i) C’ Type prisons – an act of war
ii) Propaganda prefaces the war.
Text from the comrades concerning the creation of an assembly of solidarity and action with the political prisoners
C’ type prisons wish to become the monument of the state’s victory against the urban guerrilla warfare. It is a bet for us, if we’re going to let thousand tonnes of concrete, the bars and the locks beat the human will for freedom, a bet which is to be answered through action by the enemies of the regime and the friends of freedom.
For years now, politically, TV personalities of the system and salaried pen-holders of the police, have engaged in a mud fight against the urban guerrilla warfare, with the depoliticizing of it. “Osmosis of criminals and terrorists”, “cooperation between terrorists and organized crime”, “revolutionary pool” are the vanguard of the lie. Propaganda wishes to hide, covering with its mud, the self-evident of the constant revolt. A constant revolt of the ones who refuse to live as slaves and attack with arms against their headsmen, the silence, the conservatism and the resignation of the majority of society.
Wishing to decouple the possible perspective of the violent insurrectionary action and to mutilate its diffusion, power uses lies and slander in order to present the armed urban guerrillas as insane criminals. And all these, the same time when their bloodthirsty democracy makes thousands of people commit suicide and poisons every moment of our lives through the terrorism of poverty, repression, a police state, loneliness, exploitation while it tricks the naive ones through the fake freedom of consumption, spectacle, mass entertainment, digital reality and the civilization of the mediocre ones.
The highlight of the political propaganda against the urban guerrilla warfare was set up early 2014, after the trespass of Christodoulos Xiros sabbatical, who instead of coming back to prison voluntarily, chose the path of illegality and complicity with the new urban guerilla warfare. Headlines and reportage with catchy titles like “New Year’s terror eve with the CCF”, “prisons are safe houses of terrorists” became the flagship of lies. What bothered the power most, together with the escape of the comrade Christodoulos Xiros, was that despite our arrests, we have never turned into dormant trophies in the hands of our wardens. For the unrepentant urban guerrillas, prison is not a palace of fear, it is a place of captivity that digs in and tempers more the willingness for rebellion and freedom.
Power’s lies fan fear in order for this to be the gateway from the regime of fake freedom, to the status of emergency. The status of emergency is the disguised “we decide and we order”. Early 2014, the ex-judge minister Charalambos Athanasiou, issued a 100-day ultimatum, on the kickoff of the maximum security prisons. As the famous phrase “politics are the continuation of the war by other means” applies vice versa, the political propaganda against the urban guerilla warfare is now followed by military measures. So, there is the announcement of the transformation of Domokos prisons into C’ type prisons, whose external safekeeping will be taken up by 300 policemen, who will camp out in special buildings-military barracks. Moreover, more than half of the “common” detainees have already been transferred, in order for them to be replaced by “dangerous terrorists” and “members of the organized crime”. We won’t say much about the C’ type prisons, because most of it has already been written. Political and physical isolation, mail censorship, restriction of visiting, ban of licenses . . . A new prison inside the prison, a barred place of oblivion in order for us to forget the struggle and to be forgotten as prisoners. A concrete grave where oblivion wishes to erase the will for freedom. At the same time, a public bogeyman in plain sight, a Greek Guantanamo for anyone who will question through action and armed struggle, the local prefects of the global Western empire.
Fear is penetrating and reaches the bone. The answer to the fear is not to close our eyes, but to attack with all our strengths. It goes without saying that the C’ type prisons were created in order to curb the urban guerrilla warfare, the revolutionary organizations (whether they’re anarchist or communist, or nihilistic or social) and their members. It would be inexpedient, however, to think that the power’s strategy settles only for its basic goal. Power is naturally expansionary. This is why it widens the iron net of the maximum security’s widespread captivity to comrades or individuals accused of being members of armed organizations, without ever having claimed responsibility, as well as to “powerful criminals” who bother the police.
In any case, the state’s obsession with the urban guerrilla warfare’s repression is also obvious from the fact that in the draft law on C’ type prisons there’s a beneficial arrangement that even provides the release from prison for every wannabe squealer (unless he himself is persecuted by the anti-terrorist law) who’s going to give any information on armed revolutionary organizations actions. Moreover, Greek authorities, mimicking their foreign colleagues, introduced secretly through the backdoor the “inducement” of public renunciation of the urban guerrilla warfare in return for an advantageous treatment of the repentant ones, in licensing issues and reducing the sentence. There’s not only the warranty of the draft law that sets the district attorney as responsible for the continuation or not of the “imprisoned terrorist” Custodial after 4 years (needless to say that for any still unrepentant “terrorist” the custody in C’ type isolation regime will probably be indefinitely extended). There is also the court of appeals prosecutor’s official report during the disciplinary prosecution process of penitentiary administration for the escape of Christodoulos Xiros, as this "particular detainee never renounced terrorism. Instead through his writings posted on the websites zougla.gr and Athens Indymedia still speaks of popular uprising and armed struggle. . . "
This works as a small prefiguring of a future which shows that even the texts of an "imprisoned terrorist" will play a key role in the granting or the denying of a sabbatical.
However, the expansionary war of the power, the way it is incarnated during this period with the C’ type prisons, in no way can it lead anarchists to a stampede of recoil and defense, behind legal dikes and funny panicked generalizations, like "the state prosecutes and imprisons anarchist ideas". No, the state attacks the ones who put into practice anarchist ideas, regardless of whether the counter-terrorist unit often arrests comrades or people who have no connection with the urban guerrilla warfare. The ideology of victimization produces victims itself and strengthens the enemy. When people either naively or intentionally see the ghosts of the Orwellian thought police existing today and subside in to defeatism, they only manage to bring future repression closer and faster.
Every step back, camouflaged in ridiculous excuses like “they get us”, “things were different some time ago”, “we now don’t have the leeway” is a ground donated to the advance of the police state.
If the state thinks it disentangles the urban guerrilla warfare, it will then expand its repression to every form of direct action that so far doesn’t have "counter-terrorist" criminal penalties. Because, even the state, in contrast with some “anarchists” perceives the connection of the diversity of direct action with the urban guerrilla warfare.
Whoever isolates and ghettoizes a means of struggle like the urban guerrilla warfare practically buries and weakens all the other means, as it leaves them exposed to the oncoming repression.
“Tomorrow they’re coming after you” is the result of a counter-arms fetishism promoted by some smokeless veterans of nothingness, who supposedly anti-propose the “non-armed confrontational anarchy”. Complicated and pompous definitions in order for their cowardice to be covered.
Currently in Greece there are several political prisoners accused of revolutionary action groups in which they’re involved, and some comrades and some people who are prosecuted for the same cases. Our word is always clear. Different perceptions and contrasts among us are numerous and enmity with some people is a fact. As the Imprisoned Members Cell of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire we think that, despite the different perspectives between us, there’s a common starting point to connect us with the political prisoners who have claimed responsibility for the organizations they belong to and the comrades accused of these cases, without having slandered and lied against revolutionary organizations. The common starting point is the uncompromising struggle against power, always from the side of the unrepentant enemies of the regime. As has been said "Words divide. . . Acts unite."
We read the letter-call [1] from the member of Revolutionary Struggle Nikos Maziotis and we decided to support his suggestion.
The Open Assembly of Anarchists/Anti-authoritarians against the special detention conditions was one of the few, maybe the only public collective procedure, which in spite of the times stood against the invasion of the maximum security prisons. We believe that the suggestion for its restart and its evolution, an assembly of solidarity with the political prisoners, upgrades its quality characteristics and makes things clear.
Every comrade who’s against the special detention conditions is automatically a solidarian with the political prisoners and whoever is solidarian with the political prisoners who are persecuted for urban guerrilla warfare actions cannot do anything but acknowledge (regardless of his/her participation or not, or his/her disagreements on specific issues) that the urban guerrilla warfare isn’t just another part of the struggle’s diversity, BUT an indispensable part of it . . . Much could be written on struggle’s diversity, on direct action and on urban guerrilla warfare. We believe that we are at the beginning of a conversation that will not disappear in a conversation.
To us, it is important the assembly of solidarity, if put into practice, to be a breeding ground of conversation, friction and communication which will provoke the action. The assembly that just reproduces itself is doomed to lapse into a boring chore. When the assembly turns into a coin of public relations, it becomes person-centered and mostly harmless. We have no illusions about what happens inside the milieu nor will we invoke a fake unity which is useless and hypocritical.
For us, an assembly of solidarity can be a new starting point for the new comrades mainly, to get rid of the ideological past icons, the “retired veterans” and the inertia and meet in order to act. For this reason, we add to the suggestion made, the name of the assembly to become “assembly of solidarity and action with the political prisoners”. To be honest, we don’t like calling someone just as “solidarian”. It subconsciously creates divisions that lead to "personalities" and "followers". It goes without saying that an anarchist is a solidarian, the bet is for him/her to become an “accomplice” . . . (without stopping to be critical of course).
So, as much has been written and more has been spoken on solidarity, we will end our statement and our support to the suggestion made, with an old but all time classic slogan:
“If the “innocent” ones deserve our solidarity once, then the “guilty” ones deserve it a thousand times . . .”
Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, FAI-IRF / Imprisoned Members Cell*
Argyrou Panagiotis
Mavropoulos Theofilos
Bolano Damianos
Nikolopoulos Giorgos
Nikolopoulos Michalis
Economidou Olga
Polydoros Giorgos
Tsakalos Gerasimos
Tsakalos Christos
Hatzimihelakis Haris
Korydallos Prison , 10-11-2014[2]
Translator's notes:
[1] Nikos Maziotis suggested through a personal text of his the transformation of the assembly against the special detention conditions (maximum security prisons) into an assembly of solidarity with the political prisoners, imprisoned and persecuted fighters. The assembly has already been transformed and started its actions, with several imprisoned comrades supporting it.
[2] translated in english by the Circle of Individualist Anarchists - English translation edited by In the Belly of the Beast