THE ROTTEN SYSTEM AND THE ABSENCE OF RESISTANCE ARE THE REASONS FOR THE ROTTING OF SOCIETY
Almost 10 years after the outbreak of the crisis with the collapse of the financial system, bank bankruptcy, and seven years after the commencement of the era of the memorandum and the monitoring of the country by the troika (IMF, EC, ECB), the social base in this country has suffered the strongest blow since the Second World War.
Greek puppet governments have definitively delegated substantial economic and political governance to EU supranational organizations and indirectly to the capital markets and are imposing new measures of social euthanasia for large sections of the population in this country, they are now insignificant for their added value to capitalist wealth. That’s why it does not matter if they disappear. This condition of condemnation is also a prerequisite for the survival of the system itself, for the preservation of the political regime, for the perpetuation of capitalism.
The government’s propaganda to overcome the crisis and return the Greek economy to a recovery path is a common European lie to showcase the supposed success of the programs and memoranda, to allow the EU to be removed from the obligation to continue to financially support the Greek regime and to let the capital markets take the lead from the EU in the recycling of Greek debt and speculation through it. A debt that regime agents already admit that if not drastically reduced in the immediate future will force the Greek state to declare bankruptcy. Not least that the exit to the markets of the Greek state will further exacerbate the already exaggerated Greek debt, which now exceeds 180% of GDP.
The message, however, that the world’s powerful have taken from these years with the rescue policies of the system by the central banks and governments that have put the whole weight of the crisis that the rich created on the backs of the peoples: whatever they do they have their pack animals, the social base, to bear the crisis and produce profits. And the usual practice of enrichment through the swelling of global debt and its financialization continues until the next collapse. But the people have already suffered a huge blow. The social base in the country counts millions of poor, marginalized and desperate. It counts thousands of deaths from hunger, illness and suicide.
The SYRIZA-ANEL government’s minister [of Tourism] Kountoura argued that it is a government success that people do not eat from the rubbish. People still do eat from the trash, but they no longer show them on television. This is why it is a universal political priority to support the “success story” of the memorandum by all parties and the media.
The theft of any surplus wealth left to the social base continues with unabated tension by the government with wage and pensions cuts, the abolition of public insurance, the taxation of the most economically weak, all while poverty is rising, on the orders of the EU the banks will throw thousands of borrowers onto the streets, and there is no chance to persuade the government to get out of the crisis.
The only success of the government is social passivity and the defeat of struggles. Because the basic precondition for imposing these criminal policies in the country that threw thousands of people to the margins, which killed thousands, was and is political normality and the absence of a strong social reaction. Because the smaller the resistance of society, the more ruthless the system becomes.
The social reactions to the memorandums somehow came to a standstill as the regime was determined to impose the memorandums at all political expense. But the reason these memoranda were imposed was the absence of an expanded and powerful revolutionary movement that could be an obstacle to the social euthanasia policies. Upon the defeat of the resistance SYRIZA stepped in to climb to power. The SYRIZA-ANEL government has also been the last sparks of reaction to the system and policies to overcome the crisis.
Today, the social base is rotten, while the economic and political lords of the country have secured their wealth in tax havens and in foreign banks. The Paradise Papers come to recall what everyone knows: That the economically powerful and their political aides are not touched by any crisis and it does not concern them that any measures are imposed. In a “legal and moral” (sic) way they will continue to enrich themselves while millions of people die of hunger and poverty.
Nowadays, the social base is rotten because this rotten system is killing to survive, because it kills social solidarity and cohesion and pushes it into crime. The war of all against all is the beginning of capitalism and the economic freedom of the rich to do whatever they want with the support of governments. It is the beginning of the absolute competition that has dominated the planet.
Their own creations – the crimes among the social bases – are nowadays the politicians’ number one issue. “Order and security” is the common slogan of the political elites to deal drastically with these phenomena which the regime itself gave birth to. One of the most popular aspects of propaganda is crime among the social bases today. It is the phenomenon that the regime itself generates and nourishes.
And, on the other hand, the great criminals, the real terrorists and the bandits that make up the economic and political power, remain immune.
Society rots and turns into cannibalism as there is no political way out of the social conditions that the regime itself shapes: Because it creates poverty and want, marginalization and despair. This drowns the youth with drugs, it dissolves social solidarity. This creates the conditions for a cannibal society. This is the crime.
Prisons are full and more and more will pass through their doors as the political and economic conditions for increasing all forms of delinquency exist and will continue to exist.
And prisons are now being targeted by the left-wing totalitarianism promoted by the government with the new punitive code, which aspires to turn prisons into crematoria for thousands of prisoners.
REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE IS THE TARGET
At the top of the government’s priorities, and other regime parties, is always the political representation of Revolutionary Struggle and our political view. And the attitude that the regime has always reserved for us was analogous to its view of the political threat represented by Revolutionary Struggle but also by us personally. And they never hid it.
Because Revolutionary Struggle was a political threat to the policy of the Memoranda, an important factor of resistance, an organization that promoted the overthrow of the system and the revolution, the change of society in order to tackle the crisis at its root.
Because Revolutionary Struggle and we personally struggle for social solidarity which can triumph with the overthrow of the criminal regime that promotes social decay and social death. And the triumph of social solidarity presupposes the creation of a society of economic equality and political freedom for all.
And because they condemn us as enemies of democracy, those whose political system disdains and mocks with its very existence real democracy, there’s is a system of oligarchs in favour of the rich and the powerful, they break their own Constitution when the power of bankers and the wealthy is at risk (anti-constitutional imposition of memoranda), we point out that real democracy is direct democracy, this political organization of society today presupposes the economic organization of society based on the principle of economic equality.
The current system of parliamentary representation, especially in our time, with a discredited parliament that, according to a Eurobarometer survey, is only trusted by 13% of the people in the country, the current political system that is now commonly understood to be a puppet of the world’s powerful, this is the enemy of real democracy.
Real democracy, political freedom and economic equality are inseparable values. And an indisputable value is social solidarity. All these values that kill the existing economic and political system. And these are the values for which Revolutionary Struggle fights and for those values we are in prison.
Even before our arrests the repressive mechanisms they formed the frame through the media with ourselves as the central faces and Revolutionary Struggle as an umbrella organization for every armed activity in the country. They had set a bounty of €1 million each for us.
The arrest of Nikos Maziotis in July 2014 was presented by the then Minister of Public Order as an important element for the unimpeded implementation of the memoranda and the salvation of the system. With Nikos Maziotis they “inaugurated” the Type C prison[1] of New Democracy in Domokos as he was the first political prisoner to be transferred there.
A special moment in our special treatment was the arrest of Pola Roupa. The way the state and government treated our six-year-old child will remain in history as the most violent repressive blow.
The imposition of a unique exemption regime for Maziotis, who has been in isolation since last July, is another move in our special treatment.
The new Penitentiary Code introduces a special photographic arrangement for Pola Roupa to be put in isolation and to establish the isolation regime of Nikos Maziotis (article 11 par.6 point e). Whilst a special provision is introduced for the detention of those who are tried and are in a special regime of isolation, they are detained in police stations, which, for us and the long trials we have, is a move aimed at failing to conduct the civil trial and effectively cancelling it.
We know that we represent a political threat to the regime even though we are in prison. We know that we are still at the top of the agenda of the government’s political goals to address a political adversary of the system. This was expressly stated by Tsipras in the parliament, mentioning twice the name of Pola Roupa to the successes of his government’s repressive policy, paying special attention to this arrest. And they all heard that it was the only name in terms of arrests mentioned in the parliament.
They explicitly state this with the extensive reports they are always doing mentioning the name of Pola Roupa and our political history with the media presenting us as the central face in every armed activity.
And it is clear that while the repressive mechanisms have already reduced Revolutionary Struggle to an “umbrella” for a series of robberies that have taken place across Greece, they continue to place at the center of domestic armed action – of every kind and form – Revolutionary Struggle and us personally.
This is a strategically important policy for the state, the government and the media that stems from the prioritization of our case, Revolutionary Struggle and our political choices. Because while we are in jail, their war against us does not stop and in every way the government shows its political will against us that has long been personal.
We have repeatedly stated and everyone knows that what we do, we do. The political actions and actions of Revolutionary Struggle, of the organization to which we are members, we always defend them politically at all costs. However, actions that are not related to and are not related to Revolutionary Struggle – which the repressive mechanisms know – we are not willing to be credited with. Everyone assumes their responsibilities in the political field.
However, we know that the choice of the state to place us at the heart of any armed activity is of strategic importance. And this policy is converging with the state’s primary target of putting us in a special treatment regime within prisons. It comes and converges with the new exception regime that prepares and restores Type C prisons, with a special priority to be given to us personally this time with the photographic arrangement of Art. 11 para.6 of the new Penal Code.
THE NEW PENITENTIARY CODE AND THE THREAT OF THE PRISON REGIME
According to Article 11, paragraph 6 of the new Penitentiary Code, “those convicted of organizing escapes and other offences committed within detention facilities and under the applicable criminal and terrorist law will be detained in specific designated areas”.
It is known that in the past there have been cases of escaping detainees or attempted escapes. Never before has any government been asked to legislate specifically on organizing escapes to isolate detainees for such cases. The last escape took place in 2013 under ND (New Democracy political party).
In the recent historic juncture, the only such escape that has not been tried is the attempted escape of political prisoners that Pola Roupa attempted in February 2016, for which both Nikos Maziotis and other political prisoners are accused.
We do not know whether this provision is applied retrospectively and includes other cases of escape, but it certainly concerns this case. This is a pure device.
To the extent that there are other prisoners convicted of organizing escapes from prisons, they will obviously have the same treatment, as we know that the extension of an exceptional measure already enforced by law will include other categories of prisoners, that is a given.
Every move towards more and more totalitarian conditions in society, and in this case in prisons, is usually passed over the declared political enemies of the system that are prisoners of the state and then they are to be extended to wider social and political categories of people. With regard to escapes from prisons, up to now – and after legal and political interference in the matter – it has been enshrined as a prisoner’s right because of the recognition of human nature which tends towards freedom, with the result that the escape has constituted until recently a misdemeanour.
Obviously in a regime such as the modern one, which is steadily and without a political rival heading towards an absolute totalitarianism, the state wants to show that this tendency to freedom is a detestable tendency. That’s why their exemplary punishment by putting them in a regime of permanent isolation is now routed through the new penitentiary code by a left-wing government.
The special conditions of detention, even in absolute isolation, are laid down in the same article and for a large category of prisoners who “manifest violent behaviour towards the prison staff”. In addition to the imposition of a disciplinary sanction on the so-called “harsh” prisoners that is to be imposed by the council, Article 11 (6) (a) introduces the possibility of placing these detainees in a special quarantine regime for long periods of time. And because the issue may even concern the incitement of mobilization in prisons, this article is expected for “security reasons”, prisoners who are actively involved in prison life are to be placed in isolation.
Article 11 lists discrimination and segregation of detainees. In addition to the existing categorizations in paragraph 4, an extraordinary regime for the detention of a special category of detainees is taken “in case of transfer for procedural reasons if there is no such facility or department, the detainee resides in a specially designed area of a local police station”.
“If reasons connected with the security of the country or public order or order and security in the detention facilities make it necessary to take additional security measures for the guarding of a detainee for procedural reasons and to avoid communicating with detainees of other categories, guarding and staying in the detention facility may be done at the suggestion of the competent police authority or the Directorate-General for Criminal Offences of the Ministry of Justice in some other police facility”. “Grounds related to the country’s security or public order” are clearly relevant to members of armed organizations since they are invoked for reasons which exist only in 187A and in any other article of the Penal Code. Accordingly, this provision reserves the option to keep someone in isolation in GADA (Police Headquarters) and detention there by decision of the minister if it is someone who is in prison under 187A[2], IE they are a member of an armed revolutionary organization, throughout their trial.
Detention in the police stations (and while there are prisons in the trial area), the same article is also provided for security reasons for detention facilities. Consequently, for those detained in the detention category under special circumstances, their right to an effective trial is being circumvented.
Given the conditions of detention in these circumstances and given that our trials are many months long with the restoration of this provision initially introduced by ND with the Type C prison bill, the state not only violates any right to trial, but renders void its conduct. And in this case it is clear. Kontonis, the Minister of Justice, with Article 11, quite openly declares the “extraordinary” treatment that we have, a unique exception scheme with more personal targeting.
Since he has stated in many ways the central policy of the government and himself to introduce segregation and within the class of political prisoners, IE those in prison on 187A, it is clear that the exceptional treatment is aimed at creating the most stifling conditions of imprisonment, without communication with other detainees.
Article 11 and the subheadings introduced in paragraph 6 in conjunction with the specific reference made in Article 11 itself and in paragraph 4 to “security issues of the country and of public order” which concern exclusively political prisoners and the conditions for conducting their trials, which are mainly political trials, it is clear that the ministry has launched the exceptional treatment and personal targeting against those who have a political attitude and reason, who defend their choices and express them throughout the prison and courts. Our trials are targeted and their abolition is being launched, all of which, together with Article 51 on prisoners’ communications and their drastic limitation (see below), aims at the political silencing of political prisoners.
We know that even our political voice is dangerous to the regime junta. The open attack on us is at the bottom of their policies, and comes from this political fear. Because it is assumed that trials such as those we face are impossible to conduct smoothly under the conditions introduced by the new prisons, the safe conclusion is that ultimately the government’s goal is primarily political. It is the abolition of the civil trial.
Equal rights and respect for human dignity under the Constitution are explicitly circumvented in the New Penitentiary Code, both with the special provisions and the exception regime that will be imposed in specific cases as we have mentioned, and through other provisions such as Article 2 Paragraph 4 mentions “exceptional cases where measures may entail restrictions on the normal living conditions of prisoners determined on a case by case basis by a public prosecutor’s decision”.
Also, Article 15 (3) provides for the decision of the Minister of Justice to “include detainees in new categories for reasons of special treatment”. Therefore, the introduction of new discrimination among prisoners is subject to the discretion of the prosecutor and the minister.
Article 51 introduces the restriction of the prisoner’s telephone communications. Based on this article, telephone numbers communicated with by prisoners will be imported into software and the prisoners will be given a password to communicate with them and only the phones they have given themselves to the service will be allowed. It is clear that this measure is not introduced to monitor and control the prisoner’s telephone communications as this is in any case valid. What is introduced is the strict control of communications on those persons who visit the detainees, IE relatives, and will clearly require special approval from the prison service for the other prisoners’ communications. If for example the individual prosecutor does not approve any communication, no password will be given.
The universal restraint of all first-time prisoners’ telephone communications is a new type of totalitarian measure against the freedom of people in communications that is also enshrined in the Constitution.
Although it is not explicitly stated in this article, the restriction of prisoners’ communications is the one that provided for by this article.
Article 13 “on special arrangements for detained mothers and detained parents” and in paragraph 3, first incorporates Article 1532 of the Civil Code on “Parental Responsibility” for imprisoned parents. It restricts the possibility for children up to 3 years of age to live with their detained mother (the possibility of living with the detained father is introduced, but such a possibility is impossible under the existing conditions) only if judged necessary by a juvenile court. Therefore it dismisses the fact that if a prisoner, a mother can keep her child if she wishes within the prison. This will now be judged by the courts. There is also a distinction in those prisoners serving sentences of more than 10 years where the child’s care – whether it will go to a relative or an institution – will also be judged by a juvenile court. Consequently, the child will remain with the mother as a need only if there is no other suitable person and at the discretion of the judge.
And when the child reaches the third year it will go to an institution if each juvenile court deems inappropriate the family environment of the parents. While the government says it legislates release for women with young children and with sentences not exceeding 10 years, the new penal code cancels this feature as in Article 13 paragraph 3 provides that this measure be applied ”Where the provision for an individual living space solely for the detained parent and his/her child is not possible (…) It (the competent body) can order the house arrest of the mother or father (…)”. Under house arrest it is a given that no parent can perform a parent’s duty, as the child cannot remain continuously closed in at home. It is therefore ridiculous to propose and apply such a law.
But what if the sentence exceeds 10 years? In Article 13, paragraph 3 it says that if there is no suitable place to stay for children up to 3 years old with its mother in prison and while the sentence is more than 10 years the juvenile court will decide if the child is taken by a family member or an institution. And in cases where there is no family member or they are not considered appropriate by the court, rather than improving conditions of detention they prefer to put children in institutions.
Instead of institutionalizing children, they could arrange another space for the mother to stay with her younger child up to the age of 6 – an absolute necessity for the mother – instead they provide for day visits by imprisoned parents once a month, instead legislate for overnight stays for underage children with their mothers, for example. With one visit in a two-month period, a measure that would be essential to support children themselves, they legislate against children and are vindictive and sexist to women – they abuse the law and are denying the right to maternity.
It goes without saying that no possibility of release is given to detainees whose sentences exceed 10 years, and the absence of a suitable environment for children makes definite the decision to go to the institutions.
It is obvious that the regime that existed beforehand on parents and detained minors is overturned. To date, children and their detained parents have not been involved in court proceedings to judge the environment of the child, except in exceptional cases of violence against children, or the complete inability of the environment to keep them or in the absence of relatives.
There is now a measure that has so far been applied in very special cases, for the courts and child psychiatrists to control and decide on the children’s environment, while the detained parent enters into an unfavourable and racist attitude for their ability to judge the interests of their child, such interests under Article 13 (3) will now be judged by the court.
This arrangement was announced by Justice Minister Kontonis in an interview he had given on 7/1/17 on the state TV channel, when interviewed about the treatment of our child by the state and the government with the arrest of Pola Roupa on 5 /1.
It is well known that the “exceptional” treatment of our child, who was held in GADA and specifically in the anti-terrorism department for hours under extreme secrecy, was interrogated and with a prosecution order kept guarded in a closed psychiatric clinic, is historically unique. Our child was treated as a criminal offender as a potential terrorist because it was our own child. Then, at first, it was initially attempted to remove our parental care altogether and definitively, to take away any parental relationship with our child and to break it forever, giving parental care temporarily to the social service of the hospital that kept it with the option of shutting it in an institution.
The kidnapping of the child in the psychiatric hospital ended after the hunger and thirst strike, but also the political and social outcry that it stirred up, but the State claimed through the Prosecutor’s Office of Kalamata to remove custody of our child and impose restrictive conditions on him under the supervision of the social service and child psychologists. This condition of permanent hostage that they want to impose on our child, as well as the removal of custody from us, relates to the fact that we are who we are.
In the trial that will be held on 15/11 from which we are excluded by refusing to take us to Kalamata to attend the trial, the Prosecutor’s Office of Kalamata asks us to permanently remove our custody and impose conditions on our child until he reaches the age of maturity, the imposition of permanent control by the social services and the child-psychologists. For reasons of political revenge they want to remove our custody, for reasons of revenge and on our own child, they want to impose restrictive conditions, to keep him as a hostage.
Article 13 does not provide custody to imprisoned parents, but the courts will decide which is the most appropriate environment for their care. What they have sought for our own child is clearly different and is dictated by our political choices and positions.
Article 13 introduces a new totalitarianism. The ability of the state to judge universally and to question the suitability of the parent or relatives on the basis of its own criteria. It is well known that the institutions that have the honour in the new prison code are claiming child prisoners. Obviously the financial interests behind the institutions, the most famous of which are under the auspices of well-known economically powerful individuals in Greece, are very large and the expectations for the expansion of institutions-businesses in the country are significant. It is not possible for the government to deceive people that it is legislating on the basis of the “interest of the child”, everybody understands this – since it is known that the institutions are an investment for the powerful and for specific economic interests – the interests of some powerful families in the country. It is also well known, for the most part, that many institutions are genuinely hell holes for children, who are systematically abused and sometimes “killed in the wells”.
However, in the name of the interests of ‘security’ and, in particular, of the state totalitarianism being promoted, institutions are now legally recognized as a ‘popular’ destination for the children of prisoners, and always, in ‘the child’s interest’.
Other provisions of the new Penitentiary Code are also contributing to the setting of prison conditions.
The lawful detestable vaginal check-ups for women and the incarceration of the prisoner during a physical investigation with Article 21 paragraph 7.
Article 63 (1) first regulates the use of force against detainees by prison staff in any cases such as “active or passive physical resistance to a lawful order” or “lawful defence cases”. In short, every employee can legally practice violence against any prisoner even if they show a passive refusal to execute a staff order! As for the equipment of prison staff for the means of violence, it will be provided by the prison rule under Article 63 (4). It is clear that while the use of force will be provided for by the prison services themselves and at the will of the individual guards, the use of force by police forces and the special guards is legislated in the same article, and in cases of group disobedience, such as the mobilizations of prisoners when they refuse to enter their cells it will be handed out, (article 63, para. 2). Legislation on the abolition of protests and mobilizations of detainees introduced by this correctional code is one of the most totalitarian features of the history of prisons in the country. Along with the legalization of the use of force as provided, the conversion of all prisons into disciplinary cultures is rooted in the most explicit way, while the right to protest is criminalized.
On the basis of Article 63 and in conjunction with Article 11 (6) (a), detainees will be placed under special detention if they participate in mobilizations or, most importantly, if they are potent, since in any event they will be suppressed with violence.
The right of prisoners’ leave is to be abused for many categories of detainees, and sentences for acts of violence exceeding 15 years ( Article 53 (2 ) (d ) will be excluded from this right. In these cases involving hundreds of prisoners, leave will not be given and the prisoners will be in danger of being in a closed prison even until the end of their sentence.
And while Justice Minister Kontonis defends “equal treatment of prisoners in the face of the law” he legislates for discrimination based on the offence, refusing leave and release for certain categories of prisoners, such as those incarcerated for 15 year sentences and above for acts of violence, including those falling under 187A. And it is not about the specific measure for example drug dealers. We mention this example because he has publicly stated that he has intervened in a court decision to refuse to interrupt a prisoner’s sentence because he considered it unfair to decide the interruption of a sentence for a drug dealer rather than for a specific prisoner. He is extremely selective not only in his interventions but also in the way he is legislating now. And he is the first minister to legislate for discrimination on the basis of the offence, but also on the basis of specific persons.
Let us remind ourselves that he is the same minister who publicly defended the special treatment of our child, for which a number of laws were violated, he finally defended the treatment of our child, a six-year-old child, and defended his treatment as a “criminal offender” and his confinement to the psychiatric hospital.
In any case, the new penitentiary code wants to promote the end of prison protests, to introduce violence, punishment and revenge on detainees without room for protest, especially through articles that provide for special quarantine conditions.
A new regime of extermination of a special category of prisoners is introduced in the article. 11 (6) (e) and (4) of that Article. As far as political prisoners are concerned, the continued pressure to legislate on denial of leave and release without a statement of repentance reduces political prisoners to a special category for political reasons, since the extraordinary treatment concerns the motivation that is political rather than personal.
And such pressure as these measures to exclude political prisoners in prison are those which power wants to pass is in the direction of destroying all political resistance against the regime. The status of the oligarchy of the rich and their political co-soldiers who are responsible for the death, extermination and misery of millions of people in the country and for these crimes, for the terrorism they are practising, no one will pay.
On the contrary, those who struggle against their criminal, murderous regime must be exterminated.
The invocation of cases where prisoners violate the law when they left prison under the Paraskevopoulos law[3] is devoid of substance, since the type and intensity of social crime is not defined by the time of imprisonment, but by the wider social and economic conditions.
While the increasingly harsh conditions of detention will guarantee the return of detainees to delinquency, and even in more fierce forms of detention, since the tendency for revenge will coexist.
To the extent that poverty and regime violence at the expense of the social majority is increasing by dismantling social cohesion, killing social solidarity and turning the social base into a jungle, it is assumed that social crime will not only grow but will become more and more violent. The status of the “war of all against all” is imposed by the economic and political system itself. Since the elimination of crime presupposes the treatment of the causes that give birth to it and because the cause of the crime is the very system of capitalism, the state and the junta of the markets, the only way to effectively tackle crime at the basis of society is another type of social organization based on economic equality and political freedom.
Through Article 11 (4) and (6), it is clear that it is determined that we will be placed in a regime of permanent isolation from other prisoners while aiming at removing the possibility of trial. Nikos Maziotis is already in isolation status for the last 4 months for reasons we have outlined in texts published last July and September. Obviously, the imposition of a total isolation regime for Maziotis has “whetted the appetite” of the ministry to establish this treaty by law and to impose it on Pola, as she has taken responsibility the attempt to break out political prisoners from Korydallos.
The left-wing government, specializing in introducing and promoting divisions within resistance spaces and within political prisoners themselves, is certain that these measures will not apply to all those detained for involvement in armed activities. There will be clear discrimination among those who the government and the state always judge for their behaviour, especially their politics. As far as we are concerned, it is clear that we are the top priorities of the government’s war. And we will be the ones the government wants to pass these new measures upon.
But they will not just stay with us. It is certain that any exceptional measure applied to the political opponents of the regime will be broadened in their application to other categories of people.
Flagging the phrase “for the country’s security and public order”, the Syriza-ANEL government introduces new regimes of exclusion and isolation, as well as the most restrictive terms of detention for anyone recognized as a political threat.
The regime of modern parliamentary and economically powerful oligarchs does not recognize the existence of political opponents, it characterizes them as “terrorists” and condemns them with 187A to severe punishments. Once again, provisions are introduced for their slow destruction through the return of isolation and special conditions of detention. At the same time, both the media and the regime politicians howl about the treatment of the Junta and demanded that this regime be extended to a life long treatment, so as not to let the political opponents of the regime out of prison. It is obscene to draw a parallel with the Junta who imposed fascism on the whole country, who killed, tortured thousands of people, and sent tanks to the Polytechnic in 1973, and killed the insurgents in revolt in any other case.
As we have already said, Revolutionary Struggle has for years been an important priority in the repressive state policy. We know that we are also an important political target for the regime, given the choice of struggle we have made. However, the totalitarianism introduced by the new prison code and the incessant measures of control and pressure on prisoners promotes a new type of universal censure and social racism in prisons in order to make the pursuit of detainees more effective and on terms that will even go as far as their crushing if the state deems it necessary for its security.
In a pro-government newspaper we read in regard to the new prison code, titled “Prisons not sweat shops”, that the supposed pillar of the new code is the principle that “the only restriction imposed on the prisoners is on their movement.” No matter how the government’s parrots tried to beautify the new law they can not reverse the truth: It is a legal monstrosity that introduces the “modernization” of prisons to the country turning them into crematoriums for many detainees according to the specifications laid down by the new totalitarian regime imposed on the whole of society.
It is in “absolute harmony” with the modern junta of markets, supranational capital and government-puppets in Greece. It is in “absolute harmony” with the supervision and social subordination to the supranational power centres. With policies of social genocide for the social base, subordination and total control for all, to ensure the smooth reproduction of the criminal economic and political system. No social resistance, no political threat. And it is clear that while the regime imposes these conditions on society, and while politically threatening adversaries do not exist, the totalitarianism that will pass as a juggernaut through society will not leave the prisoners out of their sight.
The new penitentiary code and the threat of the detention conditions it imposes are a cause of struggle for all prisoners, and it does enough to “raise” the request to withdraw all the articles mentioned in the text, which for us are weapons of revenge and punishment against thousands of prisoners.
But we have already said they will not let the new Type C prisons and prisoners’ extermination schemes pass over us.
So we commence a HUNGER STRIKE today Saturday, November 11th with the following demands:
To withdraw the provision in Article 11 para, 6 pt. E and para. 4 in the same article regarding the detention in police stations. Do not bring back the Type C prison regime. Immediately release Nikos Maziotis from the isolation in which he is held by a decision of the ministry since last July.
Introduce adjustment to the correctional code for the easing of visitor hours based on the frequency of visits a prisoner has. For example, a prisoner who has one hour per month visit or cannot at all extend the time of the meeting.
There should be a special meeting room for parents to meet with their children (there is no such place in the Korydallos men’s prison) and when the frequency of meetings is rare, the meeting time should increase accordingly.
In our case the visits with our child, take place once a month due to distance and the time of one hour that is imposed is a mockery for the child. Also other visitors than that, we do not get at all. Everyone in prison knows this condition and the frequency of visits is written in the prison books.
The prosecutor of the prison refused to extend the time to meet with our child while they are aware of everything and insist on one hour per month, a decision directly against the child itself as it completely discredits our meeting. Potentially with 1 hour it is desired to completely cancel the meetings with our child.
In order to achieve even the bare minimum to meet the needs of our child to communicate with us due to the inability to visit us often we request:
· Visiting with our child to last at least three hours.
· Visiting between us two hours.
· Similar arrangements are provided for similar cases and should be extended to the minimum time for parents’ meetings with their children.
During the hunger strike we must be given a telephone conversation with our child and our lawyers.
We state from the outset that we will not receive serum when hospitalized, we will only receive water throughout the strike and do not think of force feeding us.
Pola Roupa – Nikos Maziotis,
members of Revolutionary Struggle
in Greek
[1] Type C prisons: maximum security prisons introduced in 2014 under the Samaras government which placed prisoners, mainly political prisoners, in special isolation units. Elements of these prisons were removed in 2015.
[2] 187A is the article of the Greek criminal code on the formation of criminal organizations, it is the main charge brought against members and suspected members of guerrilla groups.
[3] Paraskevopoulos law was brought in during the prisoners’ hunger strike in 2015 and grants early release for some prisoners in the hope of easing prison overcrowding.