Comrades, greetings to all of you, I send you a big hug from Domokos prison in Greece. Thank you for inviting me to your event.
Regarding your first question related to the current legal situation in which I am in for my release, the prospect is that I will be released towards the end of 2026 with the expiry of my entire sentence. What does this mean? So far I have made 7 applications for conditional release with the remainder of my sentence suspended. According to the old penal code in Greece, an old prisoner like me can be released on parole after serving 3/5 of his sentence. And when I say 3/5 of the sentence I mean including work in prison. For the remaining 2/5 of the sentence, the former prisoner is present at the police station of the area where he lives and is banned from leaving the country.
In my case, where I have been sentenced to 20 years, 3/5 is the 12 years with work. I completed the 3/5 in January 2022 having done 9 years in prison plus 3 years of work. Since then, as I said, I have made 7 applications for parole and probation for the remainder of the sentence but they have all been rejected. As I have made public in a text that you may have read (it was also translated into English), Until the end of the sentence – How did we get here (https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1634609/), the reason is because I remain consistent with the choices of struggle I made, namely the choice of guerrilla, of the organization I belonged to, the Revolutionary Struggle, and I refuse to make any statement of disavowal, repentance and disapproval of my action.
Also, in the rejection decisions in the judicial councils, apart from the fact that I still consider the choice of the struggle, of guerrilla warfare, they also mention various “disciplinary offences” that I committed mainly in 2017, which normally should not be counted as a criterion in the decisions for release from prison, since some time has passed since they were committed. Such ”disciplinary offences” were the destruction of monitors in the prison control and monitoring system, insulting the prosecutor and the prison director, destroying the isolation wing in which I was for a time in Korydallos prison and disobeying the orders of the prison guards.
So far I have served 12.5 years in prison plus 4.5 years of work, a total of 17 years. When I say work I mean that I am a cleaner in the ward where I am, where e.g. one day of work counts for 2 in serving the sentence.
So based on the fact that I have 3 years left to complete all 20 years with work, I have almost 1.5 years left in prison. That means I will have done almost 14 years in prison plus 6 years of work. The good thing is that when I get out of prison I won’t be present at the police station.
That’s all about the legal situation that I’m in and about when I’m going to be released.
In general, it’s a very bad development because until now it was not usual for them to do such a thing. However, in Greece in recent years there has been an increasing tightening of the legal framework of repression and the penal code and the “penitentiary” code in order to increase the sentences and the length of the prisoners’ stay in prison. And this is something that first and foremost applies to political prisoners like me who will probably be the first person with a 20-year sentence to serve the entire sentence without parole.
Regarding the questions on solidarity and the escape attempted by comrade Roupa in 2016, I will say a few things that I think will clarify what you are asking.
The attempted escape by helicopter attempted by Comrade Roupa in 2016 was clearly intended, if successful, to continue the action of the Revolutionary Struggle in a context in which the memoranda, the austerity programmes imposed on Greece by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund had been consolidated since 2010. The Revolutionary Struggle had already started a campaign of attacks against the policy of dealing with the economic crisis by the Greek governments, since 2009 after the December 2008 uprising, with bomb attacks against banks (Citibank, Eurobank), against the Athens Stock Exchange and also with the armed attacks against riot police officers after the ’08 uprising. So even when we were still in the illegal path in 2012, after our first arrests in 2010 – having been initially remanded in custody for 18 months and released because the trial had not taken place – we continued the action by carrying out the car bomb attack with 75 kg of explosives on 10 April 2014 at the building of the Supervision Directorate of the Bank of Greece where the office of the IMF’s permanent representative in Greece was located. This attack was dedicated to our comrade Lambros Fountas who was killed in a fight with police officers on March 10, 2010 in a preparatory action – car expropriation – that the organization was going to use in a bombing attack against the enforcement of the First Memorandum of 2010.
But after the defeat of the social and popular revolt against the imposition of the memoranda in 2010-12, conditions had changed dramatically for the worse. This defeat, as I have also formulated in my last text Until the end of the sentence – How did we get here (https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1634609/),is due to the absence of a revolutionary anti-state and anti-capitalist movement in 2010-12 -when the Greek people were besieging to occupy the parliament- with the aim of attempting a revolution in Greece at that time. This was something that the R.S. had proposed to the anarchist/anti-authoritarian movement and the wider anti-capitalist movement as early as 2009 when the international economic crisis was starting to affect Greece when we were doing the campaign of attacks I mentioned before. The Revolutionary Struggle as it was stated then, only the Social Revolution would be the solution to overcome the economic crisis. But this did not happen. The defeat of the social revolt against the memoranda in 2012 but at the same time the political defeat of the ‘movement’ and the spaces of resistance had very serious consequences. This defeat has resulted in the state totalitarianism that we are living today, the permanent impoverishment and austerity, the state crimes such as the deadly fires in Mati in 2018 and the train collision in Tempe in 2023 due to the deliberate degradation of social infrastructure, and the simultaneous intensification of repression even at the legislative level such as the hardening of the legal framework in the criminal and ”penal” code that I mentioned before. There has been a general retreat of social struggles and resistances since then and the state passes whatever measures it wants with relative ease and almost without resistance regardless of the government, whether left or right. Another consequence of the 2012 defeat is that parts of the Greek anarchist/anti-authoritarian space supported the left-wing Syriza party after 2012 under the illusion that if it becomes government it will resist the lenders – the EU, ECB and IMF troika -, that the country will get out of EMU and that there can be alternative governance and opportunities for struggle!
It is well known that many anarchists voted for SYRIZA in the 2012 and 2015 elections. On the contrary, in 2014, when Revolutionary Struggle bombed the Bank of Greece’s Supervision Directorate and the office of the International Monetary Fund, it had predicted in its proclamation, in which it took responsibility, that SYRIZA, when it became a government, would also submit to the lenders’ troika, despite its promises to abolish the memoranda, which was confirmed.
In these conditions of general social defeat but also of political failure, retreat and opportunism of the anarchist/anti-authoritarian space and the “movement” after 2012, the Revolutionary Struggle encountered great difficulties in escalating its action from 2012 onwards. We found ourselves isolated and with a serious lack of solidarity and support. And this was exactly the cause of our arrests, mine in 2014 and that of comrade Roupa in 2017, and it was the cause of course of the termination of the Revolutionary Struggle’s action. We had no support to stand in the illegality even to survive. Because otherwise, how else can it be explained that Comrade Roupa alone attempted to hijack the helicopter so that I and others could escape from prison?
More generally, the lack of solidarity was one thing we encountered from our first arrests in 2010. And this is due to the bad tradition that exists in the Greek ‘movement’, in that it has difficulty in defending politically the militants who take political responsibility for their participation in the guerrilla organisations they are members of, while it is easier to defend some when they are arrested for such cases and declare that they have been the victim of a state frame-up or that they are being persecuted for their associational and political relations. This is a bad tradition in Greece compared to Western Europe and the Western European guerrilla movement of the 1970s and 80s where the assumption of political responsibility by members of guerrilla organisations was self-evident. We were the first in Greece at the organisational level, not individually as individuals, to take political responsibility for our participation in the Revolutionary Struggle in 2010. And this determined to a large extent, unfortunately, what solidarity we had from the space we came from. And when we went underground in 2012 to continue the action, in the conditions of the general social defeat, the retreat of resistance spaces and the opportunism shown by parts of the anarchist/anti-authoritarian space that saw the Syriza government positively, the solidarity deficit was even greater. And this deficit of solidarity combined with the state and regime totalitarianism that began to prevail after 2012 and with the intensification of criminal and ”correctional” repression in recent years, contributed to a certain extent to the brutal treatment we received from the state after our arrests in 2014 and 2017, which was also expressed in terms of sentences and the fact that after the arrest of comrade Roupa in 2017, they took away parental care of our son who was born in prison in 2010 and attempted to keep him in an institution.
More generally, parts of the anarchist/anti-authoritarian space have shown a belligerent attitude towards us, going so far as to support politically a repentant former member of our organisation who in 2017 had publicly stated in court that ”I have never declared that I am a revolutionary” and that ”the Revolutionary Struggle was defeated in 2010”, taking a clear separation from us, from me and Comrade Roupa who went underground and continued the action of the Revolutionary Struggle with the attack on the CBE and the IMF office and the attempted escape by Comrade Roupa. For these parts the Revolutionary Struggle was ”good” until 2010 but should not exist afterwards! In fact, the political support for the penitent went so far as to have 3 people from the area go to the court as witnesses for the defence of the penitent after he had made these statements in support of his separation from us and the separation in the history of the organisation, which is if anything a world first in the history of movements and guerrilla movements.
For all these reasons I mentioned above, the social defeat after 2012 and the retreat and opportunism of the “movement” and the anarchist/anti-authoritarian space, the attempted escape with the hijacking of the helicopter by Comrade Roupa, although it was an unprecedented action, did not have the results it should have had. The fact that the attempt was intended for others to join us made it an unprecedented act of solidarity which Comrade Roupa carried out at the risk of her life. But this was not appreciated either by the anarchist/anti-authoritarian space or even by those who were going to leave with us who were separated from us in the court that was held for this case. This is due to the erosion of consciences in the space, the extent of the defeat in the struggle and the alienation of the concept of solidarity as solidarity has become a matter of individual and self-interest.
But to be fair, I have to tell you that there are parts of the anarchist space and movement that are in solidarity with us, that support us in any way they can, as well as from abroad. But this does not negate the grim situation I have described to you. And this situation is the reason why I will be the only prisoner so far with a temporary sentence, not a life sentence, who will be released not on parole but on completion of the whole sentence.
Another thing I should point out is that at the moment in Greek prisons there is nothing like the 41 bis that exists in Italy and a general isolation regime. In 2014 a special regime was created, the type C prisons, namely in Domokos prison and I was the first prisoner to be transferred there. This regime was quickly abolished in the spring of 2015 after a hunger strike by political-anarchist prisoners. However, the current government from 2022 has legislated a special detention regime, the so-called ‘maximum security’ prisons, which however have not yet been opened and it is planned to detain those accused or convicted under the ‘anti-terrorism’ law, i.e. political prisoners, for ‘organised’ crime or prisoners who have committed disciplinary offences within the prison.
I should also point out that apart from the retreat of struggles and resistance in society, in the last 5 years, although the state has repeatedly revised the penal and “penitentiary” code for the worse, with the aim, as I said before, of increasing sentences and keeping most of the prisoners in prison by raising the parole limits, there are no struggles of prisoners in prison. All of the relevant bills have passed without any opposition. The only notable ones have been in 2020, a stand by women prisoners in Korydallos prison who kept their cells open at midday closing time which was organised by comrade Roupa – and related to covid measures – and for which the comrade was transferred the next day to Thebes prison. And a revolt also by women prisoners in Thebes prison at the same time when a prisoner died from inadequate medical care because she had to go to hospital and they didn’t take her. And more recently there were some mobilisations in the women’s prison in Korydallos. Also, while several bills were passed to revise the penal and ”correctional” code, there were some very late attempts of mobilizations in 2023-’24 in the men’s prisons without any success.
Unfortunately, comrades, we live in an ever-increasing state and regime totalitarianism with the state advancing and the resistance spaces and the “movement” constantly retreating. Nevertheless, we must not lose heart and continue the struggle.
Despite the cost I am paying, I am more convinced than ever of the rightness and justice of my choices and the rightness of the action of the Revolutionary Struggle, of the correctness of its proposals, of what it said. Because our analyses and predictions have been vindicated in time and because his proposals for another society, free of the staterand the capital and without classes remain relevant.
I wish all the comrades, the fighters strength and health. I send a big hug to all the comrades all over the world who are in prison and I wish that they remain standing despite the difficulties of incarceration.
STRUGGLE AGAINST THE STATE AND THE CAPITAL
SOLIDARITY TO ALL DETAINED REVOLUTIONARIES
LONG LIVE THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION
Nikos Maziotis,
convicted for the action of the Revolutionary Struggle,
4th ward of Domokos prison
Εδώ το μέρος της εκδήλωσης που αφορά τον Ε.Α.: https://we.tl/t-KxTe2iwR8M
via: Νίκος Μαζιώτης-Πόλα Ρούπα
source: Act For Freedom