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Indictment for Terrorism against Anarchists - a Political Trial

On November 3, 2009 , the supposed throwing of two burning beer bottles at the Greek embassy was qualified by the Public Prosecutor's office as a crime from the list of the most serious offenses. Six proved antifascists are thus being accused of no more and no less than international terrorism! A group for monitoring the trial against the six anarchists has initiated a petition, collecting signatures under an open letter that aims to bring to public attention the fact that what we are faced with is a political trial. The text of the letter has been supported by numerous intellectuals.

The Group Monitoring the Trial against the Six anarchists

On 3rd and 4th September 2009 Ivan Vulović (24), Sanja Dojkić (19), Ivan Savić (25), Ratibor Trivunac (28), Tadej Kurepa (24) i Nikola Mitrović (29) were arrested by the police. They were arrested on suspicion that they may have perpetrated the criminal act of causing general danger by throwing “Molotov cocktails” at the Greek Embassy. 24 hours later the state prosecutor' office changed the police qualification of the supposed act from “causing general danger” to the “criminal act of international terrorism”. We fear that this was an arbitrary interpretation of the Criminal Code and a case of its use for political purposes.

It is necessary to state the social context in which all this is happening. Historical revisionism is becoming more and more normalized and legal rehabilitation of nazi collaborators from the II World War are on the agenda. Equalization of leftist and far-right political ideas is a consequence. Just in the year 2009 we have witnessed the escalation of violence (as a consequence one foreign citizen was killed) and numerous threats with violence were made by the fascist groups. All of this was met with a mild reaction from the state prosecution and the police. To name just one example: in the days leading up to the Pride Parade the threats of physically liquidating the gay population were called just “polemics” by a representative of the state.

The state has created a situation where a confrontation with the same violent right-wing groups that it initially embraced, but with whom the relation has long since metastasized, seems unavoidable, At the same time, the state finds its scapegoats on the left, penalizing it with draconian measures to establish an illusory quasi-balance and present itself state as “fair" in opposing two equally dangerous extremes.

Open letter of the group of intellectuals concerning the court trial against six anarchists

Indictment for Terrorism against Anarchists - a Political Trial

On November 3, 2009 , the supposed throwing of two burning beer bottles at the Greek embassy was qualified by the Public Prosecutor's office as a crime from the list of the most serious offenses. Six proved antifascists are thus being accused of no more and no less than international terrorism! A group for monitoring the trial against the six anarchists has initiated a petition, collecting signatures under an open letter that aims to bring to public attention the fact that what we are faced with is a political trial. The text of the letter has been supported by numerous intellectuals.

The following text was printed in Issue no.35 of Abolishing the Borders From Below.

In recent months we have seen an increase in tenant protest and tenant-related activity across Poland. Although tenants' organizations have existed for years, this time things are a little different. Around the country, people are self-organizing, protesting and coordinating between the groups. The movement is still smaller than it should be, but for local reality, it is relatively big and noticeable. Why now? What happened that made the tenants organize and what are the problems that they face?

A little background on the situation will help people understand better.


HOUSING - A PROFITABLE COMMODITY

The housing situation has many local specifics; things can look quite different around Poland due to both historical reasons and the current socio-economic profile of the location. I will say a few things about the general situation and then more about the local situation but with the note that some of the problems of Warsaw exist in different proportions elsewhere.

Around 20 workers left the welding shop in Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Czech in Nošovice near Frýdek-Místek (Czech Republic) during their shift on Tuesday 1st of December 2009. One day later there was an hourly wildcat strike in assembly hall at the same company. On 3rd December workers in Huyndai subcontactor Dymos organised an hourly work stoppage too. On 7th December the union called a “strike emergency” (a symbolic pre-strike measure to warn the management that unless they start negotiations a real strike action will be called) in Hyundai.

We informed about these strikes on our website on 3rd of December. In this article we try to sum up what actually happened, what positive and negative results we can see so far and how other workers can help.

„The other day my wife came home, locked herself in a room and cried. When I came to her and asked what had happened, she told me little by little how things work there and what they have to endure. She’s been bottling it up inside her heroically for almost 7 months. I can’t understand how something like this is possible in our country. When I read statements of Petr Vaňek (HMMC spokesman) I feel like I’m about to vomit. Chicanery, humiliation, threats = this is where Mr Rakovský and Mr Vaněk are heading to.“ Reader’s comment on newspaper website sedmicka.cz

December 9, the Tenants' Defense Committee and other tenants' organizations took part in a demonstration in front of the Polish parliament, the Sejm. The main theme of the demo was to protest against the law on tenants, which protects property owners more than tenants, and which allows for wild reprivatization of property and discrimination of tenants from reprivatized houses. The tenants say that the law has got to go and burned it and other unfavourable decisions of the local and national government in protest.

The protest was held on the eve of a court case being brought by a tenant which challenges the constitutionality of the law, in particular pointing to the fact that if the city sells a building, it must provide substitute housing to the tenants of the sold buildings, but has no such obligations towards tenants from houses that are reprivatized.

Tenants from all different reprivatized buildings in Warsaw and from Lodz spoke about the problems they face, which include being evicted, getting their heat cut off in the middle of the winter by landlords trying to get rid of them, having their rents raised even 5000%. The tenants spoke out also against totally illegal reprivatizations, where their was fraud involved or against local adminstrative bureaucrats that lie to them and try to help the property owners to get rid of the tenants. Residents of a building falsely reprivatized by a group of people including the husband of the Mayor also spoke about political corruption.

The tenants called on people to be more active, less passive in these struggles and vowed to organize themselves better. In the meanwhile, direct actions are being organized all over the city to defend people against the landlords and the city. Tomorrow people vowed to stop a slumlord from turning the gas off in one building - this will be the 3rd such blockade in recent weeks. Next week tenants also vow to block an eviction. Leaflets are being distributed all over the city, encouraging people to speak up about the problems they are facing and to do something about it.

The Tenants' Defense Committe is supported by ZSP, whose Warsaw members are part of this group.

Photos from the demo

Media reports (in Polish)

* This article criticizes the weak and untenable posture the celebrated North American linguist and essayist holds in support of the current Venezuelan government. It was originally published in Venezuela’s anarchist newspaper El Libertario , issue # 57.

Contrary to what many think, the ability to believe in fairy tales and to blindly accept a fiction, no matter how fantastic or grotesque, is not the sole attribute of the dumb and ignorant. The famous writer Noam Chomsky has just proved that intelligent and cultivated intellectuals are also capable of believing and adopting conduct and political action totally dogmatic, false and authoritarian. They believe so or at least pretend to.

It is nothing new to see a highly ranked intellectual falling into such contradiction. In the Soviet Union and Maoist China we saw the irrational phenomenon of the “fellow travelers” … Those intellectuals who believed –many of them in good faith – the establishment of “socialism” and the construction of “the new man” in those countries until the facts forced them to realize what those regimes really were. Nevertheless, although in many cases such mistakes are not motivated by the search of some sort of reward and may seem sincere, just some anthropological weakness, it behooves to ask the why and how of such conduct. Although the easiest thing would be to think that it is simply due to beliefs that no human being –even the most rational ones- could forever avoid, in Chomsky’s case it is not possible to forget that he himself fought against this tendency in the past.

* El Libertario, the Venezuelan anarchist newspaper, denounce the assassination of Mijail Martinez as the latest chapter in the Chavez government’s attack against base-level, autonomous, revolutionary and dissident organisations.

On the morning of 26/11/2009, Mijail Martínez – 24 years old – was assassinated in the city of Barquisimeto, Lara state. Martínez was a cameraman and activist with the Victims’ Committee Against Impunity in Lara state (commonly referred to as CVCI-Lara in Spanish). According to witnesses, two persons unknown attacked Mijail outside his front door, and after calling his name several times they fired several shots into his chest area. The victim was an audiovisual producer who worked on the television programme of his father, Victor Martínez, a longtime Bolivarian militant and former representative on the region’s Legislative Council. Demonstrating the contradictions within the so called “Bolivarian process”, Victor had recently been making a series of official complaints in which he had implicated a whole host of important, high up governmental and police figures in corruption and human rights violations. Victor told the media that he believes that there was a political motive to the murder, and that it represents an attempt to silence him: “Chávez, I helped you when you were imprisoned and abandoned and noone gave you the time of day,” he said, “yet you are clearly responsible for the death of my son and many other crimes, because instead of being the most fervent defender of the Constitution, you violate it. As a result, all Venezuelans suffer from the insecurity that there is in this country”.

In about one month Queen Beatrix will sign the new law to illegalize squatting in NL. To prevent homelessness we should squat her little apartment at Dam Square in Amsterdam. The Palace is big enough, so if you face eviction, come squatting!

The ban of squatting (kraakverbod) is a consequence of long term lobbying by rich landlords and real estate agents. Their friends in parliament have a majority now, which makes the ban of squatting likely to happen. On December 1st, the first chamber of Dutch parliament will have to decide, if the proposed law is passed on to Beatrix, or if adjustments or required. We attack that day to start our resistance!

At the dawn of November 24, at 03:55 am, the free social space Buena Ventura (which hosts the assembly of the group Solidarity – Antiauthoritarian Movement) came under attack with a strong explosive device.

The way in which the device was placed reveals much about the morality of the perpetrators, a morality of murderers – since they did not just attack Buena Ventura, but the entire neighbourhood. In short, the windows of neighbouring blocks of flats were smashed by the explosion in a radius of 15 meters, while shattered pieces were whammed all around, posing an imminent danger to the lives of neighbours. Shattered pieces also hit three cars, which also highlights the murderous nature of the attack since any random passer-by could have been hit by them too.

On November 7, 2009 (Nestor Makhno's birthday anniversary) a new anarchist newspaper, Bez Granits ("without borders" / "no limits") published its debut issue - 12 black and red pages which were prepared by the collective which was at the moment spread between St. Petersburg, Russia, and Riga, Latvia. The newspaper contains an article on what we think this whole anarchy thing is all about, an overview of protest activity in St. Petersburg in September-October,
some analysis of protests in the Latvian town of Bauska where the local authorities intended to close down the local hospital and in St. Petersburg where several protests erupted due to controversial construction projects. It is followed by a history of early 20th century Latvian anarchist movement (including the Sidney street siege where a couple of well-armed revolutionaries faced off hundreds of soldiers, Winston Churchill and artillery), some information about St. Petersburg's Street University (a free education co-op) and the Stanford Experiment. Finally, there is an interview with an anonymous participant in the January 13, 2009 riots in Riga and some information from St. Petersburg Anarchist Black Cross - solidarity action with the gaoled Serbian anarcho-syndicalists and some stuff on the Russian anarchist Alexei Bychin who is imprisoned for self-defense against fascists.

Summary :

Subjective report and critique of the Lesvos No Border camp.

Context : a beautiful island, only a few potential targets and a detention camp incredibly accessible.

Lesvos is one of the largest of the Greek islands situated incredibly close to the Eastern coast of Turkey. This is an almost unavoidable first part of the journey for thousands of migrants who try every month to get to Greece. The capital city is Mytilini, the Pagani detention camp is in a northern suburb, 5 minutes by car from the town center. The NoBorder camp was situated on a camping ground by the sea, about 25 minutes by bus from Mytilini. There was also a large infopoint set up in downtown Mytilini where many migrants were staying, this was set up next to the prefecture.

Patapoe is temporarily offair due to technical maintenance. In the meanwhile you can tune in through the stream.

Today's show, as usual agenda first, then...
Main subject Freedom for Palestinians - someone from Middle East will tell about situation there, ,Anarchists Against The Wall and their actions for freedom,equality and peace (like breaking the illegal wall etc). The other important subject would be relation from manifestation last Friday for cultural center ship Stubnitz, for freedom and tolerance in Amsterdam. . Next important thing would be relation from Squatting in Bijlmer last Sunday. The speeches and interviews would be played. Further we will read from "Do It Yourself"(A handbook for changing our world) why we need direct actions and why is this so important.As always, we would read some ecologic advices from book "Make A Difference"...In the background like usual some fresh in our collection international/political songs(mainly punk)

CALAIS NO BORDERS UPDATE - OCT/NOV 2009
WHY ARE THERE MIGRANTS IN CALAIS & WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

The migrants in Calais include peoples from the most troubled flashpoints of political conflict around the world. I have personally met Hazara Afghan's who have had their homes destroyed by the ongoing war; Eritrean's escaping conscription from an army involved in conflict they do not want to be part of; Iranian's fleeing political prosecution & many others for example from Somalia, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Pashtun Afghanistan, Sudan, Palestine & Egypt. All seeking sanctuary, all looking to build a better & new life for themselves.

Yet what the migrants in the camps/"jungles" and streets of Calais have experienced is far from sanctuary or descent "European hospitality". In fact since their arrival into Europe through the
most common countries of entry (Italy, Greece & Malta) they face constant harrassment from the authorities. There are false claims that the migrants in Calais can’t be 'genuine' refugees, or they
would have claimed asylum in the first ‘safe’ country they came to (regardless of whether they had family in other countries, like the UK for example). This ignores the fact that many migrants
just don't have a chance to gain asylum in these 'safe' countries, since they often do not adhere to the UN guidelines on hosting refugees.

brief report from our protest yesterday in front of the greek
consulate in frankfurt...

„if one of our fingers is directed now to the greek government, three
other fingers are directed back: to paris and berlin and brussels!“
günter burkhardt, head of pro asyl, emphasized in his speech in front
of the greek consulate again to the background, which was already
presented in the call (www.aktivgegenabschiebung.de) and which was
part of the introduction of our manifestation yesterday: the greek
government is responsible for the systematic human rights violations
at the borders or in the detention camps, but the driving forces
behind are the westeuropean governments. about 50 people joined the
protest in front of the greek consulate in frankfurt, an installation
with life-jackets, some banners („close all paganis! welcome centers
in stead of detention!“) and a dozen of life-buoys (with the
signature of the pro asyl-campaign „save me“) did decorate the
entrance of the building. the – at least temporary – closure of
pagani was explained mainly as the success from a continous struggle
of the young refugees and migrants inside the prison, and in the
brief chronologie, which was presented to the demonstrators, the
nobordercamp was mentioned as important catalyst.
after the speeches it was planned to hand over a protest-info-package
to the konsul Mrs. Frangoyanni at the entrance, but she offered a
delegation of 3 people to come into her office for a brief talk.
surprisingly she was very well informed about the whole issue, but to
her argument, the new government announced and try to improve the
situation, we responded with the official statements to renovate the
detentioncamp and that the ministers follow the old approach, if they
ask to strengthen frontex in the aegea sea. Mrs. Frangoyanni finally
promised to forward our letter and demands (see the text below) to
athens and mytilini, but of course we do not know, if she really will
do, and we cannot exspect any further reaction. but on the other hand
we think, it was another useful small pinbrick brom abroad ...

in the second part of our protest we went into the inner city of
frankfurt and we made a public screening with the voices of pagani,
the frontex-film (from the munich group) and a few sequences on
calais. we introduced the contents of the films and we explained
something more about the „dublin-deportations“ from germany to
greece. this kind of screening-manifestation worked pretty well as a
lot of pedestrians took notice and a lot followed the impressive
pictures from pagani for awhile.

* The latest demonstration of political criminalization of autonomous social movements by the Venezuelan government is exposed by Rafael Uzcategui, a member of the anarchist collective El Libertario.

As this text is written, Lusbi Portillo, professor at Zulia University (in Maracaibo) and environmental activist in solidarity with the indigenous movement is in hiding to protect his life and physical integrity. During the events of October 13 in the Sierra de Perijá two yukpas were killed and five more wounded in a conflict arising from the demarcation of indigenous land. The regional police announced that an arrest warrant against the professor for “drug possession” was imminent. This is not the first time the professor is criminalized for his active solidarity with the demands of the original peoples, but because the way the events are evolving – an investigation of the events has been decreed “national security” by the authorities – he decided to take preventive measures by going into hiding.