Content Warning: Discussion of sexual violence
Direct Action Cells: Claim of responsibility for the incendiary attacks against the homes of high-profile judges
The Greek justice system doesn’t have a problem, it is the problem itself
Direct Action Cells claim responsibility for the following incendiary attacks:
At the home of the judge Panagiota Yioupi, at dawn on Friday October 14, in the Glyfada area.
Youpi is one of the many servile puppets of the gang that operates under the name of Greek justice. She presided in the trial of the child rapist and member of the Mitsotakis family, Dimitris Lignadis, who was released from prison after being found guilty of raping underage children. She is a judge who is part of the influential entourage of the drug-dealing shipping tycoon Vangelis Marinakis, having issued a series of provocative rulings in favor of his interests during her term as a judge in Piraeus.
Yioupi is relentless when confronted with the poor, handing out years of sentences with the same ease she would hand out toys at a children’s party. But she has a peculiarity, she turns into a sensitive and soulful person when confronted by people from high society, with political connections, access and financial clout.
- At the home of the judge Myrsini Papachiou, at dawn on Saturday, November 5, in the Zografou area.
Papachiou occupies the highest levels of the cesspool known as civil justice. The throne that she sits on as vice president of the Supreme Court is built from the pain of shattered human lives destroyed by prison.
Our decision to target her, apart from her institutional role, is related to the fact that she is currently involved in the Novartis scandal, being a member of the special court that is currently trying state prosecutors and government officials from the former SYRIZA government, as defendants for allegedly orchestrating a conspiracy in this particular case. She is also a court tribunal member for the upcoming trial of a former SYRIZA minister in a case regarding TV licenses. In fact, in order for Papahiou to be a member of these tribunals, she was hastily promoted to the rank of deputy-president a few days before the selection of tribunal members took place. Without any desire to get involved in the shifting alliances and infighting of this rotten political establishment, we recognize that this court is acting as a white-washing machine for sections of the political elite who are involved in the Novartis scandal. An international scandal that demonstrates with surgical precision how capitalism works. Multinationals, big pharma and politicians were complicit in the criminal regulation of drug prices in the health sector. They were complicit in the dismantling of public hospitals, in the operation of an organized international state-economic mafia that exploited in the worst possible way one of the most basic services, that of health. The government’s systematic attempt to present this scandal as a frame-up goes hand in hand with its refusal to demand compensation from the company. Our choice to strike at one of the puppets that are part of the government’s white-washing is intended to highlight all of the above.
The Greek justice system is one of the cartels of power that without any pretense does absolutely everything it can to make money for the capitalist crooks and their uniformed henchmen. If you checked the cell phone of a supreme court judge you would see the names of top lawyers, politicians, businessmen and high-ranking police officers in their contacts. This is the image of the Greek justice system, a gang divided into fiefdoms that rub shoulders with powerful financial and political interests. At the top of the pyramid of this rottenness everything is coordinated to maintain their power and complete impunity. Siemens, Energa Power, Vatopaidi, security bonds, dairy cartels, Piraeus Bank, illegal lending to parties and media, illegal wiretapping, Para Forensic, Petsas list, C4I scandal, kidnappings of Pakistanis, “Zardiniere” case, Postal Savings Bank, Panteion scandal, KEEELPNO, arms scandal, Lagarde blacklist, Novartis, Stock Exchange, Noor 1, Lignadis, Korkoneas, Melistas, Saraliotis, Fourthiotis, Liakounakos, Georgiou, Bobolas, Psyharis, Kontominas, Vardinoyannis, Lavrentiadis, Papantoniou, Voulgarakis, Mandelis, Marinakis, Melissanidis, Restis, Diotis, Saraliotis, Mavridis, Hortiaris, Demopoulos, Filippidis, Jean-Claude Oswald, Alafouzos, Christoforakos, Floros, Milionis, Efraim, Georgiadis, Papageorgopoulos.
No one has ever been punished by this three-legged dragon for any crime committed by the ruling class against any of us in this country. For no financial scandal, for no crime committed by the repressive mechanisms. No law restricting the “freedoms” and “rights” of citizens, even as defined by the bourgeois constitution, has ever been found unconstitutional. Those who signed the memoranda that ceded national sovereignty to the global organizations of economic dictatorship, impoverishing and enslaving the population of the colony called the Greek state, have ever been held accountable. For this much-feared national sovereignty, which was then ceded by law to the jackals of the IMF and the ECB, while nowadays our bourgeoisie wears the costumes of nationalism and irredentism so that we can spill our blood over which capitalists will get rich from the exploitation of the Aegean. No court decision has vindicated the thousands of murdered refugees and migrants at the borders, the thousands of crippled workers in the workplaces, the thousands of women raped and extradited by the trafficking rings, controlled (almost always) by high-ranking members of the Greek police.
A quick glance at the events of the last few months is revealing of the rot and stench to which capitalism condemns us, as long as we do not find the strength to fight to the bitter end to take back our lives. In the Greek colony, if you are rich and have the right connections, you can organise parties in five-star hotels, drug girls, rape them and be acquitted by a verdict of civil justice (Leventis brothers case). Also in the Greek colony you can, if you are a graduate of Athens College and a friend of Mitsotakis, be appointed by the government to head the country’s cultural elite at the National Theatre, and at the same time use your position to rape underage souls. But even in the event that you are forced to be detained, people like Youpi, with the assistance of course of a well-known criminal lawyer, will do everything to end this unpleasant and embarrassing situation (Lignadis case). At the same time, again in the Greek colony, if you are a member of the New Democracy, a friend of the regional governor, or a man of the church and you make donations to the Greek police, you can run a local store which will receive within 2 years 37 direct contracts from the state. At the same time you have the possibility to run a pedophile ring, rape and deport a 12 year old underage girl with the backing of all the above institutions (Michou case).
But the examples do not stop there. If you are a policeman in the Greek colony, your masters will give you various kinds of rights to reward the squalor you have been reduced to in order to defend the aforementioned rot with weapons. You can beat up fathers with impunity along with their children, students, workers, fire victims and health workers. You can literally cripple people, knowing in advance that in all of the above crimes you will have civil justice as your ally. You can execute a 16 year old Roma with 36 bullets (the case of Nikos Sabani). During your forced 3-day stay in the detention center you will be visited by the minister of “citizen protection” to congratulate you. Your union will appoint a well-known criminal lawyer, while your case will “by chance” be examined by a judge who had previously worked in your office, and after 3 days you will be released to the cheers of hundreds of pigs waiting for you at the entrance of the courts. You can also bring 19 year old girls into the changing rooms of a police station, rape them to the point of bleeding, and be released by “independent justice” (Case of the rape of a girl by officers of the DIAS team at Omonia police station). But you can also hold a girl prisoner. You can rape her and deport her. In this case your colleagues will make sure that there is an incomplete search of the house where you held her captive, so that there is not much incriminating evidence against you. For the next few months that you are forced to stay in jail the “independent judiciary” will make sure that your case file is not closed, despite the fact that there are many witnesses, surveillance etc., with a view to your release in 18 months. In your case, the majority of the controlled media will not make any noise, despite the constant appeals from the girl’s lawyer over the ongoing cover-up, as you are not a “danger to society”, as for example, those who are actively resisting to get rid of this cancer that is oppressing people’s lives and souls (Bougioukos case).
Finally, in the Greek colony, if you are called Fourthiotis and you are the “national” speaker of the parliament, and in particular of the New Democracy party, you are entitled to police protection. If you’ve also recorded them indulging their sick appetites, you can be acquitted by the “inept justice system”, even if you are the instigator of botched attempted murders against police officers.
The above few examples are not a film script describing some dystopian society of the future. They are the very present of the colony we live in. It is the harsh reality of Western capitalism. It is the brutal truth that is being carefully hidden from all indigenous people. The bourgeois justice system and its officials, the women and men who staff this dirty and sordid institution, are the guardians of all this rot who ensure that only a small part of it comes to the surface. They are the buffer that allows all these ‘excellent’ bastards to go unpunished indefinitely. The reality is so brutal and cruel that anyone who doesn’t see it is willfully blind.
The cruel and ruthless judges, the ones who in the majority of cases apply harsh sentences – often beyond the limits of human life – the ones who put people in prison for debts of a few thousand euros, those who make illegal and abusive any strike that gets out of line, those who throw thousands of families who have taken loans from the banks out of their homes, have not condemned ANY politician or executive of big business for plundering public wealth. They have not condemned ANY war criminals for facilitating NATO troops to participate in their criminal interventions in a number of other colonies around the globe. They have not convicted ANY shipowner for the countless environmental violations that poison our lives. They have NEVER condemned pharmaceutical company executives who bribe doctors and government officials to control the drug market, which translates into thousands of deaths of ordinary people. They have barely condemned any low ranking police officials who murder in the streets, beat mercilessly at demonstrations and rape in police stations. They have not condemned ANY high ranking Greek police officer involved in human trafficking, drug trafficking and smuggling of fuel and cigarettes. They have not convicted ANY high level society rapists who use their financial power on the bodies of the weak by destroying their lives.
But there is an additional explanation for the latter. We wrote above that if you looked at the cellphone of a Supreme Court judge you would see in their contacts the names of big lawyers, politicians, businessmen and high-ranking police officers. We forgot to mention that you would also find the names of pimps, especially those involved in child male prostitution. The judiciary are the number one clients of these rings that force young boys into prostitution to satisfy the vices of any scumbag who wants to assert his power over these souls. A typical example is the case of the vice-president of the ΣΤΕ (Council of State), Panagiotis Efstratiou, who was caught virtually in the act of molesting two underage refugee children, with the accompaniment of drugs, with the case of course being buried by the mainstream media in its infancy. We challenge all mainstream media to come out and refute us with evidence against what we say. We also challenge them to publish this claim of responsibility despite what we unpleasantly report against the abomination that goes by the name of civil justice, and not to continue the game of silencing our actions that is being played out in the offices of the officers of the Greek Police. The last time you concealed our actions we told you that we would target you and we did. We have you mapped out and we have proven it. But we also challenge every journalist who has even a shred of dignity to investigate the sordid case of the child rapist Panagiotis Efstratiou, and more generally what we report about the “love” of this particular sector for specific trafficking rings.
“We have nothing to lose but our fear”
The reason for our extensive reference to the cartel that goes by the name of bourgeois justice is not to raise public awareness about the evils of this particular sector, nor because we believe that there can be real justice within the capitalist system. It is clear from the brief overview we have given in the preceding paragraphs that this is precisely the essence of its operation. As Direct Action Cells we have made it clear that we do not consider that we are dealing with an intangible mechanism of exploitation, but with people who operate it and have names and addresses. And if we want to get a message across to these scumbags who staff the judicial apparatus, it is that we will do everything in our power to return to them the violence they use every day on the marginalized, the oppressed and those who don’t fit into their barbaric system. It is our justice that will become a raging torrent and drown them. The justice of rebellion, the justice of revolutionary violence, the justice of struggle that will be the final judge of these bastards.
As mentioned above, the reality is inescapable. The dawning dystopia brings us more than ever before to face our responsibilities. Either we organize our attacks in the now or we will sink into the futility of the present. Either we will be a beacon of dignity in the face of darkness or history will consign us to the margins.
It is clear that we are moving rapidly towards a police state. State repression is the condition faced by every struggling person fighting to improve their daily life. Thousands of uniformed officers have been given a free pass by their political leadership to fuck and beat with the blessings of the bourgeois justice system. The right of assembly has been denied. All notion of sanctuary in educational institutions has been abolished. There are entire neighborhoods that are completely controlled by special police forces. Some sections of the population are monitored by shadowy organizations on the fringes of the official secret services.
Conversely, the hard core of the country’s government and economic elite is made up of mafia and trafficking rings. Circuits that traffic children and women for the benefit of the powerful in this rotten country are constantly surfacing, without anything ever changing. Evidence keeps emerging that the matrix of organized crime in Greece is the triad of government – economic elite – police, and it is not budging. And nothing will change, because THIS IS THE NATURE OF CAPITALISM.
All this leads us to one conclusion. Now that power has been acquired and operates without pretense, now that it no longer wears the masks of humanism, democratic equilibrium, social contracts, are we going to sit in our corner and wait for them to finish us off? If anarchy does not shed its blood to smash one by one the bastards who oppress us, what is its raison d’être? How much longer are we going to wait for conditions to mature and blame our neighbors? We have ended up producing more dumbass activists than Green Peace. The history of the anarchist movement is a history of protracted revolutionary warfare, not blowhards and academics babbling about “human rights”. Some are content with a few denunciatory social media posts and attendance at a few marches. We are sorry but none of this is enough. How much of our own blood has to be spilled at the protests for a riot cop or DIAS bastard to bleed with hammers to the head outside his gym? How many defiant court challenges must be issued to get us past the tired old pattern of crackdown – demonstration – repression – denunciation so that we can visit them in their homes and hold them accountable?
To put it as simply as possible, the right to speech without action, without risk and constant struggle is a meaningless right. Victimization should be thrown in the wastebasket along with those who promote it and insert it through the back door into the battlefields of struggle. Anyone who experiences all of the above and does not organize their resistance had better give up and leave our corner. Anyone who does not understand the criticality of the moments we are living in is an obstacle to the revolutionary struggle. It is more urgent than ever to build a distinct revolutionary component, free from the contemporary scourge of reformism and identity politics that is sweeping, paralyzing and corroding anarchist/anti-capitalist movements. If our gaze looks far ahead to the prospect of an anarchist force that responds to contemporary demands. That gives clear answers to state repression. That will have a radical position and action and will form a distinctive polarity to take advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead. Then we must be realistic and organize revolutionary violence in a way that turns it into a threat.
In this direction we want to send our solidarity and respect to all the comrades, in Greece and in the world, who keep the flame of attack burning. To all the militant formations around the globe that challenge in the here and now the monopoly on violence of the state and capital. To all the comrades who are trying with all the forces at their disposal to radicalize the ongoing struggles. To those who fight at the gates of a factory with riot police during a strike, to those who attack the infrastructure and economic collaborations of the NATO slaughterhouse inside the European Union, to those who think of expropriating products from supermarkets to prove that we will fight with precision in praxis. To those who clash with Molotov cocktails with the cops from the alleys of Exarcheia to the universities of Santiago. We call on them to fight together to create the new militant component that will put the domination of capital and the state structures in the crosshairs of revolutionary violence. That will organize to take advantage of the opportunities that come from the coming instability. That will rally around the slogan “Let fear change sides” and fight to the end for our final victory.
The Lignadis Case – An example of civil justice
In February 2021, after a series of complaints, mainly in the artistic world, a scandal broke out that touches part of the political and artistic elite with clear political references to New Democracy. Dimitris Lignadis, a friend of Culture Minister Lina Mendoni and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a graduate of the Athens College and government-appointed director of the National Theatre, systematically raped underage boys. Anyone who can understand the basics and is not a lobotomized idiot, understands that this case is not an isolated incident, but demonstrates the existence of an organized circuit of child rapists with members of the artistic and political elite who are part of New Democracy and the circles that support Kyriakos Mitsotakis. It is no coincidence that a few years ago Nikos Georgiadis, a New Democracy bigwig and adviser to Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who is also a graduate of the Athens College, was accused of indecent exposure to a minor in Moldova, where he was serving as a diplomat. For the record, at his trial in the first instance, in which half of New Democracy came forward as defense witnesses, he was sentenced to 28 months probation, while his prosecution was barred in the second instance. This was once again the civil justice system’s response to a man accused of indecent exposure to a minor who has strong political backing. We need to understand that those who belong to the powerful political, economic and artistic elites are people who know from the outset that no matter what they do, there is a powerful cover-up mechanism that is put in place so that they feel that nothing is able to stop them. This is what happened in the case of Lignadis and the organized child rape ring of which he was a member. But let’s start from the beginning.
After the initial revelations about Lignadis’ activities, 285 former graduates of the Arsakeio school made a specific complaint according to which they all suspected, if not knew, the suspicious visits of underage students to Lignadis’ house. They also described a pervasive culture that prevailed in the school regarding numerous instances of teachers molesting students. One of these incidents involved the daughter of the president of the Philosophical Society of Arsakeio – Tositsia Schools, George Babiniotis, who was accused in 2008 of two cases of indecency with underage female students. In one case, the parents eventually never made a complaint and simply transferred their daughter to another school, while in the second case they were acquitted by the civil justice system, which by its decision protected and gave cover to the child rapist ring that existed within the school. At the same time, in their complaint, the former graduates, as well as trade unionists, stated that the actions of Lignadis and the others were known to the New Democracy and Mitsotakis supporter, Babiniotis, when he was positively recommending to the government the appointment of Lignadis to the position of director of the National Theatre. At the same time, other allegations described how an NGO was acting as a pimp for Lignadis, “delivering” him unaccompanied refugee children to rape in his home. But beyond all this, years before, in 1997, Lignadis had been formally investigated as a suspect in the rape of a transgender person in Lesvos. Although there was enough evidence, the case, of course, did not proceed for all the reasons we have described above. It is therefore obvious that those who appointed Lignadis to this office were if anything aware of his actions. But it is equally obvious that, apart from political buffoonery, his appointment to the position of director of the National Theatre by the government gave Lignadis and the rest of the child rapist ring enormous power, as well as new access to potential victims.
From the first days of the complaints, the cover-up mechanism mentioned above was put in place. The government supported its chosen one either through its silence, or through the support of various statements by its officials. It was only when the situation became out of control that the necessary distances were taken. The government made a deal with Lignadis offering to go easy in exchange for him not making revelations about the depth and size of the organized ring that would further expose New Democracy in this case. For its part, the police did not confiscate either Lignadis’ mobile phone or his laptop. The confiscation of electronic devices of those accused of pedophilia and other offences is one of the first and most crucial steps taken by the police authorities to solve such cases. But the investigating judge in charge of the case did not order their seizure either, putting the “independent judiciary” squarely in the middle of the attempted cover-up. The seizures were made after many days and after the complaint of the prosecution lawyers and when all evidence of the scheme’s activities had apparently been erased. In the first phase, therefore, the government – police – civil justice, with the help of the “friendly” media, managed to limit the knowledge about the structure and activity of the ring to a single person and with limited evidence. For example, the complaints of the Arsakeio graduates and the unaccompanied refugee children (which also involved Maximos) were not brought to the attention of the official investigation.
5 months later, in July 2021, Dimitris Lignadis was in front of the investigator again, accused of 2 more rapes of minors. This time he is not remanded in custody by the civil justice officials. The reason for this decision was to ensure that he faced his next court case with as few charges as possible, which always affect the treatment of the accused.
The court case of the child rapist and chosen one of New Democracy, Dimitris Lignadis, is a disgrace even for this rotten and wretched “justice” that we have described in the above paragraphs. Panagiota Yioupi, as its president, forgot the stern and uncompromising figure that she portrays when she has poor devils facing her and acted as the main defense attorney for the child rapist, surpassing even the well-known criminologist, who shouted obscenities from the lawyers’ benches.
“You are planning the acquittal of Lignadis”, denounced the lawyer Yannis Vlachos, who was present as the prosecution for the victims of Dimitris Lignadis, addressing the president of the court Panagiota Yioupi.
“I started watching the trial of Dimitris Lignadis one day after the testimony of Nikos S. The day when the rapist’s defense lawyer – according to the decision of the Justice – Alexis Kougias examined him. What I witnessed in the room of the Joint Jury Court made me leave the room to take a breath. So that I would not vomit. I didn’t and decided to stay there to record and relay everything that could make a pre-agreed decision – as all the evidence ultimately suggests – falter. The process followed was patently bizarre. The chair, the president of the trial, Panagiota Yioupi, was intransigent as far as the prosecution was concerned and completely flexible as far as the defence was concerned,” Maria Kefalas, an experienced and respected journalist, tells www.2020mag.gr.
Just two reports describing part of the incredible judicial process that took place. Yioupi literally wouldn’t let the prosecuting attorneys finish 2 sentences before interrupting them. She wouldn’t let them ask questions or make comments because they “don’t relate to the merits of the case”. She prevented them from submitting documents with new evidence of the defendant’s actions. She did not allow them to enter new testimony because it “did not have the character of an official statement.”
Conversely, she did not make any objections to the sordid presence of the well-known criminal lawyer who, unlike the prosecution, was free to vulgarize for hours, to humiliate the victims and the other prosecution witnesses. Asking them for reenactments upon reenactments. To belittle them, to vilify them. Nearby, the media gave Kouyas 10 times as much lip service as all the prosecution lawyers, apparently to set the stage for the impending cover-up. This particular court will go down in history as a reminder that not only should we expect nothing from this institution, but also that subhumans like Yioupi and her ilk should not be spared. That disgust and rottenness must be met with the righteousness of revolutionary justice.
The aftermath is known nationwide. The child rapist Dimitris Lignadis, despite being sentenced to 12 years in prison for 2 child rapes, was released with his sentence suspended until the appeal court. This was the logical continuation of the sordid procedure followed throughout the previous proceedings. It is worth noting that Yioupi voted to acquit Lignadis completely for all the rapes, and proposed that he be granted the mitigating circumstance of subsequent good behavior. Lignadis’ release bears the signature of many people and many institutions, and we pledge that none of them will be forgotten by our combatants. No one shall be forgotten so that all those vulnerable and powerless people who were crushed mentally and physically by the boots of the powerful may one day find vindication. It is the government that supported, the police that failed to act, the bourgeois justice system that covered up, Yioupi that abetted, the well-known criminal lawyer that vulgarized and the media that distorted. It is the system itself that rewards its children. So let us take a breath and give ourselves to the struggle wholeheartedly. To put Yioupi and every other Yioupi back where they belong, in the dustbin of history. So that the cesspool of bourgeois justice can never again stain the souls of the people. So that we may never again experience this sordid and trivial court that, with Yioupi as its conductor, released a systematic child abuser of underage souls.
We dedicate our attacks to anarchist hunger striker Alfredo Cospito who is fighting against the brutal 41 Bis detention regime. Alfredo is one of us, he is one of our siblings who arm themselves to attack the tyrants.
Comrade Alfredo the moment we placed our devices in the houses of the judges, our thoughts were with you.
Strength to the hunger strikers Juan and Ivan who are on hunger strike in solidarity with Alfredo.
We do not forget the anarchist comrade Yiannis Mihailidis who is being vengefully deprived of his release by the distinguished bastards of the judicial mafia.
Solidarity and strength to Anarchist Action member Thanos Hatziangelou.
Solidarity to the 4 comrades accused in the case of the Piraeus traffic police arson. Fotis, Iasonas, Lambros, Panagiotis, we are by your side.
Solidarity to the comrades Vangelis Stathopoulos and Dimitris Hadjivassiliadis whose appeal is in progress. We demand the immediate release of Vangelis and support the politics of defending the revolutionary struggle in the courtroom.
Solidarity with the 11 Turkish fighters on hunger strike in Greek prisons. We demand that their demands be accepted and that the vindictive treatment they are suffering be stopped immediately.
Internationalist Solidarity to all political prisoners in Greece, Italy, Chile, Germany, Mexico, Turkey and in every corner of the world.
We are organizing Direct Action Cells to strike against the state and capital.
For Anarchy
Direct Action Cells
Sacco and Vanzetti Cell
source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1621582/
translated by Nae Midion
Note: photo not associated with action