In the morning of January 10th, nearly twenty members of the solidarity assembly for the case of Revolutionary Struggle (Epanastatikos Agonas, whose trial is currently underway) entered the corporate radio station flash.gr on Kifisias Avenue and interrupted the station’s program, to transmit a message of solidarity with those on trial.
Despite the fact that neither the station’s management, nor its staff asked officially any police intervention, scores of police (DIAS motorcycle units, squads such as MAT, plainclothes cops, among others) soon arrived on the spot and encircled the building. At about 14.00, after hours of being blocked inside the radio’s offices, anarchists who took part in the solidarity intervention were detained en mass and taken to the police headquarters on Alexandras Avenue: two prosecutors along with police squads stormed the radio station, forcing the comrades to exit the premises; all were handcuffed and held in police buses, while their mobile phones were confiscated.
As soon as the news was circulated, anarchists gathered opposite the police HQ (GADA), where a solidarity protest of approximately 100 people is underway (pre-gathering point: outside Ambelokipi metro station).
Here’s a text released by the 20 detainees themselves:
Today, January 10th, 2012, comrades from the anarchist/anti-authoritarian space carried out an intervention in the corporate radio station Flash 96 FM in the context of a series of solidarity actions for the Revolutionary Struggle case, which was brought to trial since October 5th, 2011, in the special court of Koridallos prisons.
We have taken this action in an effort to break the wall of silence and the political order to gag the trial process and the political discourse of the defendants in the Revolutionary Struggle case.
A confirmation of this gagging was the immediate reaction of police forces during the broadcast of our audio message with the words of the prosecuted for the same case. This mobilization of the executive and law enforcement authorities is indicative for anyone who resists, for whoever puts forward the total overthrow of the system through the social revolution, which is the only way to escape from the modern totalitarianism of the Troika of EU, ECB and IMF and their trustee, the Greek State, that have submitted the entire society in poverty and misery.
A society doomed by the full dismantling of labour relations, the ‘chinesization’ in front of the threat of more and more unemployed people lining up in long queues, the onslaughts of predatory taxation, the dissolution of public-benefit corporations, the privatizations, the selling off of public assets and the development of financial zones on starvation wages.
It is worth noting that under this treaty, in their bid to shield the system, and while everything is reduced and cut, the only thing that’s increased are the armies of the watchdogs of democracy, armed guards, capitalism and its State. Therefore, under this treaty, more commonly referred to as Junta, we are in solidarity and proud with our comrades and their choices.
Our choices are side by side with all parts of society who choose the fair way of social liberation.
SOLIDARITY WITH MAZIOTIS, ROUPA, GOURNAS, STATHOPOULOS, NIKITOPOULOS, KORTESIS, BERAHA AND KATSENOS
Solidaritarians’ assembly from inside Flash radio station
Although it is most likely that the station’s owners or even its security guards had notified some authorities about the presence of anarchists in the building, it has been reported that all detainees were charged in ex officio indictment, meaning that no call from the company’s staff was required for the prosecutors and cops to invade in it. Initially, it was feared that the charges may fall under Greece’s third terrorism law. It seems though that all comrades are charged with the misdemeanor of ‘incitement to violence’. They are now threatened to be held in detention and stand trial tomorrow, 11/1, at Evelpidon courts in Athens, at about 12.00. We call for their unconditional acquittal!
No prosecution for the comrades who intervened in Flash 96 FM!
Freedom now to all!
Solidarity with the three members of Revolutionary Struggle, Nikos Maziotis, Pola Roupa, Kostas Gournas, and the other defendants in the same case, Vaggelis Stathopoulos, Sarantos Nikitopoulos, Christoforos Kortesis, Marie Beraha and Kostas Katsenos. We demand the immediate release of K.Katsenos who is still held hostage under pre-trial detention.
SOLIDARITY IS OUR WEAPON
Ongoing gathering outside Athens police headquarters,
on Alexandras Avenue, from 17.30
Ongoing PA’s counter-information gathering
at Kamara, Thessaloniki, from 18.30
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Update, Wednesday, January 11th, 11.26 GMT+2
Due to the refusal of the arrested comrades to give their fingerprints, they will be probably transferred earlier than expected at Evelpidon courts, Athens.
Latest update, Wednesday, January 11th:
All 20 comrades have now been released. Still, they will be facing trial (on Friday, January, 13th).
ATHENS: STATEMENT OF THE MEMBERS OF REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE CONCERNING THE OCCUPATION OF FLASH RADIO STATION
The arrest and prosecution of the 20 comrades who carried out the occupation of Flash radio station on January 10th as a solidarity action to us, the members of the Revolutionary Struggle as well as the comrades who are accused in the same case, proves that the regime fears the spreading of the message of inversion and Social Revolution.
In a time where the capitalist system is dealing with a structural crisis, in a time where not only it has lost the compliance of the social majority but receives the rage and indignation of the people, in a time of generalized poverty and shabbiness where the new fascism of the capital and state dominates, the message of inversion and Social Revolution justifiably can be considered dangerous.
The arrest and prosecution of the comrades charged with ‘praising a criminal action’ which is based on the fact that, so much from inside prison as well as the court room, with our speech we politically defend the organization Revolutionary Struggle and this speech was transmitted through Flash radio station, is an innovation in the criminalization of solidarity.
It specifically targets us as well as the comrades with which we are tried and want to politically isolate us from the movement we come from as well as the comrades from the A/A movement who consider that our persecution is a case of the movement, a case of the struggle for the inversion of capitalism and the state.
Our obligation is to not allow the criminalization of solidarity. Our obligation is to go onto the counter-attack.
The members of the Revolutionary Struggle
Pola Roupa, Kostas Gournas, Nikos Maziotis
Translate by boubourAs/Actforfreedomnow!
source
The trial of the prosecuted for the occupation of flash radio station was postponed for Monday, March 26th, as lawyers in Athens abstain from duties in these last days. The trial of the Revolutionary Struggle case has also been postponed for Wednesday, January 25th, because of the abstention of lawyers, which is expected to extend more days. Τhere was an interruption in the Halandri case trial (16/1) of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, which continued on Friday, January 20th. Also, the trial of the anarchist Rami Syrianos and comrade Kleomenis Savvanidis has been postponed for March 26th, 2012.