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

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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

News, Texts

Microfoniki on October 15th at Victoria square and police repression

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On Tuesday October 15th at 5pm we organized a manifestation with microfoniki and distribution of brochures in Victoria square on the occasion of Paulos Fyssas’ murder. The intervention was organized by the assembly of immigants and solidarians, the auto-administered squat of ASOEE university and the assembly of Victoria square. Victoria square was filled with music and brochures were distributed to locals and immigrants. Two hours later, and while the manifestation reached to its end, two trucks with cops “MΑΤ” appeared at the top of the square. Shortly after their disembarkation, the cops made their moods clear and lined up opposite the protesters. Two cops in shirts approached us in order to let us know about their demands. We immediately surrounded the cops in charge of social relations and we demanded to know why they prohibited the manifestation. Despite the pressure, the cops persisted in the order from on high, “to evacuate the square” (pogrom?) without ever explaining to us the reason. Eventually, despite the fact that the cops threatened us with arrests, we decided to leave under no escort. We have to mention that a few hours earlier the arrest of 15 members of the “Antifascist Front” had taken place, while they were placarding posters in Patission avenue in order to propagandize the anti-fascist moto protest carried out on Wednesday 23/10 in Keratsini. The strong police presence in the area is a very old story, but until now we were not accustomed to the ban of demonstrations, distribution of brochures etc.

The cops’ provocations were repeated on October 19th when a group of “DIAS” arrested 6 members of the Antifascist Coordination of Athens and Piraeus outside the Attiki train station, while they were going to an action of contra info at the open-air market in Michail Voda street (they carried brochures and a bucket in order to placard posters), on the occasion of the antifascist demonstration at Agios Panteleimonas on October 26th. The cops claimed that they had orders from on high to arrest whoever distributes leaflets, and so they checked if the brochures provoked violent actions, for instance because of their slogan or photos. We must note that fascists of the Golden Dawn had thrown too many flyers on Liosia avenue that day, but the police didn’t arrest them…The cops led the antifascists in a police van in Omonia and they checked their identities without taking them to the police station. Later, they released them. Finally, the antifascist coordination made the intervention in Michail Voda street, with the participation of 50 people, along with those who had been arrested earlier in Attiki. The distribution of the brochures was successful, because they distributed lots of them to natives and immigrants, but on the corner of Michail Voda and Pipinou, Giannatos, the known fascist of the Golden Dawn and also the chairman of the “committee of residents of Agios Panteleimonas”, together with 2-3 people they started to insult and provoke the antifascists, who responded. Therefore, the situation reached a point of high tension. The fascists’ hysteria was so big, that the cops arrested Giannatos outside the local police station. The antifascist action continued with slogans, distribution of brochures and placarding of posters for some time after the above episode and ended at 15:00 pm.

 

We are not terrified and we will be in the streets for as long as necessary.

COMMON STRUGGLES OF NATIVES AND IMMIGRANTS

Cops and fascists, listen well:

THE STREETS AND SQUARES BELONG TO THE PEOPLE WHO RESIST

Texts

A common story that was repeated (not accidentally) once again

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text of the assembly about the police invasion of 22-10 in ASOEE university and the arrests:

On Tuesday 22/10 the cops attacked once again the ASOEE university because they wanted to damage the trade that we do outside of the school. The minister of development Notis Mitarakis and TV channels were outside the university together with the cops. Journalists from the TV channel ALPHA were  near  ASOEE from 9am and we suppose that they were informed of the operation of the police, because it took place at 11am. Finally, they didn’t seem to be pleased by how things happened and TV channels didn’t show anything that day. The cops entered the school yard and surrounded it and they allowed only students to enter. They wanted to go inside the buildings and they arrested everyone who seemed to be foreign. On 9/5/2012,when the cops had made a similar operation at ASOEE, they arrested a world know Indian professor, who was invited by the university!

Hundreds of students were gathered at the school yard, they sang slogans and they demanded the police to leave. The cops remained about an hour at the yard and eventually not only failed to invade the buildings but they were driven out of the school by the students. However, they arrested 4 immigrants in totally different places around the school and while no clash had taken place, they accused them (as usual) for resistance against the authorities and attempting to cause serious bodily harm.

At noon of the same day, a general assembly of students decided to occupy the school until Thursday 24/10 and to make a protest march against the invasion of cops and for solidarity to the 4 arrested immigrants. The protest march took place in the afternoon near the neighbourhood.  On 24/10 the four detainees were led to court, where regular day of trial was set for 31/10. On 30/10 the cops tried again to create an aura of terror by surrounding ASOEE and they remained in the wider area for about three hours, while they threw a few tear gases. The next day in court the case of  four immigrants was not heard and the trial was suspended for 10/12. The thing that is the most frustrating of all is that while from the first time on 24/10, the court had decided that the 4 immigrants will be released until the trial, on the contrary they remain detained until today.

This situation makes us feel angry but it doesn’t surprise us, because we know that many inhabitants of this country, the immigrants, are estimated from the state as second-class people. Too many racist administration laws define their lives to such an extent that there is a serious chance for them to be transported to the other side of the world, or to the detention centres all over Greece. On every occasion the cops and their political superiors advertise this policy, so as we get used to the submission and degradation of our lives. The detention of immigrants without official identities for 12 to 18 months is supposed to be a special case of the law, but however it is the rule since the decision is made by the police.  Apart from the special administrative measures which impose the deprivation of liberty only for immigrants, there are also special provisions that give the additional capability to the cops to exclude any immigrant (with or without official identity) even from these administrative laws, and to consider him as a “danger to public safety or public health”. They can even decide to remove his identity, confine him for eighteen months in a concentration camp and deport him. In other words, the police can arrest an immigrant, accuse him for whatever they want (as they very well know how to do) and then decide that this arrest makes him “a danger to public order or security of the country” and therefore lead him to detention and deportation. And in case of appeal against this decision, responsible to judge is again the police…Even if these measures are not enough, the police have the political support and cover to continue an illegal, unjustified and vindictive detention, without any written decision, as it is the case of the detainees of 22/10.

The attack that the cops made at ASOEE is not irrelevant to our everyday life. The state and the cops run after us everyday. The fascists with their cover move freely and attack in our neighbourhoods. The bosses do whatever they want with us, because for them it is like we are inferior people. We all remember the shots against immigrants labourers in Manolada. They want us to be afraid in order to remain harmless and quiet in our homes. Otherwise we expect operations of massive round-ups know as “Xenios Dias”, detention centres and expulsions. In the neighbourhoods where we live the police patrols are very often, the TV channels talk about us and the government implements new laws, while it makes new detention centres. They say all the time that we “take their jobs” but it is the state that reduces the salaries, it eliminates pensions and destroys public health and education. The state knows that its policy is too extreme and chooses to terrorize the people and create an aura of fear for immigrants and all those who struggle.

The aim of the attack at ASOEE was not only to frighten us, but also to make us stop what we are doing here. For us the trade outside the university is the only way in order to earn the money that we need to live, to pay the rent, the food and our bills. We want to work so as to be able to live with dignity. The state does not care about the trade that we are doing, but it attacks us because we have chosen to stand all together and feel equal.

The only solution for us is to find ways to live and act together against the difficulties we face and all those that will come. We fight against any discrimination of race, sex, color, we stand together and united against any kind of brutality and we are making the foundations for the world we want to live in. All together immigrants and natives, we fight against racism and poverty they are trying to impose.

RESISTANCE- SELF ORGANISATION- SOLIDARITY

COMMON STRUGGLES OF LOCALS & MIGRANTS

 

Assembly of immigrants and solidarians at ASOEE

on Thursdays at 19:00, ASOEE (76 Patission Av.)

News

About the police attack to immigrants on 11-2

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On the 11/02/13, we saw one more organised attack taking place outside ASOEE. This time, the attack didn’t came from the side of the MAT with tear-gas and flashbang like so many times in the past, but from plainclothes cops from the nearby police station, and in a way that reminds attacks from fascists of Golden Dawn.
More specifically, a group of 7-8 plainclothes cops attacked from the side of Patission and Antoniadou the immigrants who were present at that time outside of ASOEE, whether street-vendors or passerby. At the same moment a second similar group of plainclothes cops, wearing helmets and telescopic clubs, crossed vertically Patission street, through the traffic, in order to reach the main entrance of the school and prevent people to get in. Two immigrants, that didn’t knew exactly what was going on, and while trying to get away, have been caught and beaten. The one  who managed to “slip away” had several stitches on the head and a broken leg, while the other who wasn’t beaten that much, although he has many obvious wounds on the face and the head, get caught. They accused him of 6 misdemeanors (insults, threats, resistance, attempt of causing bodily  harm, illegal possession and use of arms), of which the ridicule is been showed by the accusation of insults, with a rich vocabulary, from a person who doesn’t speak greek at all.