Tag: english

SOCIAL STRUGGLES ARE NEITHER LEGAL NOR ILLEGAL: THEY ARE JUST

On Saturday, 4th September, five Serbian anarchists, members of the Anarcho-syndicalist Initiative, were arrested and accused for the solidarity attack against the Greek embassy in Belgrade, which took place in support with Thodoris Iliopoulos, a hunger striker at the time.

Their arrests were essentially announced in advance, when the Serbian president Boris Tadic apologized to the Greek ambassador (Greece comprises the key investor of Serbian economy, with 2,5 billion Euro per year) and assured him “the serbian state would do everything in its capacity to identify and punish those responsible for the attack accordingly”.

The Serbian state (and the socialist coalition government) in complete harmonisation with the international climate of repression against the social movements chose to charge the five comrades with participation in an action of international terrorism.

The barbarity of modern bourgois democracy is the same everywhere…

For us it is insignificant whether they are “guilty” or “innocent”.

We ought to respond not only to the arrest of our comrades but also to the charge of international terrorism that aims directly against the international resistance movement.

We stand in solidarity with the five Serbian comrades, we stand in solidarity to each person that revolts and resists state power and global capital, the only true terrorists.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF THE 5 SERBIAN ANARCHISTS

SOLIDARITY FOR A GLOBAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT

UNTIL THE FINAL VICTORY

Open assembly of anachists for a unified multiform movement

(Athens)

[the translation is independent, and we are not part of the Open Assembly. thanks for the help of Occupied London]

[with minor changes]

https://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1078774

On 3rd of September 5 persons from the Anarchosyndicalistic Initiative were arrested with the outrageous charge of “international terrorism” for damage that happened at the Greek Embassy in Belgrade the night of 25th August, after an action of internationalist solidarity to Thodoris Iliopoulos. Despite the insignificant damage that happened to the building (a broken glass and a slogan with a sprey on the wall), the state’s mechanism started a witch hunting, arresting known anarchist with public action.
The conditions of their arrest are also indescribable, substantially they abducted them from their houses for interrogation, without warrant! The sentence that will be imposed to them if they are found guilty is from 3 to 15 years, unthinkable if it is compared with the inconsequential sentence of some partisans that burned the Greek embassy in Belgrade before some years after basketball match between the two countries.
The case acquires larger interest for our country, after publications of the press in which it is reported by police sources that the attack had been organized from July when Greek anarchists had visited Belgrade for the meeting for the Balkan Anarchist Book Festival that will take place next year in Belgrade. It directly aims this institution that goes on the last 5 years in the Balkans, with the last organization in Thessalonica last May.
The delirium of the former director of  Inteligence Service Bozidar Spazic exceeds every limit when he says that we should not underestimate Greek anarchists because they have relations with organizations as ETA or the IRA and abduct shipowners (!!!). In the same publication, Darko Trifunovic, professor in the Faculty of Security, says that he does not exclude the possibility of Greeks helping in the attack. Also, that anarchism in Greece is connected with the social situation, consequently the ideas and the actions of Greek anarchists would find fertile ground in the Balkans.
It becomes clear with these statements that the serbian state attempts to shield itself against the social explosion that undergoes in Serbia too, with the enormous rates of unemployment, the selling out of public enterprises and the corruption that involves in the entire public sector. No matter how many extensions of logic that it does, however, and no matter how much it wishes to show good conduct to the European Union with prosecutions of supposed terrorists, no mind can think the penalization of social struggles. By the absurd sentences that are proposed for the arrested, it becomes more obvious the intention of the state to use a insignificant case as excuse for application of new repressive laws with direct aiming at the resisting parts of the society.
The social struggles cannot be penalized, cannot be repressed, cannot be imprisoned.
“Solidarity-Antiauthoritarian Movement” (Thessaloniki)

[independent translation-we are not members of S-AK]

https://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1079124