A letter from Koridalos prisons in Athens by 28 year old protester arrested and remanded for his participation in the general strike march of March 11.
Marios' brutal arrest by riot pigs
Marios Z. is a 28 year-old man working as a swimming instructor to children. H was arrested and beaten by cops during the MArch 11 general strike protest march in Athens. In his backpack he carried a bathing robe, swimming suits, hair shampoo etc, because after the demo he was heading to his work. Pigs testifying in court have claimed these were in fact molotov cocktail material with which he attacked them right before his arrest. A statement opposed by eye-witnesses testimonies and plenty of photo material, let alone common sense. Marios is currently remanded and will remain imprisoned for up to 18 months pending his trial according to the greek legislation. His case has caused quite a clamor even in bourgeois media and popular TV news shows. For more info on the case see http://freemariosz.wordpress.com/
From Sector A of Korydallos' prison
19.03.2010
On Thursday 11 of March, I was arrested by the police forces of repression. Any sense of freedom and the right to demonstrate was cancelled in a stroke with rage and violence by a fully-armed riot policeman (MAT), since he was the freedom to do so. The occasion of my arrest was participating in a demonstration to defend the rights of the working -or not- citizens, having a weird haircut and a backpack. The real reason was to set an example.
During the military junta, they used to tear with whips the faces of the young students in and out of the Law School. In our days, with the same barbarity, the "socialist" government, using all means at its disposal tears and stigmatizes the lives of toiling people, those that suffer and those that resist and are not afraid to merely exist, with the violence of economic and terroristic policies.
The political responsibility of my irrational arrest must be claimed by the State. The massive political reaction expressed through this wave of protests, proves that society resists. And this is even more important for me, since I have consciously selected to remain unintegrated [i.e. not belonging to a party etc]. The State demands our inexistance and has a dread of our existance.
It isn't just my remand case, but all the well-known cases of police perjury and frame-ups, that bring out and prove the State's attempt to terrorize and intimidate whoever stands by his/her rights, to discourage any others that dare to support them, setting up docile societies that won't protest nor assert their rights.
I am thankfull to all those fighting for my release either from the very beginning, or joining in during the fight, from a sincere concern, away from any political and party interests, either by means I agree with or not, since I don't think what is sensible to do now is to discuss the various ways to manifest our solidarity, but to sit the State itself in judgement for its practices.
Freedom to all prisoners, to all fighters for the liberation of all prisoners and of the spirit. A slogan from the GADA (Athenian Police Headquarters) prisons, written on the yellow walls, next to prisoners forgotten for days and nights in awful conditions:
"Golden cage or humid cage, makes little difference to the bird".
Marios Z.
PS. "Of all the things which wisdom provides for the all-round happiness of life, by far the greatest is the possession of friends" - Epicurus
Comments
A clear, straight forwardly
A clear, straight forwardly moving letter ( though the pedant in me questions the Epicurus wording " the possession of friends", but I obviously know what he means).
I was wondering if this guy was well-known to the cops for his independant radical stance and was therefore deliberately targetted as an "example" or whether this was just an arbitrary arrest - in which case, what 'example' does it give? an example to others not to go on demonstrations? surely that would just backfire against the State...?- It puts off very few - the most timid and so the least able to contribute to anything interesting happening on demonstrations - but angers a lot; is there a chance that the Socialist government might intervene on his behalf to show how good they are, or do things not work like that in Greece? Surely PASOK haven't totally given up on maintaining a margin of credibility with some of their more proletarianised supporters less than 6 months after their election?Such arbitrary 'justice' can't be good for them - I know the State is stupid, but usually it's more intelligent in defending its stupidity than seems to be the case in Greece at present. Antagonising even the bourgeois media is not helpful to it - and i was wondering how the government's relations with its cops might develop - how it might rein them in a bit to keep an image of there being a separation between 'law' and 'order', between State legality and the cops. How much was the judge in this case acing independentoy and how much was he doing the State's bidding? If it seems like these questions are questions for questions' sake, I apologise, but I think beginning to answer them could help with a practical opposition to the State's strategy, which I imagine changes a bit from day to day, depending on events...
I dont think the guy was
I dont think the guy was arrested because he was known, but simply as an example for others not to go to the demos, a routine strategy in other words when riots break out. This strategy however is misplaced in that it is applied under completely different conditions than the ones under which it was developed (i.e. late 1990s PASOK ruled blooming of the greek economy and wholesale collaborationism). The declarations of the always belligerent Minister of Public Order rule out any government intervention for his release, an intervention which is anyway illegal in greece as it infringes on the independent power of "justice". On the other hand, in a rare step of solidarity (or is it simply calculation?) the Radical Left Coalition published today a document demanding the immediate release of Marios. Naturally GSEE has made no similar step, although it was officially its protest march. But what can you expect from sold out scum who had the PM as a main speaker in their congress yesterday, despite the State's attack on labour. Now regarding the attitude of the government to cops its an interesting issue which needs to be studied more. Incidentally it has been reported that hundreds of cops are resigning because the government has forced them to bare numbers indicating who they are (thus making them answerable for brutalities). Also the degree of the judge's actual independence is a big issue here - yet it also depends on the consistency of the court: if there is a jury (citizens) the actual procedure is very different from lets say "anti-terrorist" law courts where only three professional judges take the decisions. In the case of Marios the waiving of defense witnesses by the judge (which is illegal) proves a direct intervention by the State.