The case of the 4 arrested during the police operation at ASOEE on 22/10 | Demonstration 21-12

If it wasn’t about the life and dignity of 3 people, we could talk about a sketchy/rough farce in 4 acts.

1st act
Tuesday 22/10. Another spectacular police operation on the occasion of “the fight against the commerce of street vendors” in Patission avenue, outside the ASOEE university. The cops -in the presence of the TV channels and the subminister Mitarakis- enter the university. Faced by hundreds of students, they are forced to leave. Despite no clashes taking place during the operation, anybody who appears to be an immigrant is arrested in the vicinity of ASOEE.

2nd act
Four of the arrested immigrants are accused with rigged indictment: resisting arrest and attempted bodily harm. They are taken to the court, but it is decided to set them free until the date of the trial, which is set for 10/12. However, the cops decide to keep them in jail, because they consider them as a danger to “public order and safety”. They base their decision on the rigged indictment that they themselves made up. The administrative court validates the cops’ decision.

3rd act
10/12. The trial lasts for many hours in front of tens of people who have come in solidarity. The verdict is that all four of them are to be acquitted. The silly and contradictory testimonies of the cops made certain of this positive outcome. All the people in solidarity who were in court begin to applaud. We have the impression that they will be soon free, together again with us.

4th act
11/12. The three immigrants are still imprisoned at the police department for seemingly administrative reasons. The police continues to keep them in jail despite the verdict of acquittal of the court, and it seems they are doing all they can in order to prolong the detention of the immigrants.

In other words, the life and freedom of the immigrants lie in the absolute power of the police and at the mercy of every racist cop. Through a network of racist administrative laws, the state has enabled the cops to control immigrants, to arrest them, to take them to court and to imprison them summarily and without regulation. That is exactly what is happening in the case of the arrested of 22/10 at ASOEE. The cops arrest many immigrants and later hold them in prison, in order to justify the unjustifiable. They accused four of them with rigged indictment and then they decided that their arrest makes them “a danger to public order and the security of the country”. Moreover, despite the fact that they were acquitted by the court, the cops insist arbitrarily and vindictively to prolong their imprisonment. They express their racist fury against those who struggle to live with dignity and are opposed to discrimination and state terrorism.

The rigged indictments and the state machinations do not frighten us, but they fill us with rage.

When the struggle to survive  lies at the mercy of the police and their obscure administrative procedures, is given the name
 “danger to public order and security”

Our answer is:
Solidarity and common struggles of locals and immigrants

DEMONSTRATION 21-12 | 13.00

Charilaou Trikoupi & Kallidromiu Str., Exarcheia