Over the past few days, numerous acts of solidarity took place throughout Greece in solidarity with imprisoned anarchist Kostas Sakkas, who is on hunger strike since the 4th of June 2013 fighting for his immediate release. On the 11th of June, a treating physician reported that clinically he has profound weakness, fatigue after minimal exertion (e.g. walking from his cell to the prisons infirmary), discomfort, mild dyspnea, dizziness, headache, abdominal pain, and he has lost 3.5kg of weight.
In the meantime, fellow prisoners have declared their unreserved solidarity with the hunger striker. Since the 4th of June, four comrades that are held in the dungeon of Koridallos women’s prison wing, Kostas Gournas (Revolutionary Struggle member), Christoforos Kortesis, Vaggelis Stathopoulos, as well as Dimitris Koufontinas (17 November member), have refused prison meals.
On the 5th of June, in the session of the 3rd CCF trial at Koridallos women’s prison court, co-accused comrades left the courtroom supporting the decision of Kostas Sakkas to go on hunger strike.
Since the 6th of June, the comrades from Larissa prison second wing Rami Syrianos and Spyros Stratoulis have abstained from prison food to support Kostas Sakkas in his struggle, stating also their solidarity with CCF member Gerasimos Tsakalos, who received an extension of his pretrial detention.
On the 7th of June, anarcho-communists Tasos Theofilou (Domokos prison) and Polykarpos Georgiadis (Corfu prison) published a joint statement for their comrade Kostas Sakkas, saying ‘we will meet again soon, at the battlefields of social/class war.’
On the 11th of June, a total of 290 women and men incarcerated in Larissa, Patras, Corfu, the first wing of Koridallos, Alikarnassos, and Eleonas–Thebes released an open letter in defense of Kostas Sakkas and the destruction of every prison.
On the 13th of June, Kostas Sakkas was brought to the Athens appeals court (on Loukareos street), where a council of appellate judges examined his objection against his prolonged pretrial incarceration for another 6 months. (Their decision is yet to be announced.) In the same morning, three other prisoners were brought before a judicial council in the same court, namely anarchists Fivos Harisis, Argyris Ntalios and Dimitris Politis. During their stay at the appeals court, cops attacked Fivos Harisis throwing him to the ground, kicking him repeatedly, and handcuffing him even in the transfer van. When all of the prisoners, including the hunger striker, were taken back to Koridallos an intense clash broke out with cops and jailers at the prison, in response to the earlier police assault at one of them. The comrades turned the entrance unit into a battlefield for a while (fire extinguishers, drawers with documents and chairs were thrown in the air, and windows were smashed), proving in practice that no attack of the dogs of Power will be left unanswered.
Strength to all prisoners in struggle! Immediate release of hunger striker Kostas Sakkas!
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/68259228[/vimeo]
Hunger strike declaration by Kostas Sakkas, Koridallos prison, May 29th, 2013:
On the 4th of December 2010 I was captured along with the comrade Alexandros Mitroussias in the district of Nea Smyrni, Athens, while I was leaving a rented warehouse where arms were being stored.
Since the beginning, I have admitted my connection with this place as well as the weapons found there. I have stated, since the first moment, that I am an anarchist and that my presence in this specific place was related to my political identity and the choices I make as a consequence of this.
On the 7th of December 2010 they brought me before the head investigator and I got in pretrial detention on charges of participation in an unknown terrorist organization as well as aggravated possession of weapons.
On the 12th of April 2011, when I had already been in the prison of Nafplion for more than four months, I was called upon again by the investigators Baltas and Mokkas, and without any new evidence, nor even any new developments on the investigation, I was remanded for participating in the R.O. CCF. It was obvious that this was because the principal investigators realized that a case against an unknown organization that hasn’t any registered actions, doesn’t have any bombs, nor communiqués, that has not used guns, an organization without a name, couldn’t stand up in a courtroom.
I have clarified in the past —as did the R.O. CCF for their part— that I’m not a member of this organization. I didn’t do this to avoid the vengeful, punitive odyssey that the bourgeois justice reserves for all those accused of being members of that organization, but simply because that’s how it is. I ought to set the history straight; not only for me but also for the R.O. CCF.
The initial charge of participation in an unknown terrorist organization attributed both to me and my two comrades (Alexandros Mitroussias, Giorgos Karagiannidis) and the rest of the people arrested in the same operation —although they had nothing to do with it— showed up at a time that was political expedient for the DAEEV anti-terrorist force (the so-called Special Violent Crime Squad of the Greek police), on account of the ex-minister of public order named Christos Papoutsis, who desired —like all his counterparts— to dismantle, at all costs, a terrorist organization during his mandate. It is known that this minister directly supervised the operation, and even evaluated the information that the anti-terrorist force had, and finally gave the order to make arrests. Anyone who watched the mass media during that time remembers the scenarios and evaluations of various journalistic parrots about which organization we belonged to, what we intended to do, etc., obviously being fed by the DAEEV, until the results of the ballistic tests made them shut up… Later, Mr Papoutsis, in an attempt to apologize for the fiasco, gave an interview to a well known magazine stating that the ‘anti-terrorist force has tricked him’ (!).
On the 6th of April 2012, still in jail awaiting trial and reaching the limit of 18 months (the maximum pretrial incarceration period), I was put again in pretrial detention for committing 160 incendiary and bombing actions claimed by the organization CCF. It’s worth comment that in this particular case file there is neither any evidence against me —they didn’t even bother to frame me this time— nor any reference to my person except in the execution of the indictment. It’s a case file that could be served, without exaggeration, to anyone, according to the logic of the intransigent investigators Baltas and Mokkas. The prosecutory purposes of this are evidenced by the fact that the principal investigators had their hands on this specific file from the very first moment of my arrest, and were obligated —that is according to the law— to give it to me along with the first accusatory file. To put it simply: these gentlemen detained me on charges of participation in the same organization twice, consecutively (!).
Today, after being jailed for two and a half years, for simple weapons possession (to clarify: aggravated possession of weapons means that the weapons were intended either for trade or for equipping a terrorist organization, something which is neither evident, nor something I have admitted to), the primary institutional defenders of justice and law, who hold me for breaking it, decided to ignore even their own Constitution —which defines maximum time of 12 months for each subsequent to the first pretrial detention— since that is not enough for their political needs. Therefore, they decided to hold me hostage for six more months.
In fact, they intend this prolonged and excessive captivity to offset their makeshift, lazy accusations. Whatever they may do it is not enough to prevent the ‘deflation’ of the charges in any courtroom, despite the special regime that characterizes the terror-courts (in every way). Anyone who has ever set foot in them even for a while knows it very well.
Their tactics and vengeful intentions are clear by now. Yes, it’s true; the State avenges its political opponents; avenges but never acknowledges them. It never has, as a matter of fact. In the past they were treated as foreign agents and traitors, and now as terrorists and enemy of the society.
The fact is that, due to the domestic consequences of the global capitalist crisis, the political system is going through what is both the most critical and the most unstable period since the dictatorship. It is also a fact that repression, and the generally authoritarian attitude of the State, is the ‘last card’ in its hand, the last thing it can do to ensure a subordinated social peace and prevent a generalized reaction from being expressed in organized and substantial insurrectionary forms.
The finance minister himself has confessed that this is the first time that a government is asked to implement such extreme measures in peacetime. The laws have always reflected the will of the powerful, but today not even these laws are enough for the political representatives of the system in the face of what they need to implement so as to loyally serve the establishment.
Because of my political view and position, that the road to individual and collective freedom is full of struggle and resistance, I decided on Tuesday 4/6 to go on hunger strike; the date when, according to the current laws, the maximum time limit of my pretrial custody is expired. I would like to clarify that, for me, the choice to go on hunger strike is not a gesture of despair, but a choice to continue the fight, a fight that my comrades and I have made since the first moment of our captivity; a resistance to the unprecedented and vindictive treatment of the judicial mechanisms, which decided in our case to take a break from their cash collection duties to defend society from its supposed enemies and the laws from the outlaws. They are the same mechanisms, and the same persons behind them, who are actual perpetrators of the legitimacy of forced return to work for strikers; the same who are primary responsible for the thousands of property auctions and the homeless, for the abolition of labour demands, for the unemployed, for the abolition of social benefits, for the thousands living below the poverty line, for hundreds of suicides every year by those who, unable to cope decently, put an end to their lives; they are actual perpetrators of the legitimacy of declaring people illegal and piling them up in camps; responsible of classifying tortures and beatings at police stations, accidental gun discharges, the silencing of anti-regime media as legitimate…
They are responsible for creating a cemetery society in the name of law, and when it’s necessary, for establishing a cemetery society outside the law… Steeped in hypocrisy and nastiness, despicable to both the devotees of bourgeois justice and its detractors and ideological enemies.
“Slowly dies who does not risk certainty for the uncertainty to chase a dream, those who do not forego sound advice at least once in their lives, … Who does not find grace in himself, dies slowly, … Let’s try and avoid death in small doses, reminding oneself that being alive requires an effort far greater than the simple fact of breathing.”
—Pablo Neruda
Kostas Sakkas, first wing in Koridallos prison
2 thoughts on “Greek prisons: Kostas Sakkas’ fight for freedom”
how can we help him?