For one more time, the last period, the region around Victoria square becomes a police-band zone with different kind of cops (MAT, DIAS, undercover cops and other state’s guards) camping on the square and the streets close to it. This time, after the squat “Villa Amalias, in their target is the Economical University of Athens.
So, on Friday, 28-12-2012 with a spectacular operation they invade the university. They arrest 16 people- all of them immigrants, as the university was empty of students because of the Xmas- who had entered the restaurant of the university trying to avoid the arrestment. Moreover, some of the arrested immigrants were just passing by when the police invaded the building. The police entering the university go straight to the basement of the building where different students’ political haunts are located and breaking their doors they enter finding articles, posters, brochures, libraries and the radio equipment of 98fm. Instantly out of the university solidarity peoples arrive but they are pushed back by the cops. During the transportation of the arrested immigrants to the Kipseli’s police station, inside the van and far from the media spotlight, the cops are terrifying and beating them denying transporting them to the hospital. Next morning they go to trial on charges for selling low value non-taxed items. The trial is postponed and 14 of them are set free until the new date of the trial while 2 remain detained because they don’t have legal papers.
With the usual tactic of anonymous complaint (!) for illicit goods, a court order is issued ordering the police forces to invade the university. It is not, as usual, one more brutal police operation against the immigrant peddlers who have their merchandise outside the university. This time a spectacular operation is staged in partnership with the police, the government, the local authorities (mayor Kaminis) and the rector of the university (Konstantinos Gatsios) where quick enough is proved that was not targeting exclusively the petty trade.
They are not targeting lawless enclaves, they are targeting resistance enclaves
They are targeting the social dimension of university asylum. But the university has a very specific history and it is something much more than classrooms. It is a place where political fermentations take place and resistances are built. It is a place that serves as a shelter for demonstrators and chased from state repression. And there is no law needed to confirm and support its existence. It istheacquis of countlessstruggles, violentornot, that renders it to the historical memory a place inhospitable to the police. Andallthesearenotdeletedbyanypoliceinvasion.
They are targeting the students’ political haunts, squatted places inside the university. Places that produce subversive speech and action, hospitalize political and cultural events, lending libraries, etc. Places where no tolerance to hierarchy, experts, racial hate, sex discrimination is accepted. Places where horizontal relationships against any kind of domination are being built. And all these are not evacuated by any police invasion
They are targeting structures built by the movement. In this occasion, a radio station that undermines the dominant propaganda, the lifestyle and the consumption. A radio station that the microphones are given to those who participate to the movement. A radio station that was made collectively producing subversive speech and action. And all these are not impounded by any police invasion
They are targeting the struggle of immigrant peddlers of ASOEE. People chased from their countries due to economical and war reasons, arriving here to face the marginalization, the racism and the exploitation, the police and fascists attacks. People who have quite limited livelihood opportunities, not because they chose it, but because of the condition obtruded on them. People who try through the petty trade to earn some money and live in dignity. Coexisting in harmony with us, they choose to break their fear and isolation, to resist, having common struggles with the natives, to build with students and solidarity people struggle communities through their participation in the assembly of “immigrants and solidarity of ASOEE”. Of course, the aggregation and the organization of those who suffer the state oppression is the number one danger for the authority, which reproduces itself by making artificial divisions. And all these are not repressed by any police invasion.
These are being built in the Economical University of Athens and the authority characterizes them as lawless enclaves.
And we ask ourselves : where is the real injustice, the real lack of logic ?
Is it when a law is passed to decrease the wages and pensions, to cut all the social services, to authorise dismissal without reasons, to make us work more for less money, while at the same time laws favorise in a scandaleous way banks, ship owners, big industrials and others bosses ?
Is it when laws lead more and more parts of society to poverty and misery, while they try to stop each effort to resist from the ones who struggle ?
Who are the ones who are threatened by laws and who are the ones who are threatened by the enclaves of lawlessnes ?
In which way the asylum, the political haunts and occupied places, the self-managed radios, the infrastructures of the movement, the migrants vendors, are all a threat for the ones at the below? Who can feel themselves in danger apart from authority et those who supports it ?
In a world where the law is made to oppress the poors et repress those who struggle, we choose to be illegals.
There is a direct link between the eviction of the squat Villa Amalias and the raid against ASOEE, who are both placed in the centre of Athens, in the heart of the metropole.
The center of Athens, where most of the social conflicts occur, where the developping social oppositions are demonstrated in the most obvious way, where survival and prosperity are separated by a thin line, where poverty and misery are side by side with over-consumerism, where the social struggles face the capitalist restructuration and developpement.
The centre of Athens, where the nazi practices of clean spaces has been established for the last years. This all began in the area of Agios Panteleimonas where Golden Dawn started to establish its presence in the political scene. By exploiting the social and economic circumstances, the rough situation of the locals and migrants living in the area, but especially with the excellent support of the State, Golden Dawn started to put intro practice the “cleaning” of the area. It’s obvious that the struggles that occured in ASOEE, Villa Amalias squat and all others hearths of resistance in the area are important ramparts against the spreading of their inhuman plannings.
This is the exact field where ASOEE and Villa Amalias are placed, and they made the clear choice to be side by side with those at the below of the social pyramid.
And us, we make a clear choice to stand up against the war that they have declared to us. We choose, us locals and migrants, the collective path of the struggle against the modern totalitarism that they are trying to impose to us. With solidarity, self-organisation and our horizontal structures, we create hearths of resistance and freedom.
NOTHING HAS ENDED, EVERYTHING STARTS NOW
NO PROSECUTION OF MIGRANTS VENDORS
SOLIDARITY WITH VILLA AMALIAS SQUAT AND EVERY SELF-MANAGED PLACE
Initiative of the Assembly of Migrants and Solidarians of ASOEE