Forums of the Libertarian Left

Three of the four accused of involvement in the urban guerrilla group Nuclei of Fire Conspiracy were remanded in custody pending trial, after the state investigator applied the anti-terrorist law to them which permits imprisonment "in expectation of evidence against them".

After two days of a legal marathon, during which hundreds of solidarity protestors gathered in the high court yards, the investigation hearings of the 4 teenagers accused as members of the urban guerrilla group Nuclei of Fire Conspiracy came to an end, with the release of the 20 year old girl and the pre-trial jailing of the three remaining defendants. The conclusion of the investigation has created an uproar amongst progressive members of the legal world in the country given that the girl released and one of the jailed boys (her boyfriend) have exactly the same accusations and the same evidence against them. Moreover the girl will not be allowed to continue her studies in London given that the investigator (the so-called 32nd State Inquisitor) ruled that she cannot leave the country until her trial.

Given that the persecution's evidence against the three boys are less than feeble, the investigator has taken back her earlier statement and has applied the notorious anti-terrorist law on the teenagers. The Greek anti-terrorist law was voted in by PaSoK (Socialist Party) in 2002 after the arrest of the elusive November 17 urban guerrilla groups. This law basically cancels every single article of the constitution by allowing the detention of individuals pending evidence against them.

The three boys now stand accused of membership to the urban guerrilla group "jeopardizing democracy and political system of the Republic", and for participation in three bombings of apartments housing a) the now chief of the secret services, b) the ex-chief of the general staff and ex-minister of public order, c) the ex-minister of education and his wife, the shadow minister of economics for PaSoK. The three do NOT stand accused of the approximately 150 arson-storming attacks claimed by the NFC before the start of its bombing campaign last spring.

In case you didn't learn it, the social-democratic goverment of PASOK, made an police operation at Exarcheia and arrested 61 (or more) suspects. I don't know details, but the government bragged about its "success at fighting anarchy" or something like that.

Continuing waves of mass police operations in down town Athens set the pace for new era of repression in Greece

Everyone thought it was just a show of power - but it proved to be the Socialist government's plan for "change" after 5 years of brutal right wing rule.

The police invasion of Exarcheia, the Athens alternative-radical hub, on the early hours of Friday 9 October was evaluated by most journalists, activists and veteran politicians as a power-show of the new government, in response to a limited solidarity attack against banks in the area just out of Exarcheia earlier the same day. Minister of Public Order Mr Chrisochoidis, the notorious anti-terrorist mastermind of the last Pasok administration, appeared to many as just typically determined to show who is the new boss. But the continuing waves of police invasion (3 by Friday 19:00 pm) into an area which is commonly acknowledged as the most vibrant intellectual, student and political hub of the country, with hundreds of people stopped and checked, many manifold times in the same day, shops stormed, and locals humiliated by being made to kneel on the pavement and body-searched, has come to prove the new government's self-professed "antiauthoritarianism" a bitter joke.

A 25 year old Pakistani sans papier immigrant succumbed yesterday to woulds inflicted while being tortured in the police station of Nikea, Athens, two weeks ago.

Mohamed Kamran Atif, a 25 year old Pakistani sans papier immigrant succumbed on Friday 9th of October to wounds inflicted while being tortured in the police station of Nikea, an Athens suburb, between the 26th and 28th of September 2009.

On September 26 at 1:30 am, 15 cops broke in the appartment of the young man, beating him and his family, alleging that Mohamed had beaten a greek adolescent. According to neighbours the cops dragged Mohamed by his feet down the stairs banging his head on his steps till he fainted.

The police then took Mohamed to the police station of Nikea where he was held for two days subjected to brutal torture. The police tied him up and beat him with sticks, followed by electric shocks to the hands and knees. Upon his release, due to the case against him found without ground, Mohamed avoided going to the hospital due to the new law that would have refused him healthcare as he lacks papers. As a result within a few weeks lesions caused by the torture led to his death.