This is one of the many flyers distributed during solidarity actions in Athens for the anarchist prisoners in Italy and Spain :

STATE TERRORISM HAS NO BORDERS... BUT NEITHER DOES THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM

The Italian state has launched another repressive operation -named “operation Cervantes”- against anarchists, realizing 190 raids in houses, squats and social centers throughout the country and 22 arrests, imprisoning 13 comrades and imposing house arrest for the others. Dozens of anarchists are facing charges for “subversive association”.

This operation practically penalizes any aspect of anarchist activity, in the name of “anti”terrorism, using a doctrine which the Italian state has used before (“Marini case”) to achieve the imprisonment of dozens of anarchists and to keep many more in a permanent state of hostage, with prosecutions and trials that had lasted for years. According to this repressive doctrine any form of the antiauthoritarian struggle, squats and social centers, counter-information magazines, solidarity initiatives for immigrants or imprisoned comrades, demonstrations, clashes with the police or symbolic direct action, are all part of a “central subversive project” to develop “terrorist activity”.

The charges anarchists in Italy are facing vary from bomb blasts (such as the ones connected to the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa where Carlo Giuliani was murdered by the police) and sending bomb-letters to EU officials the Christmas of 2004, to the accusation of “subversive propaganda” for publishing the Anarchist Black Cross info-bulletin, whose website is now blocked by the police. Solidarity to immigrants and the struggle against modern concentration camps for refugees is also considered as a crime for the italian state, blaming anarchists even for instigating revolts of immigrant prisoners.

On May 12, many houses were raided and 13 anarchists indicted. In the city of Lece five comrades have been arrested : Saverio Pellegrino, Salvatore Signore and Cristian Paladini are imprisoned, while Ìarina and Analisa are in house arrest. All five of them were active in the struggle against “Regina Pacis” concentration camp for immigrants, managed by the catholic church. They are accused for arson in the cathedral of the city, throwing molotov cocktails at the house of the camps’ manager, damaging ATM’s of BancaIntesa for handling the accounts of Regina Pacis institution, and instigating immigrants to revolt ( !) They are also charged for paint-bombs at Benetton stores -for the company is encroaching and looting territories of the Mapuche indigenous tribe in Chile- and sabotage at ESSO pumps protesting its involvement in the war in Iraq.

On May 19, seven anarchists were arrested in Sardinia and many houses were raided by the police following orders of the judge investigating the cases of a bomb found in a camp of the carabinieri on the island in 2003 and of the arson of the governing party Forza Italia office the day of the elections, June 2004. The comrades arrested are accused of being members of FRARIA center of anarchist studies in Cagliari and are now in house arrest. Additionally, 26 more comrades were indicted for “subversive association”, “praising subversive actions” etc.

On May 26, coordinated police operations, ordered by the prosecutors of Bologna and of Rome took place in many italian cities, resulting in 110 house raids and the arrest of 10 anarchists. According to the orders coming from the prosecutor in Bologna, seven comrades (Lucia Rippa, Mattia Bertoni, Elsa Caroli, Teo Tavernese, Marco Foresto, Danilo Cremonese, Valentina Speziale) were imprisoned and 21 others face charges. Those arrested are accused for publishing the Anarchist Black Cross info-bulletin. The prosecutor of Rome, who is investigating the case of bombs at institutions of the justice department in Viterbo and one action against a McDonald’s restaurant after the end of a demonstration in 1999, ordered the arrest of comrades Stefano Del Moro, Massimo Leonardi and Claudia Cospito, who are now imprisoned, as well as of D. Cremonese and V. Speziale who are involved in both the investigations. (On June 11 Lucia, Mattia, Elsla, Teo and Marco were released).

During this period of state repression targeting a big part of the anarchist movement in Italy, fascists have attacked squats and social centres in Turin and Rome. (Also, on the 1st of June, the criminal court of Bologna convicted the militants Nadia Desdemona Lioce, Roberto Moranti, Marco Metzasalma, Diana Biefari Melagi and Simone Bokatsini in life sentences as members of the New Red Brigades).

The italian state activates a plan of repression that has its origins in the reinforcement of state terrorism in the entire european ground. From this point of view, this plan now unfolded in Italy is being tested in order to be repeated in other countries as well against people fighting against the state and capital. Besides, especially the last years (a period of radical resistance from above against globalization of domination, insurrectionary events in Genoa, Prague, Thessaloniki etc, international solidarity to prisoners in struggle and wider social-class struggles against Fortress Europe) european state agencies are systematically targeting the anarchists. International police and judicial authorities, Europol and Eurojust, and of course the council of the European Union which is endorsing their “reports”, have made a scenario about so-called “networks of anarchist terrorism”, focusing on Italy, Spain and Greece, referred to as the “Mediterranean anarchist triangle”.

On the 25th of June, in Barcelona, the Spanish police attacked a demonstration of 300 people marching in solidarity with the anarchists in Italy. Many were injured by the police and seven comrades arrested : Two minors from Spain, who were charged and immediately released, one greek and one chilean who are now free but obliged not to leave the country until their trial and having to present themselves in front of the court once a week, and three more anarchists (from Czech republic, Italy and Greece) who were imprisoned, facing severe charges for the clashes that broke out after the police violently dispersing the demo. On July 7, both the czech and the greek comrade were released (the latter on 3.000 euro bail and restricted from leaving Spain). The demand of the third prisoner, Alberto Bettini was rejected and he is still in Barcelona prison, Modelo.

In Greece, “anti”terrorism is also the spearhead of state repression against anarchists-antiauthoritarians in order to neutralize them and intimidate the whole of society. With the help of the media, any action which is antagonistic to state and capitalist brutality is presented as “terrorism”, to be prosecuted under the new totalitarian laws and be suppressed with the maximum social consent possible. Everything is presented as a tendency to “terrorism” : Solidarity to political prisoners, the struggle against isolation or “normal” prisons and “anti”terrorist laws of emergency, and any action of social and class solidarity against the tortures and deportation of immigrants, against the murders of workers in the sites of wage slavery (the so-called “working accidents”), against the reign of the police and social control.

The state’s attempt to suppress and criminalize the antiauthoritarian struggle culminated recently : In numerous incidents they used fascist thugs who attacked immigrants, comrades and squats. On the 10th of May, after the end of the Anarchist Mayday demonstration, a police escort of a politician shoots an anarchist in the leg, inside the Polytechnic school. On the 19th of May, 2.500 participate in the demonstration called by anarchist collectives in Athens against the fascists and the state. After the end of the demo, a part of the people retreat to the quarter of Exarchia and clash with the police. The cops begin a pogrom in the area, arresting 140 persons. The same night, 200 people gather outside the central Police in solidarity with those detained. Police squads disperse them. The next morning they present their provocation : Anarchists have supposedly thrown a hand grenade to the riot police squads chasing them. Lately, anarchist Giorgos Meriziotis was injured by a plain-clothed cop who followed him with his motorbike and deliberately caused an “accident” in the middle of the street...

Within the reality of intensified oppression and exploitation imposed by the state and the bosses, social discontent and rage grows bigger. Anarchists
 supporting collective resistance, sabotaging nationalism/racism and revealing that the system is not invulnerable when the people self-organize and revolt- can become the spark for wider social explosions. And this perspective is always alive through subversive, anti-institutional and non-mediated action in every front of social antagonism, through solidarity, confronting state repression.

International “anti”terrorist campaigns, prosecutions of comrades and prisons, the State of Emergency, surveillance and social control will never rescue the state and the bosses from what they fear most : The revolt of the oppressed and exploited people all over the world.

SOLIDARITY WITH THE ANARCHISTS PROSECUTED IN ITALY

FREE ANARCHIST ALBERTO BETTINI - SOLIDARITY WITH ALL COMRADES ARRESTED FOR THE SOLIDARITY DEMONSTRATION OF JUNE 25 IN BARCELONA

SOLIDARITY WITH ALL PEOPLE FIGHTING AGAINST THE STATE AND THE BOSSES

Open assembly of anarchists-antiauthoritarians Athens, July 2005

Solidarity actions in Athens :

Cervantes spanish institute occupied by anarchists (July 12) : http://athens.indymedia.org/display.php ?articleId=2476

Concentration in front of the spanish embassy and demo (July 11) : http://athens.indymedia.org/display.php ?articleId=2448

Concentration in front of the Italian embassy (July 8)

Solidarity and counter-information action in central Athens (June 17) http://athens.indymedia.org/display.php ?articleId=1842

Occupation of the italian cultural institute (June 17) http://athens.indymedia.org/media.php ?galId=255