HUNGER STRIKE OF NIKOS MAZIOTIS, MEMBER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE, IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COMBATIVE MOBILISATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS
In the past 15 years and especially since the war on “terrorism” was waged, the capitalist system throughout the world has become increasingly totalitarian in order to impose the dictatorship of the markets, the interests of the supranational financial elite, which has emerged from the globalisation of the system after the end of bipolarism. In this context, repression, the reinforcement of the legislative and penal arsenal of states in this new globalised environment against the political enemies of the new order and especially against the threat of armed revolutionary action, is of great significance and is applied for the reproduction of the system, especially in recent years since the outbreak of the global financial crisis.
The Greek state, which is fully integrated into supranational capital, has adopted the neoliberal reforms dictated by the European Union, and has upgraded its legislative and penal arsenal to the demands of the international “war on terrorism”. Thus, in 2001 the state passed the first “anti-terrorist” law, article 187 of the penal code (criminal organisation), in 2004 it passed the second “anti-terrorist” law, article 187A (terrorist organisation), in 2009, shortly after the December 2008 uprising, it passed the anti-hoodie law (a law criminalizing covering one’s face in demonstrations), and in 2010 it modified article 187A rendering it even more repressive. In 2012, by order of the state prosecutor it established the use of violent means in retrieving DNA samples from suspects, and finally, during the summer of 2014, as a logical sequence to its repressive policy, it passed a law establishing type C maximum security prisons for political prisoners.
This gradual upgrade of the state’s repressive attack in these past years has intensified in conjunction to the neoliberal reforms imposed by Greek governments. However, this attack peaked after the outbreak of the global financial crisis, after the December 2008 uprising, and the country’s subjection to the authority of the IMF (International Monetary Fund), ECB (European Central Bank) and EC (European Commission) by signing the first Memorandum in 2010.
In these conditions – where the establishment has lost the social consensus it enjoyed prior to the crisis, due to brutal policies unleashed in the past 6 years – repression and “anti-terrorist” legislation comprise the foundations and prerequisites for perpetuating the system.
Because the de-legitimisation of the establishment in the eyes of the social majority due to the greatest social robbery ever perpetrated against it, where hunger, poverty and misery plague the people, with thousands of deaths from suicides, from diseases, from the lack of basic necessities, with thousands of homeless people and those who eat from garbage or depend on soup kitchens to survive – all of this create the appropriate conditions for the prospect of revolution and of overthrowing a regime responsible for the crisis and all the suffering that has resulted from it.
The takeover of power and of the management of the capitalist crisis by Syriza after the elections of January 25th 2015 doesn’t essentially change anything. Despite the pre-election promises for the abolition of memorandum agreements and the trimming of the debt, the policy that the Syriza government is committed to follow is no different to that of its predecessors. This is obvious from the fact that they requested the extension of the existing bailout program, regardless of their communicative spin to rename the memorandum, or the IMF/ECB/EC troika into “institutions”. The fact is that the Syriza government has accepted both the memoranda and the debt and will sign a new memorandum-bailout program following the extension of the existing one, with all that this entails.
As a member of the Revolutionary Struggle and as a political prisoner in type C prisons, I believe that only the way of subversion and of armed popular and social revolution present a way out of the crisis and can reverse memoranda, loan agreements and erase the debt. As a member of the Revolutionary struggle and as a political prisoner in type C prisons, in the context of the combative mobilisation of political prisoners against the special “anti-terrorist” legislations, special courts and special prisons, I participate in the hunger strike since the 2nd of March, demanding:
1) The abolition of first “anti-terrorist” law of 2001, of article 187 (criminal organisation).
2) Abolition of second “anti-terrorist” law of 2004, of article 187Α (terrorist organisation).
3) Abolition of the anti-hoodie law.
4) Abolition of the law for type C prisons.
5) The release of convicted 17N member Savvas Xiros on health grounds.
Nikos Maziotis, member of the Revolutionary Struggle
Type C prison of Domokos
English translation (slightly edited here) via kraygesapotakelia
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