, nor their slandering can scare us. With today’s reoccupation we showed how the full-scale attack of the state, which today targets squats, self-organised spaces and the structures of the anarchist/anti-authoritarian movement, as well as social-class struggles, is not without an alternative. Heart, will for struggle and the desire for a world of equality and freedom are proving to be stronger than their armies. They shall never manage to beat us, because no matter how many forces of repression they enlist, they cannot choke resistance, dignity and solidarity.
They shall never manage to beat us, because we are not one hundred, we are thousands. We are part of the world that struggles against capitalist barbarity, state terrorism and the fascist turn. Part of local and migrant workers, unemployed, students, those resisting in the neighbourhoods, persecuted and arrested people in struggle, who do not bow their heads. Along with them, we raise a fist of resistance just like at the moment of our arrest. Our own weapon is solidarity, which we felt very strongly today. Our strength is collective resistance.
At the time of the memoranda, enforced and ever-increasing impoverishment of society are the future dictated by the state and capitalism; at this time, when the violence of the system is intensified and the state of permanent exception installs totalitarianism, social revolution is the only way forward.
Amidst this condition we are consciously standing firm, motioning self-organisation, resistance and solidarity – and attempting to take that extra step forward… to organise social and class counter-attack. At the time when the dominant condition reads “we are going to lose everything”, we struggle for its inversion: “let’s win everything”! If we don’t change things, no-one will. Everything continues…
Against the hurricane of repression, let’s pit the storm of solidarity!
Everyone to the streets, where everything is determined
Hands off Villa Amalias, Skaramanga squat, the self-organised haunt of ASOEE, the Xanadu haunt, Delta occupation, all squats, self-organised spaces and social struggles

The 93 arrested of Villa Amalias

Sunday, December 23, 2012

SMALL REPORT ON THE EVACUATION OF VILLA AMALIAS SQUAT


On Thursday 20th of December at 7am, riot police forces raided at Villa Amalias squat in the center of Athens under the pretext of an anonymous complaint. Policemen detained eight comrades which have been transferred to the police headquarters. The police searched the place in presence of a public prosecutor and a witness from the squatters for several hours and after the end of the search the comrades were all arrested and charged with felonies. Police officers sealed the squat and since then the building is guarded all the time by riot police squads. From the first moment hundreds of comrades gathered outside the squat responding to the call for solidarity. The same morning several comrades went to the Athens town hall in order to make an intervention to the municipality authorities and the mayor. Later an assembly took place in a nearby university in order to be organized a solidarity movement for the release of the arrested squatters and against the evacuation of Villa Amalias. As a first step a spontaneous solidarity demo consisting of 1000 comrades took place that night in downtown Athens which ended near the squat. On Friday 21th of December the arrested comrades were transferred to the courts by heavy armed policemen and were examined by a public prosecutor. His proposition was to be charged with the felony of manufacturing explosive materials and some misdemeanors which means that on Monday 24 of December they should go to the examining magistrate, who is responsible for the final indictment. Until then they will remain in the police headquarters.

Villa Amalias squat has been an alive political and cultural space for the past 23 years. All these years the squat has hosted a lot of political events and assemblies as well as concerts and theatrical plays. A housing collective, a printing collective and a library were also parts of it. Villa Amalias squat is an emblem of the squat movement, a center of the anarchist movement and an outpost of the social and class struggle in Athens. Thus will remain!

Hands off squats!

Immediate release of the Villa Amalias squatters!

Group of libertarian communists (Athens)









FIRST VILLA AMALIAS STATEMENT
Villa Amalias statement: we are, and we shall remain here.
Today, on December 20th, 2012, the police raided Villa Amalias. Under the pretext of a complaint for drug dealing, they searched the building in the presence of a district attorney. Their findings are ludicrous. Nevertheless, according to Dendias [translators' note: the minister of public order] these prove that Villa was an “epicentre for lawlessness” for 22 years and that the law, thanks to the “brave political will of [PM] Samaras” was finally restored.
What logical leap may brand empty beer bottles as “materials for the construction of molotovs?” Is it strange to have a large number of empty beer bottles in a place that hosts a concert [gig] space and a café? What comprises a “flammable material”? May they be referring to the cleaning liquids for the printing press that operates in the squat? Should we talk about the gas masks that should be carried by every demonstrator that respects their health? Should we talk about the elementary means of self-defense (the mock flash bangs, slingshots etc) in a space that has repeatedly been attacked by para-statist gangs (arsons, stabbings, beatings) with the apogee reached in 2008, when the then minister of public order Markogiannakis visited the “residents” of Agios Panteleimonas and a few minutes after he left, we were attacked…
Under the pretext of the search, then, they materialise a long-standing wet dream of theirs: their raid into a space that is one of the spatial symbols of all those who stand in hostility against anything that represents sovereignty, imposition, sterilization, indifference, surrender, subjection. In this they are right. That’s who we are. Us and the thousands of demonstrators, the people in struggle, squatters, strikers, people fighting in the streets. We are the homeless, the punks and the rebels, the vegetarians and the feminists, the nocturnal ones and the workers, poor and the aggrieved, the victims of racism and the avengers of injustice. The minister called us an epicentre of lawlessness…
And now we should talk seriously. Villa Amalias is an organising proposition which had to be dealt with at the time of the cannibalism of the memoranda. The onslaught of capital against the world of labour presupposes the destruction of all of its structures: the depreciation of everything that trade unions had gained, whatever structures of solidarity and dissent, the self-organised incentives: everything is targeted. The far-right agenda that has prevailed since the outbreak of the crisis commenced with the statement concerning a [supposed] hygiene bomb by Loverdos [trans. note - Loverdos was minister of health at the time and claimed that the 300 migrant hunger strikers comprised a “hygiene bomb” in the centre of Athens] against the hunger strikers of Ypatia. It continued with the targeting of migrants (at the Evros border wall, concentration camps and the Xenios Zeus [anti-migrant] operation), the pillorying of addicted seropositive women, aided by the far-right violence against migrants, homosexuals and street traders. The torturing of anti-fascists at the police HQ after the anti-fascist motorcycle demo, the attacks against squats and the harsh repression against any labour or social demand, leave little doubt for the fact that the enemy has put together a solid block; a block against which we must now resist.
For the past 22 years we have been in a building that was abandoned for decades. We maintain it and breathe life into it. We are a squat that always has its doors open to groups, individuals and incentives that promote the anti-commercial culture, human dignity, social, anti-fascist and class struggles. Villa Amalias is giving a fierce fight –– not in order to protect a dozen pillars, but in order to protect our desires, our dreams and our hopes for a more free life for everyone.
We call everyone who identifies part of themselves in the years-long operation of the squat to partake in this crucial struggle with us.
This is the windmill that the executors-don quixote’s have attacked, even though it is ideas that they are after. These are what are lawless and illegal for them. Their witch-hunt will bring them nightmares in response. 
IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF THE VILLA AMALIAS SQUATTERS


STATEMENT BY THE VILLA AMALIAS SQUATTERS IN THE POLICE HEADQUARTERS IN ATHENS
The Villa Amalias squat has been an open political, cultural and social space, as well as a housing collective, for the past 23 years. In all these years there have been plenty of active groups in the squat including groups on theatre, concerts, musical studio, stained glass, kids’ space, dancing, foreign languages, computing, printing press, screenings, lending library, vinyl exchange – while the squat has also hosted plenty of political and cultural events by other groups. Apart from these activities inside its building, Villa Amalias has also contributed to the resolution of neighbourhood issues by participating in the residents’ assembly of Victoria square and by organising open, outward looking activities in the area – including open mic interventions, free markets, collective kitchens and kids’ events at the square.
In all these 23 years, the Villa Amalias squat has formed multiform qualities that reflected the equally multiform composition of the subjects and groups comprising it – and which in turn derive from the wider squat movement, from the Anarchist and Anti-authoritarian space and from the movement for class and labour antagonism. These qualities have materialised through the co-organising and participation in demonstrations, interventions and mobilisations concerning labour, antifascist and antiracist struggles; solidarity to persecuted squats, to migrants and persecuted comrades, to university and high school student struggles as well as the to struggles for the reclaiming of open, public spaces.
The squat’s building was abandoned since 1973 and it had been in a horrendous state. Since 1990, which is when it was occupied, it has stayed alive and maintained thanks to the financial contribution and personal work of the squatters themselves as well as all the comrades in solidarity.
The apparent owners of the building ( the municipality of athens, which has has some enormous property wealth and the school buildings’ organisation) are both renown for cases of expropriation of private property and illegal declassification [of listed buildings]. The most extravagant case of such was the enormous Haragioni building at the junction of 3d September and Ioulianou street, which turned overnight from a plot designated for the construction of a school building into a shopping mall.
In contrast to them, who see buildings and spaces as yet another arena for profit, the Villa Amalias squat and its activity is a concrete example of its premise for the creation of free social spaces that oppose financial exploitation of any kind; that are set upon anti-hierarchical, self-organised, solidarity and horizontal structures; that respect humans and support those at the bottom end of the calss pyramid, to which we also belong.
This is why the maintenance of the building, as mentioned above, is undertaken by the squatters and those in solidarity with them – in the last 4 years in particular, after the two murderous arson attacks that the squat received from para-statists, whether waged or not. These particular attacks caused gross material damage which nevertheless did not form an obstacle in Villa continuing its action. To the contrary, they boosted the morale of the people that comprise it. With the aid of all comrades, the facade of the building on the side of Cheiden Str was renovated while the restoration and further improvement of the building have commenced with the aid of architects and civil engineers.
The continued attacks are not the only ones that the project has been subject to in all these years. Due to its location but also due to its ideological values and political characteristics, Villa has oftentimes found itself targeted by the state and parastate alike. In all these attacks we always responded with our words, publicizing the events and propagandizing our positions and our beliefs through open social interventions.
On 20/12/12, at 7.00 am, men of the state security raided our Squat under the pretext of an investigation concerning “drugs” and “explosives”, following a supposed anonymous complaint. They arrested 8 people who were inside the Squat at the time, of which three were guests. They confiscated objects from the squat which the state security then used as evidence for the fabrication of charges including felonies and misdemeanors - charges that we reject. Especially when our felony acts are based on some empty beer bottles and on a tiny amount of petrol that was discovered next to the heater.
For us, this move is an explicit political choice by the state. At a time of financial and systemic crisis, the state launches an attack in all directions, degrading the life of those from below and trying to wipe out any cell of resistance and of creation of negation: this may translate in the botching of labour rights, in the promotion of racist ideals that contribute to a fascist turn of society, in the creation of conditions of insecurity aimed at us accepting the constant surveillance of our lives, or in the persecution and slandering of political spaces and subjects that rise against all the above.
WE DENY ALL CHARGES
OUR WORDS ARE OUR WEAPONS
WE SAID IT BEFORE AND WE’LL SAY IT AGAIN:
“WE’VE BEEN GAME ALL THESE YEARS AND THE END IS STILL NO-WHERE IN SIGHT”
SOLIDARITY TO ALL SQUATS (AND TO OURS)
22/12/12
The arrested of Villa Amalias