Support economically and politically the 4 persecuted comrades, who are under trial on 6 February 2023. The 4 anarchists are being persecuted, under “anti-terrorist” law for participating in an allegedelly “terrorist” organization named “comrades”. No one alone against the state! International revolutionary solidarity!
Chronicle of the prosecution
On March 8th and 9th 2020, after a state security operation, three male and one female comrade are arrested. Τhe authorities’ sole piece of evidence was two cops having ‘visually’ identified the first arrested person on a video of the attack against the Mitsotakis* Foundation. The other three were arrested due to their friendly and comradely relationships. They now find themselves charged with an enormous case file which includes 55 attacks.
Based on the anti-terrorist Act 187A, they are charged with setting up and participating in an alleged terrorist organization under the name of “comrades” . The authorities are prosecuting the comrades based on attacks, actions and public addresses uploaded on counter-information platforms which had been signed using the term “comrades”. In this way, the police are attempting to bring any political action signed by “comrades” together under the umbrella of a collective terrorist organization.
A few words on the construct of the organization “comrades”, from the statement of the prosecuted female comrade in May 2020: “Behold then, the State, in its attempt to sell the ideological construct of “war against terrorism”, fabricating organizations. They claim the terrorist organization they created by the name “comrades” to be a group that has acted since 2016 up to the present, carrying out attacks in Athens. This reasoning goes beyond normality or reality in a way that can only be called ridiculous. In fact, the name of this infamous organization is but a sign-off used by the broader spectrum of anarchist/ anti-authoritarian groups for many years now. It was used, it is still being used and it will continue to be used. Anyone who searches can find hundreds of texts bearing the said signature all over Greece, most probably even abroad. This new stratagem, the use, that is, of a broader signature and its conversion into the name of a terrorist organization, is unprecedented and its only aim can be to “lump” together a wide, diverse and multi-faceted range of action on the part of the broader anti-authoritarian movement, as well as to terrorize all who belong there. It´s now the turn of the “solidarity”, the “anarchists”, the “communists” to be called terrorist organizations and there’s no end to the lumping“.
* The ultra-right Greek Prime Minister.
After being held for a week at the Athens Police Headquarters, the comrades are set free but on the following harsh restraining orders:
– Present themselves at a police station 3 times a month,
– Ban on communication or socializing between them,
– Ban on participation in any political gathering or protest march,
– Ban on entering the area of Exarcheia,
– Ban on leaving the country,
– Confiscation of their whole property,
while the comrade G.I. is additionally forced to move back to his hometown.
These restraining orders bear very specific consequences on the lives of the four accused, since they aim at the disruption of their social life and political action, as well as their absolute economic exhaustion. What’s more, the displacement of one of them from the city where he lived for years fully cuts him off from maintaining his relationships and his work, making it obvious that the State will target in every way possible those who fight against it.
At a later stage, in November 2020, the following restraining orders were added for comrade G.I.:
– Ban on leaving his hometown,
– Ban on entering any region within Attica (Athens),
– Ban on using any two-wheeled vehicle as a driver or co-driver.
Comrade G.I. has been stranded in this peculiar hostage state for almost three years now. The judicial authorities, despite his repeated pleas for a lift of the restraining orders, make a point of exhibiting their control over all aspects of his life by dismissing them. Without question, the exemption status shows a historical continuity when it comes to political prisoners, the prosecuted and the fighters. In this particular case, the State apparatus, exhausting all possible means at their disposal, has created a stranglehold of political and economic isolation for the comrade. Political in that he is banished from his field of action, the metropolis, and economic isolation in that he is excluded from choices that concern his everyday subsistence.
The said comrades, from the outset of this ridiculous fabrication, have denied all accusations and publicly declared that they are being prosecuted solely on the grounds of their political identity and their comradely relationships. And that through the usual ways in which the State prosecutes anarchists, with police still trying but failing to find any sufficient supporting evidence (DNA, fingerprints, calls, messages) that would connect the four accused to any attack.
In November 2021, the Public Prosecutor proposes the full acquittal of the four comrades and the lift on all the restraining orders. According to her proposal, there is not enough evidence to bring the four accused comrades to trial.
Two and a half years after the arrest of the comrades, after repeated rejections of the pleas for lifting the restraining orders against the displaced comrade G.I., as well as the rejection of the above-mentioned acquittal proposal of the Public Prosecutor by the First-instance judicial council, the trial for the case of “comrades” has been set to begin on February 6th at the 5th Court of Appeal for Felonies.
The trial and the indictment