Greece: Eternal Honour to the Anarchist—Member of the Revolutionary Struggle, Lambros Fountas

HONOR FOREVER TO THE ANARCHIST –
MEMBER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE, LAMBROS FOUNTAS

On March 10, 2010, in Dafni, preparations for a major operation by Revolutionary Struggle aimed at sabotaging the enforcement of the “memorandum” were in their final stages. The attempt to seize a vehicle that the organisation would use for this action resulted in a clash with the cops. Comrade Lambros Fountas, our beloved comrade-in-arms in the struggle, was killed. Nothing would ever be the same again.

The Revolutionary Struggle—the struggle to block the “memorandum,” the struggle to overthrow the ruling regime and bring about social revolution—suffered a severe blow. The organisation had publicly stated that it anticipated the Greek state’s bankruptcy as a consequence of the 2008 global economic crisis and had demonstrated the scale of its actions, primarily through the bombing of the stock exchange in September 2009. It had spoken of its goals and the opportunities that the economic crisis and the widespread delegitimisation of the political and economic system during that period would open up. It had publicly declared that the only way out of the crisis would be a Social Revolution.

A month later, the first crackdown against the organisation took place, along with the arrests.

The death of our comrade was a very significant event. It was significant not only for us, his comrades in Revolutionary Struggle, and not only for the anarchist movement in which he had been actively involved for many years and was particularly beloved by all his comrades. It was not only significant for Revolutionary Struggle, whose activities had been frozen for two years.

Above all, it was significant for the overwhelming majority of society, which was mercilessly battered by the devastating storm of loan agreements. Lambros was an integral part of a strategy of armed action that unfolded with the onset of the economic crisis and sought, through strikes of great political and economic significance, to prevent the political and economic system—which at that time was in a state of great instability and deep crisis—from regaining its stability.

For the loan agreements to be approved, social and political stability was a prerequisite. Armed action aimed at preventing the achievement of this goal, carried out through dynamic and effective measures, would have turned the Greek capitalist system into a dangerous arena because it would be vulnerable to armed attacks; this action would act as a brake on creditors’ decisions to transfer their capital to the country and lend to governments that would be unable to impose social and political control. Because the most decisive factor for the state and capital to overcome their systemic crises is the maintenance of faith in the system itself.

By 2010, confidence had collapsed within the global financial system. No economic or political actor trusted any credit or investment organisation or institution. No one trusted the Greek governments or the Greek banks. Because no one trusted any bank worldwide. In short, within the economic and political system, no one trusted anyone, and faith in the system of power itself had been deeply shaken.

The collapse of this trust was, for the first time in capitalist history, of such a large scale and significance. It was a structural factor in the collapse of capitalist functioning in the country and the de facto bankruptcy of the Greek state.

The loan agreements, with the onerous terms imposed, were intended to prevent an admission of bankruptcy. These were loan agreements designed to save the banks in Greece and Europe, to save the economic ruling class, to save the system—not the social base. This was the “bitter” realisation that the overwhelming majority of society eventually came to understand.

Comrade Lambros Fountas and his actions, the actions of Revolutionary Struggle during that period, sought to ensure that faith in the capitalist system and its re-stabilisation would not find fertile ground. Alongside the social reactions and uprisings of those years, Comrade Fountas’ actions could have become a significant factor in the overall struggle to prevent the “memorandum” from being passed. Comrade Lambros Fountas was destined to become the figure who embodied all the anxiety of society during that period. Because he was the armed fighter of all those who resisted the troika and the institutions, the Greek state, and the policies of social extermination for the economic “consolidation” of the capitalist system. Because he is the first and the last casualty of the struggle against the “memorandum.” Because he was and remains the voice of the necessity—then, now, and always—of the Social Revolution.

Today, sixteen years later, we are living through the aftermath of a profound political, economic, and social transformation that began with the 2008 economic crisis and the “memorandum” era. Because what was at stake in 2010 was not just the lending terms of the “memorandaum” the cuts to wages and pensions, the layoffs, or the closures of small businesses. Through these policies, a new model of power was established, and that period marked a historic turning point for the transformation of the capitalist system and modern state power. The “experiment” implemented in our country by lenders and supranational economic and political institutions did not concern only us; it concerned and continues to concern all countries.

It was an “experiment” that was imposed and cemented in the blood of an entire people, with thousands of suicides, with untreated illnesses, with children fainting in schools from hunger, with the conditions of a modern occupation and violence that became the norm for the years that followed, right up to the present day. It was an unprecedented class war. With this “experiment,” the centers of power in Europe and the world were asking “if a people like this, with its history of struggle and resistance, could endure the harsh measures we impose without revolting, then the most totalitarian control and the imposition of the most extreme measures of economic exploitation on any other people is possible.”

The fear of a social revolution in Greece in 2010 tormented all those in positions of political and economic power in Europe and beyond. They had explicitly stated, publicly and without mincing words, that a revolution in this country was a possible outcome. They themselves believed that there were subjective factors that could give impetus to such a development. Among the factors contributing to this fear, they considered the armed activities of Revolutionary Struggle, which were reaching their peak at that time, to be significant. Their fear was not limited to domestic destabilisation. A revolution, if it had taken place, would have swept up the countries of southern Europe and triggered a domino effect of capitalist collapses and social uprisings. Lambros Fountas’ actions sought to make this fear a reality.

In the end, the social backlash was not strong enough to prevent the imposition of the “memorandum,” a prevention that could not have been achieved without overthrowing the country’s political and economic power structure. This is the ultimate historical conclusion of that period.

Nothing has improved in the living conditions of the social majority, which is experiencing its own long-term and never-ending economic crisis that is reaching the brink of social collapse. On the contrary, the “resilience” shown by the social base in the face of the rapid rise in poverty during that period paved the way for the consolidation of the contemporary model of exploitation and oppression by the state and capital. The transformation that began then and was consolidated through ineffective social resistance gave rise to the cannibalistic system in a social context dominated by the illusion of the possibility of “individual detachment.” In other words, a context dominated by social defeatism, introversion, and resignation.

While official economic data paint a picture of economic prosperity for the wealthy in this country, the majority of people are sinking deeper and deeper into endless poverty. Greek debt is far higher than it was in 2010, yet faith in the Greek state’s resilience makes the country a model of subjugation for the extraction of profits and the security of capital investments. The loan agreements from the “memorandum” era will remain in force, along with their terms, for many more decades, and new debt will be added to the old, which future generations will be forced to shoulder.

As for the 2008 economic crisis, the greatest that modern capitalism has ever experienced, it never ended. The economic and political centers of power are still attempting to manage it with the same tools and formulas that created it. The concentration of economic, political, and social power in the hands of an ever-smaller few—which was the most decisive factor in the outbreak of the 2008 crisis— has now reached even more extreme levels, and class divisions across the globe have turned the gap between great wealth and poverty into an abyss.

The lack of a clear path out of the crisis is leading to the head-on transnational conflicts the world is currently experiencing. States, led by the United States, Israel, and Europe, are now revealing the true face of the state as an institution of centralized power and control over societies—manifested in brutal military and police violence, wars, and boundless repression. They are revealing in all its magnitude their hostile nature toward societies, the murderous nature of capitalism both within and beyond borders, and are bringing us ever closer to a catastrophic, all-out war.

The radical transformation of the system of power and the revelation of its true nature came about as a result of the dead ends created by the crisis, combined with the absence of radical social resistance and the unrestrained use of multifaceted methods to enforce social compliance with living conditions that are increasingly unbearable for the social majority. Housing, food, and health are no longer guaranteed for the largest segment of society, and even the minimal degree of their guarantee requires ever greater sacrifices. The social and political threat has ceased to exist following the suppression of the social resistance of 2010–12 and no longer concerns the centers of power. State control and violence are increasing more and more as this social threat from below fails to reemerge.

Since no revolutionary movement in 2010–2011 managed to halt or overturn the destructive policies that the state and capital had imposed on the country, a defeatist mindset—based on the assumption that nothing can be stopped or changed—has become ingrained in the social fabric. What the end of the struggles achieved back then was a profound psychological transformation of a society that accepted living without pride, without its dignity. Because these two factors were then, and will always be, decisive for a society that refuses to bow its head.

Comrade Lambros Fountas was, is, and will forever remain the example of the revolutionary who, with a weapon in hand, fought to prevent the defeat and subjugation of an entire society from becoming a reality. He will remain the light that enlivens the dignity, courage, and pride of anarchists, revolutionaries, and the oppressed. His struggle was the struggle of this society that did not want subjugation, did not want to bow its head.

Comrade Lambros Fountas embodies that unwavering dignity and fighting spirit that any struggle must possess to be victorious. That is why he is the champion of all the oppressed. He is and will forever remain the fighter who shows that the only way out of modern slavery, of daily social humiliation, the only way out of capitalist and state barbarism, wars, the threat of death—the only way out to a life of freedom, to a life of dignity—is the Social Revolution. We honor Lambros Fountas not only for who he was and what we knew of him, but also for everything he stood for. We honor him because he himself was the bearer of radical social change. He was the bearer of a society of equality and freedom

LAMBROS FOUNTAS WILL LIVE FOREVER IN THE STRUGGLE

FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Pola Roupa

Nikos Maziotis, Domokos Prison

Source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1640103/

Greece: Eternal Honour to the Anarchist—Member of the Revolutionary Sruggle, Lambros Fountas

On the Trail of the Struggle: Lambros Fountas Present

by Marianna Manoura & Dimitra Zarafeta

On March 10, 16 years ago, Lambros Fountas, a member of the Revolutionary Struggle organization, was shot dead by the police. The murder of the anarchist comrade took place during the preparatory action of the organization in Dafni during an armed clash with the police forces.

The anarchist movement from the very first days defended and continues to defend the memory and content of the action of the armed fighter Lambros Foudas through marches, events, actions. The very organization of which he was a member carried out a blow to the Bank of Greece in 2014, dedicating it to his fallen comrade, taking responsibility under the signature “Commando Lambros Foundas”, thus paying tribute to the revolutionary.

Lambros Fountas, as a member of the armed revolutionary organization Revolutionary Struggle, chose to act through the armed proletarian counterattack at a time when the social base was affected by austerity measures. Measures imposed by the local and international elite in order to avoid the bankruptcy of the European banking system. And while politicians and channel managers present the memorandums and contracts as “means of salvation”, we experienced them as salary and pension cuts, as an impoverished today and as an uncertain tomorrow.

The Revolutionary Struggle organization fought against this condition, targeting the economically powerful, vigorously fighting the measures of the memorandums. He chose to create conditions of political instability, making it difficult to bleed the social base, leaving behind a great legacy in the international and domestic revolutionary movement. With actions against predatory “organizations” – Bank of Greece, City Bank, etc. -, the stock market, the uniformed killers of the MAT, he defended the armed social revolution, writing new chapters in the book of revolutionary history.

And maybe comrade Lambro Fouda and I have never met, never met, never fought side by side. But the thread of revolutionary memory bridges exactly this: fighters, movements and struggles that, while they developed in different corners of the planet and in different spaces and times, shared a common anguish and vision for liberation. Thus, the preservation of revolutionary memory is anything but a neutral process. It is a thorn in oblivion and a crack in the history of the rulers. That is why securing it is part of our own struggle, part of the present and the future. That is why, although the past was painted with blood, our dead managed to fill the inkwell of revolutionary history. And even if we hadn’t walked next to them, we had walked alongside them. And even if we hadn’t chosen the same path, we looked at the same skies. Because we shared the same dreams and hopes, experienced the same fears and rages. Thus, their struggle, the way they acted and the way they fell is an invitational struggle, a starting point and an occasion for new cycles of resistance. And as long as we keep the revolutionary memory alive, we also keep our history alive. A story built on the smiles and companionable looks of our own people, our own friends and our own partners. As did our comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris, who fell fighting almost a year and a half ago on 31.10.24, from the explosion in Ampelokipi. A comrade who envisioned a world of equality and freedom. A just world, built on the ruins of the old.

So for Lambros Fountas, Kyriakos Ximitiris and all the other fighters who saw themselves as part of the revolutionary history and poured themselves into the battle, it is our turn to make their death a cause of war. To stand worthy of our history and responsibilities and to perceive their death as a motivation to continue the struggle.

LAMBROS FOUNTAS IMMORTAL

KYRIAKOS XYMITIRIS PRESENT

IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF COMRADE NIKOS MAZIOTIS

END THE FINANCIAL HOSTAGE OF COMRADE POLA ROUPA IMMEDIATELY

Marianna Manoura

Dimitra Zarafeta

Korydallos Women’s Prisons.

Source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1640123/

Honor and Memory of the Anarchist Guerrilla Lambros Fountas, Member of the Revolutionary Struggle

16 years after the murder of comrade Lambros Fountas in an armed clash in Daphne, on March 10, 2010, during a preparatory action by the organization against the enforcement of loan agreements.

The political significance of the state assassination of Lambros Fountas within the historical context of 2010 and the strategy of the Revolutionary Struggle organization.

Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis will speak.

COMRADE LAMBROS FOUNTAS WILL ALWAYS LIVE IN THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION

FREEDOM TO THE ANARCHIST NIKOS MAZIOTIS

Saturday, March 14, 7pm at the Self-managed Perasma hangout (95-97 Zoodochou Pigis & Isavron, Exarchia) Athens.

by Solidarity Assembly for the convicted members of the Revolutionary Struggle, Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis

Contact email: [email protected]

EN/EL/ [POSTER] EVENT: Honor and Memory of the anarchist guerrilla Lambros Fountas, member of the Revolutionary Struggle – The action of the organization E.A.

Pola Roupa: The State Is Taking Revenge on Me for Political Reasons Through Economic Extermination

Another sentence within the sentence that I have already served – and with the above – for my participation in the Revolutionary Struggle organization, is the complete colonization of my life in economic terms and is imposed by the Authority for Combating the Legalization of Proceeds from Criminal Activities (from now on I will refer to it as the Authority), with measures that exceed all logic and their cost is unmanageable. I had published a text on this issue a few months ago, where I wrote how the Authority holds hostage for life the lives of all those convicted under Article 187A (“anti-terrorism”), as well as those suspected of “terrorism”, and freezes all their assets. I had written at the time that I understand their anxiety to control where an asset comes from, since they have us as easy targets to present a project (the abundant black money that is “recycled” within the state, through its contracts with businesses, within the bosom of big capital is not illegal), but it is impossible for me to accept that I must pay exorbitant amounts to the state for fines and legal costs (they have amounted to 35,000 euros and my total debts to 45,000 euros, including inheritance tax along with all surcharges), without being able to utilize the one and only inherited asset that I have to repay the debt. That is, they tell me that with a basic salary that I was receiving and an unemployment benefit that I am currently receiving, I will pay installments to the tax office that are close to 200 euros per month for twenty years, with the best possible arrangement that exists in the… universe and at the same time, my child and I will live with the 390 euros that will be left over. In my previous text, I wrote that if they do not let me utilize the inherited assets that I have, they will not take a single euro since there is nothing left over. The Authority responded to my last application in September 2025 that it approves the transfer to the tax office of the amounts of money that are in the bank accounts of my cousin – whom I have inherited – for the repayment of debts and rejected my request to utilize 1/4 of the amount that corresponds to me (1/4 of which the objective value just covers the said amount) from the inheritance. Only the amounts it releases to be transferred directly to the Tax Office do not exceed 11,000 euros. So the math doesn’t work. I have 34,000 euros left that must be repaid. Are they joking with my life? This “joke” has a purpose. It aims at absolute revenge through financial annihilation on a lifelong scale, for political reasons and with purely political motives. Because how else can the Authority and the chief prosecutor’s insistence be explained, to prohibit me from utilizing a property, at a time when any money will go to the state?

Especially, after a decision of the Authority telling me that I must proceed with the acceptance of an inheritance – which has a high financial cost – in order to be able to settle the issues, after I finally made the acceptance and proceeded with a new application to the Authority, it notified me that it prohibits the use of the assets. I mean, what did they want? To accept the inheritances without being able to use them to repay the debt. This is a brutal and direct predatory decision, but with what material return, since objectively, there is no monetary gain for the state? To have me held hostage for life with debts.

So I proceeded to appeal against the Authority’s decision regarding the prohibition to utilize 1/4 of the amount I inherited to repay the tax. The appeal was made to the Supreme Court, the only judicial body above the Authority, which has been determined for February 4.

The Authority is a public legal body established by Law 4557/2018, enjoys administrative and operational independence and was established to implement the decisions and conventions of the EU and the UN Security Council on “countering terrorism”. It is independent, but subject to parliamentary control. Therefore, its decisions and role are proportional to the respective political authority and the ruling party. In my case, it exceeds its role, which is the control of economic actions that violate the legal framework, and enters a sphere of political targeting that concerns my very ability to survive in a regime outside of prison. Its decisions conflict with articles and provisions of the Constitution and the ECHR regarding human rights, but its authority and its purpose place the issue of state security (public security according to itself) as a prominent criterion of its decisions with arguments that strongly contradict common sense, since it is about paying off debts to the tax office.

I know that all laws concerning human rights have always been, at least in part, pretentious since they were applied – whenever they were applied – with many asterisks, depending on which rights of which person they concerned each time. I know that the existence of an international law that had been institutionalized to delimit the limits of the power of states over people after the Second World War was always applied on a case-by-case basis, depending on the interpretation that each state body gave and depending on which social groups it concerned. The rights of the powerful have always prevailed over those who had no power and therefore, their rights could be violated depending on state priorities.

I know that in the era of neoliberal globalization, especially with the withdrawal of the so-called “welfare state” from history, all these supranational legal frameworks were violated incessantly according to the policies of big capital and states. I also know that today, more than any other era after the Second World War, where the model of the extreme nationalist-war state is becoming more and more visibly dominant, with power becoming the supreme factor in regime politics, as it is expressed both within and outside the borders, any institutionalizations regarding human rights have become tattered papers without any value. Especially in Greece, with the imposition of the “memoranda”, the Constitution has been dismantled, so any reference to it is without substance. The international law established by states has been blatantly violated in recent years with genocides, wars, ethnic cleansing, the extermination of the weak with military or economic weapons, with violence without limits on all social resistances.

I know that this era when someone could invoke international law and the Constitution has passed irrevocably, while within countries, human rights issues are treated as obstacles to the unhindered exercise of full state power. Besides, I have never had any illusions about the gravity and power of any legal framework that focused on the issue of human rights, but in our time it does not exist in practice, not even as a pretextual narrative for the maintenance of social cohesion around the necessity of the existence of state power.

If I mention the legal framework that prevails over the Authority and which it violates for me as well as for many who have been convicted under Article 187A and have served their sentence, it is because it reveals that it is more of a political than a legal institution, with the authority to take revenge in economic terms on political opponents of the political and economic system, through the imposition of a sentence above and beyond the sentence they have served (since they remain for life as potential “terrorists”) and secondly, because – as my case shows – the Authority is allowed to stand above and beyond any legal framework it wants, even common sense. Because what the Authority is telling me is that I have no right to something that is legally mine, that it is binding it to me forever, that I must have a debt that will constantly increase without any possibility of being paid off and that the door to prison will always remain ajar for me, as this debt will become even more difficult to bear.

The lifelong freezing of an asset is within its jurisdiction, since it can justify based on a court conviction that I was a member of a “terrorist” organization. Yes, I was arrested in 2010 for participating in the Revolutionary Struggle organization and from the very beginning I assumed political responsibility for my participation in it. I was arrested again in 2017. I have been convicted of all the political actions of the organization and have served the prison sentence imposed on me. Based on these facts, I have been included in the Authority’s list since 2011 and they are freezing all the assets that have passed to me forever. I have no ambition that they can ever remove me from this list, which makes me a hostage for life.

What is provided for by the legislation regarding the Authority, however, is that it can decide to release assets to cover general living expenses, for their maintenance or operation or preservation. Does this provision not include the issue of my livelihood, when the state obliges me to repay a debt of 45,000 euros? Does it prohibit the use of an asset, the value of which barely reaches the debt in question?

With this decision, it includes the transfer of money to the tax office in the “prevention of terrorist acts”. That is what common sense says. Because I have not asked them for anything more.

The deputy prosecutor of the Supreme Court insists on the same decision. He proposes the rejection of my appeal because, as he says, the Authority rightly decided to maintain the seizure, since “there are serious reasons that make it necessary not to release the assets, even if they are legal, and they constitute… measures that are independent of money laundering, and were taken… exclusively for the prevention and suppression of relevant acts”. That is, the transfer of amounts from any exploitation of an asset to the tax office constitutes a “measure to prevent and suppress relevant acts”!

With the appeal that I have made to the Supreme Court, I am called upon to prove that the repayment of debts to the tax office does not constitute an action suspicious of acts related to “terrorism”? Because this follows from the prosecutor’s proposal. Behind the irrationality that characterizes the prosecutor’s proposal to the upcoming Council of the Supreme Court where my appeal against the Authority’s decision will be examined, it will be judged, through the justification of the decision, whether they intend to complete a plan of lifelong hostage, colonization of my life through debt, an organized economic extermination with the ultimate direction of prison, the door of which will open for me, depending on the political goals of the government at that time, which the legislative power will institutionalize and the judicial power will execute, regarding the penalties that the courts must impose in cases of large debts to the public in general for the whole of society and in particular for those who have dynamically opposed the political-economic system of power and are included for their entire lives on the state’s blacklists.

P.S.: Regarding the four court cases that were held in 2025 for the return of a confiscated external hard drive with files -photos and videos- of my child (I had published a relevant text last December), which had been confiscated during my arrest in 2017 and I had been trying to get it back since 2019, they ended with the last court decision in December, with which it was finally returned to me.

2/2/2025

Pola Roupa

Source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1639525/

For Comrade Christos Spilios – Nikos Maziotis-Pola Roupa

Comrade Christos left. He left us prematurely. He has accompanied us to the A/A for many years in demonstrations, assemblies, conflicts, occupations. In 1991, at the Polytechnic of 1995, in the course and conflicts against the Clinton visit in 1999, at the 2003 anti -war demonstrations, in Thessaloniki at the EU leaders’ meeting in the conflicts against the memorandums.

He was always present in the struggles. He has always been present in rallies and solidarity marches for imprisoned comrades. As well as the latest at the Solidarity Assembly for us, at the rallies in the courts in Chalkida, Lamia and in Domokos prisons.

He was the comrade of the uprising. He was the comrade of solidarity. He was the comrade of offering and selflessness. He was, is and will be our comrade in the struggle. He was, is and will be our favorite comrade Christos.

Goodbye comrade, we don’t forget you.

Pola Roupa-Nikos Maziotis, Prisoner for the Action of the Revolutionary Struggle, Domokos Prisons.

Source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1637921/

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=21823

#anarchist #ChristosSpilios #europe #greece #nikosMaziotis #polaRoupa #revolutionaryStruggle #rip

For Comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris – Revolutionary Struggle

A year ago, comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris lost his life while building an explosive device. He had decided to respond in this dynamic way to some great injustice, to defend a right, to a class and anti-social state policy… Whatever he had decided to do, whatever action he had chosen, it was certainly an armed political action against a savage and deeply unjust system of power that in our time shows more and more bluntly its antisocial and racist face. A deeply class-based system of power that now openly shows its hatred towards anything that does not bring profit and power.

Comrade Kyriakos lost his life walking on the path of armed anti-regime action. In the great world history of the armed struggle, many fighters have given their lives in the struggle against authoritarian governments, against authoritarian regimes, against anti-social policies, against interstate wars. They gave their lives in the struggle for a better society. They gave their lives fighting with a gun in their hands.

They gave their lives by placing or manufacturing explosive devices. They gave their lives for a society without divisions, without poverty, without wars, for social liberation.

In this struggle, no one is lost. Death does not erase their social and political imprints that remain deeply engraved in revolutionary history.

Today and every day that passes, we see the entanglements of the state and capital crushing millions of people. The system of power has brought to the surface every weapon at its disposal and uses it to stifle resistance, to consolidate consensus through coercion and violence, to maintain passivity in the social base, to impose any anti-social measure it wants, to increase the profits of big capital by stealing from the majority. Capital and modern states bring to the surface their most brutal, ruthless face in history. Either they will expand and strengthen their sovereignty over other states or they will let the privileges of their sovereignty shrink and wither. In a deep systemic crisis that has a past and a future and in which states and capital are sinking deeper and deeper, we experience every day generalized -indirect or direct- social cleansings, wars, genocides of entire peoples, raw racism, the extermination of the pariah, extreme economic exploitation. All of this is connected in a network of managing a crisis of survival of the system and maintaining profits for the super-rich of the planet. Along with every form of violence unleashed by the dominant system of power against the weak, the poison of hatred for the different and for the weak that infects the youth is also unleashed. Resistance and anti-state struggle are becoming increasingly demanding and at the same time increasingly necessary.

Fighters like Kyriakos who do not bend, who do not give up, who are not afraid to confront the choice of armed action in an era when excessive regime violence surpasses any modern historical precedent, the least that is due
to them is to become points of reference for the continuation of the struggle and the inspiration of all.

Comrade Kyriakos will forever remain a living example of total dedication and selflessness in a common struggle that concerns all of society.

Comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris will always be present in the struggle for social liberation from the shackles of the state and capital.

He is Immortal

Pola Roupa-Nikos Maziotis

Source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1637822/

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=21687

#anarchist #europe #greece #KyriakosXymitiris #nikosMaziotis #polaRoupa #revolutionaryStruggle

Pola Roupa: The Hostage-Taking Does Not End, It Just Changes Its Face

Conditional release imposes the well-known restrictions: Presence at the police station and a ban on leaving the country until the end of the sentence. This is a normal procedure. However, what the state reserves for the cases of prisoners convicted under 187A, the well-known “anti-terrorism” law, is the subjection of everyone to the control and restrictions of an authority that was also established in Greece following a European directive.

This is the Anti-Money Laundering Authority, Section B (from now on in the text I will refer to it as an Authority) which is headed by prosecutors. Based on Article 50 of Law 4557/2018, everyone who has been convicted of dynamic-armed forms of resistance, that is, for “terrorism” according to state phraseology and legislation, has no right over any asset in their possession, whether it concerns bank accounts or real estate or anything else, since everything is frozen by the Authority.

In order for someone to open a bank account (at a time when every economic activity is now required to pass through the control of banks), e.g. for payroll or for an allowance, one must apply to the Authority, which will approve the use of a single account for this reason alone. However, as far as other assets are concerned, it is obliged to apply to the Authority for the partial release of some assets and the Authority will only accept it if it considers that this is absolutely necessary. And as is always the case, the Authority gives negative answers. That is, someone with a house that he has inherited from his parents, cannot transfer it to his child, rent it or sell it since the Authority prohibits it, even if he has a significant problem of survival.

So while one would expect this Authority to deal with what its name declares, that is, to control the origin of the assets and income of a person convicted under 187A, its work extends to any property of legal origin that binds it and prohibits any use of it forever.

My case is one of those cases that face this problem and will face it for the rest of their lives. In the case of those convicted under 187 (“criminal organization”) there is a possibility to get out of this situation, in the case of those convicted under 187A, no. This is a serious element that confirms once again that for the state in the hierarchy of violators of the state legal framework, the first place is held by those who chose the path of armed revolutionary action. Even in the face of heinous and deeply antisocial crimes, armed political resistance to the regime is met with the utmost vindictiveness.

I was informed of the new hostage condition imposed by the Authority, when I attempted, shortly after my release from prison in November 2023, to get the allowance for released prisoners. Upon application to the Authority, I was able to obtain it, as well as I was able to use a bank account for payroll and for the unemployment benefit I am currently receiving. At the same time, I applied to be able to use for livelihood an asset that came into my possession after the death of a relative, since with a basic salary or with an unemployment benefit it is impossible to support ourselves, as one member of the family, my son, is a minor and another member is in prison, my comrade Nikos Maziotis who the state is denying the release to which he is entitled, as he has rejected seven applications for release and is about to finally serve his entire sentence (a unique case for political prisoners and for prisoners in general).

But it is not only the problem of livelihood, as after my release from prison the debts that the state demands me to pay were presented and concern trials that have been made for the Revolutionary Struggle and financial penalties that have been imposed on us. The amounts are dizzying. In total, at the moment, the debt from the courts exceeds 27,000 euros. Initially, the fines they imposed were 11,000 euros. With an increase of 110% imposed with the declaration of the amount, it reached 23,100 euros, which after eight months exceeded the amount of 25,000 euros. Court costs and fines reach 2000 euros. Because the Authority prohibited me from using any assets due to a freeze, I found myself unable to pay the inheritance tax, which is now at 9,000 euros. That is, the total debt – and since the authority forbids me to use any inherited asset – exceeds 36,000 euros and is increasing at an inconceivable rate.

As provided, after an amount or more, criminal prosecution is brought for debts to the state where the penalty is not avoided and imprisonment is not excluded. That is, I will again face the prospect of going to prison again, this time for debts to the state, because the Authority has paved the way to this end.

Debts and the Authority have now built a financial noose. This is a new hostage condition that is consciously imposed by the state to create a state of suffocation around every aspect of my life and, above all, my son’s life, since he is the direct recipient of this whole condition. Prospectively, and since there is a complete inability to repay even a part of these debts, the threat of a possible new imprisonment is visible in the next few years. If this is not a plan of political revenge, then what is?

It’s not enough that I stayed in state prisons for eight years and six months, it’s not enough that the courts have imposed these fines and debts on me, the Authority comes and prohibits any use of assets while knowing everything about my financial situation. It prohibits the use of these assets for livelihood purposes, knowing that this decision of hers is, in principle, against the interests of a minor teenager. Knowing how the “best interests of the child” are prioritized above the restrictions imposed by the state legal framework. Because, in this case, it depends on whose child it is, as we saw in the past with my arrest in 2017 and the exceptional-criminal treatment reserved for him by the state (detention in GADA, interrogation by DAEEB, confinement in a closed psychiatric ward for days under police guard, with the explicit prosecutor’s order to do all this under extreme secrecy, a ban on contacting relatives and his release after a hunger and thirst strike with my partner Nikos Maziotis).

Obviously, Revolutionary Struggle with its political activity and my political stance for so many years in the courts and prisons is estimated by some state employees to have to suffer a new type of life sentence, with the Authority becoming the new body of judicial political revenge. I made a new application to the Authority these days asking to be allowed to use the inherited assets to repay part of the debts that burden me, since only through this way can I reduce the exorbitant debt. In case of refusal, they are not going to get a single euro, since not a single euro is left over.

Instead of being able to use these assets for the care of my son, for his life, for his education, his survival, his health, I now ask to use them to reduce a debt, which is in itself a highly vindictive condition.

When the entire social base is crushed under the economic violence of the state and capital, when conquests of many decades are thrown into the baskets of historical waste, such as the eight-hour day, won through bloody struggles, when wages and pensions are not enough to cover basic survival needs, when housing becomes a luxury item so as not to harm the interests of a few who speculate in various ways with it, When quality and adequate food becomes a condition for a few, access to health and effective care becomes a privilege for the rich, when the majority is exterminated every day and slowly disappears, then we are talking about a universal hostage condition. But the dynamic political opponents of the regime in power, in addition to the long prison sentences imposed on them, from the moment they pass… outside the prison gate, have been sentenced for life to live in an even more suffocating, within the universal and for the entire social base, hostage. In a hostage within the hostage. The hostage of a well-planned and without any way out of economic, and therefore social suffocation that comes from the absolute and indisputable power of the Authority. This plan of vengeful extermination must be stopped.

Pola Roupa

14/9/2025

Source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1637572/

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=21442

#anarchist #europe #greece #polaRoupa #revolutionaryStruggle

Solidarity Concert for Nikos Maziotis of Revolutionary Struggle (Lyon, France)

Solidarity concert for the comrade of Revolutionary Struggle, Nikos Maziotis

Solidarity concert for the comrade of Revolutionary Struggle, Nikos Maziotis, following the rejection of his request for release and the extension of his captivity. For the sixth time, the judicial council refuses to grant him a suspended sentence, even though he has exceeded the 3/5 of his sentence since 2022, as defined by the “laws” for all prisoners. In Greece, he is the only political prisoner with a 20-year merged sentence—i.e., not a life sentence—who experiences this punitive condition, simply because he has not shown “remorse” or “moral improvement.” But revolutionaries are not “reformed” and do not “morally improve.” We stand in solidarity with the imprisoned comrade of Revolutionary Struggle, Nikos Maziotis.

During the gathering, comrade Pola Roupa will intervene via phone.

source: Act for Freedom

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=19966

#anarchism #europe #France #greece #nikosMaziotis #revolutionaryStruggle

«Οι αναρχικοί δεν είναι στο περιθώριο των λαϊκών αγώνων, ούτε προσπαθούν να τους κυριαρχήσουν.
Επιδιώκουν να συνεισφέρουν πρακτικά όπου μπορούν, και επίσης να ενισχύσουν μέσα σε αυτούς τα υψηλότερα δυνατά επίπεδα ατομικής αυτοανάπτυξης και συλλογικής αλληλεγγύης».

— Στιούαρτ Κρίστι

📡 @adespotos
#quotes #christie #anarchists #revolutionarystruggle

Intervention of N.Maziotis and P. Roupa at the Two Days of Discussion Against Prison

Comrades, greetings to all of you, I send you a big hug from Domokos prison in Greece. Thank you for inviting me to your event.

Regarding your first question related to the current legal situation in which I am in for my release, the prospect is that I will be released towards the end of 2026 with the expiry of my entire sentence. What does this mean? So far I have made 7 applications for conditional release with the remainder of my sentence suspended. According to the old penal code in Greece, an old prisoner like me can be released on parole after serving 3/5 of his sentence. And when I say 3/5 of the sentence I mean including work in prison. For the remaining 2/5 of the sentence, the former prisoner is present at the police station of the area where he lives and is banned from leaving the country.

In my case, where I have been sentenced to 20 years, 3/5 is the 12 years with work. I completed the 3/5 in January 2022 having done 9 years in prison plus 3 years of work. Since then, as I said, I have made 7 applications for parole and probation for the remainder of the sentence but they have all been rejected. As I have made public in a text that you may have read (it was also translated into English), Until the end of the sentence – How did we get here (https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1634609/), the reason is because I remain consistent with the choices of struggle I made, namely the choice of guerrilla, of the organization I belonged to, the Revolutionary Struggle, and I refuse to make any statement of disavowal, repentance and disapproval of my action.

Also, in the rejection decisions in the judicial councils, apart from the fact that I still consider the choice of the struggle, of guerrilla warfare, they also mention various “disciplinary offences” that I committed mainly in 2017, which normally should not be counted as a criterion in the decisions for release from prison, since some time has passed since they were committed. Such ”disciplinary offences” were the destruction of monitors in the prison control and monitoring system, insulting the prosecutor and the prison director, destroying the isolation wing in which I was for a time in Korydallos prison and disobeying the orders of the prison guards.

So far I have served 12.5 years in prison plus 4.5 years of work, a total of 17 years. When I say work I mean that I am a cleaner in the ward where I am, where e.g. one day of work counts for 2 in serving the sentence.

So based on the fact that I have 3 years left to complete all 20 years with work, I have almost 1.5 years left in prison. That means I will have done almost 14 years in prison plus 6 years of work. The good thing is that when I get out of prison I won’t be present at the police station.

That’s all about the legal situation that I’m in and about when I’m going to be released.

In general, it’s a very bad development because until now it was not usual for them to do such a thing. However, in Greece in recent years there has been an increasing tightening of the legal framework of repression and the penal code and the “penitentiary” code in order to increase the sentences and the length of the prisoners’ stay in prison. And this is something that first and foremost applies to political prisoners like me who will probably be the first person with a 20-year sentence to serve the entire sentence without parole.

Regarding the questions on solidarity and the escape attempted by comrade Roupa in 2016, I will say a few things that I think will clarify what you are asking.

The attempted escape by helicopter attempted by Comrade Roupa in 2016 was clearly intended, if successful, to continue the action of the Revolutionary Struggle in a context in which the memoranda, the austerity programmes imposed on Greece by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund had been consolidated since 2010. The Revolutionary Struggle had already started a campaign of attacks against the policy of dealing with the economic crisis by the Greek governments, since 2009 after the December 2008 uprising, with bomb attacks against banks (Citibank, Eurobank), against the Athens Stock Exchange and also with the armed attacks against riot police officers after the ’08 uprising. So even when we were still in the illegal path in 2012, after our first arrests in 2010 – having been initially remanded in custody for 18 months and released because the trial had not taken place – we continued the action by carrying out the car bomb attack with 75 kg of explosives on 10 April 2014 at the building of the Supervision Directorate of the Bank of Greece where the office of the IMF’s permanent representative in Greece was located. This attack was dedicated to our comrade Lambros Fountas who was killed in a fight with police officers on March 10, 2010 in a preparatory action – car expropriation – that the organization was going to use in a bombing attack against the enforcement of the First Memorandum of 2010.

But after the defeat of the social and popular revolt against the imposition of the memoranda in 2010-12, conditions had changed dramatically for the worse. This defeat, as I have also formulated in my last text Until the end of the sentence – How did we get here (https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1634609/),is due to the absence of a revolutionary anti-state and anti-capitalist movement in 2010-12 -when the Greek people were besieging to occupy the parliament- with the aim of attempting a revolution in Greece at that time. This was something that the R.S. had proposed to the anarchist/anti-authoritarian movement and the wider anti-capitalist movement as early as 2009 when the international economic crisis was starting to affect Greece when we were doing the campaign of attacks I mentioned before. The Revolutionary Struggle as it was stated then, only the Social Revolution would be the solution to overcome the economic crisis. But this did not happen. The defeat of the social revolt against the memoranda in 2012 but at the same time the political defeat of the ‘movement’ and the spaces of resistance had very serious consequences. This defeat has resulted in the state totalitarianism that we are living today, the permanent impoverishment and austerity, the state crimes such as the deadly fires in Mati in 2018 and the train collision in Tempe in 2023 due to the deliberate degradation of social infrastructure, and the simultaneous intensification of repression even at the legislative level such as the hardening of the legal framework in the criminal and ”penal” code that I mentioned before. There has been a general retreat of social struggles and resistances since then and the state passes whatever measures it wants with relative ease and almost without resistance regardless of the government, whether left or right. Another consequence of the 2012 defeat is that parts of the Greek anarchist/anti-authoritarian space supported the left-wing Syriza party after 2012 under the illusion that if it becomes government it will resist the lenders – the EU, ECB and IMF troika -, that the country will get out of EMU and that there can be alternative governance and opportunities for struggle!

It is well known that many anarchists voted for SYRIZA in the 2012 and 2015 elections. On the contrary, in 2014, when Revolutionary Struggle bombed the Bank of Greece’s Supervision Directorate and the office of the International Monetary Fund, it had predicted in its proclamation, in which it took responsibility, that SYRIZA, when it became a government, would also submit to the lenders’ troika, despite its promises to abolish the memoranda, which was confirmed.

In these conditions of general social defeat but also of political failure, retreat and opportunism of the anarchist/anti-authoritarian space and the “movement” after 2012, the Revolutionary Struggle encountered great difficulties in escalating its action from 2012 onwards. We found ourselves isolated and with a serious lack of solidarity and support. And this was exactly the cause of our arrests, mine in 2014 and that of comrade Roupa in 2017, and it was the cause of course of the termination of the Revolutionary Struggle’s action. We had no support to stand in the illegality even to survive. Because otherwise, how else can it be explained that Comrade Roupa alone attempted to hijack the helicopter so that I and others could escape from prison?

More generally, the lack of solidarity was one thing we encountered from our first arrests in 2010. And this is due to the bad tradition that exists in the Greek ‘movement’, in that it has difficulty in defending politically the militants who take political responsibility for their participation in the guerrilla organisations they are members of, while it is easier to defend some when they are arrested for such cases and declare that they have been the victim of a state frame-up or that they are being persecuted for their associational and political relations. This is a bad tradition in Greece compared to Western Europe and the Western European guerrilla movement of the 1970s and 80s where the assumption of political responsibility by members of guerrilla organisations was self-evident. We were the first in Greece at the organisational level, not individually as individuals, to take political responsibility for our participation in the Revolutionary Struggle in 2010. And this determined to a large extent, unfortunately, what solidarity we had from the space we came from. And when we went underground in 2012 to continue the action, in the conditions of the general social defeat, the retreat of resistance spaces and the opportunism shown by parts of the anarchist/anti-authoritarian space that saw the Syriza government positively, the solidarity deficit was even greater. And this deficit of solidarity combined with the state and regime totalitarianism that began to prevail after 2012 and with the intensification of criminal and ”correctional” repression in recent years, contributed to a certain extent to the brutal treatment we received from the state after our arrests in 2014 and 2017, which was also expressed in terms of sentences and the fact that after the arrest of comrade Roupa in 2017, they took away parental care of our son who was born in prison in 2010 and attempted to keep him in an institution.

More generally, parts of the anarchist/anti-authoritarian space have shown a belligerent attitude towards us, going so far as to support politically a repentant former member of our organisation who in 2017 had publicly stated in court that ”I have never declared that I am a revolutionary” and that ”the Revolutionary Struggle was defeated in 2010”, taking a clear separation from us, from me and Comrade Roupa who went underground and continued the action of the Revolutionary Struggle with the attack on the CBE and the IMF office and the attempted escape by Comrade Roupa. For these parts the Revolutionary Struggle was ”good” until 2010 but should not exist afterwards! In fact, the political support for the penitent went so far as to have 3 people from the area go to the court as witnesses for the defence of the penitent after he had made these statements in support of his separation from us and the separation in the history of the organisation, which is if anything a world first in the history of movements and guerrilla movements.

For all these reasons I mentioned above, the social defeat after 2012 and the retreat and opportunism of the “movement” and the anarchist/anti-authoritarian space, the attempted escape with the hijacking of the helicopter by Comrade Roupa, although it was an unprecedented action, did not have the results it should have had. The fact that the attempt was intended for others to join us made it an unprecedented act of solidarity which Comrade Roupa carried out at the risk of her life. But this was not appreciated either by the anarchist/anti-authoritarian space or even by those who were going to leave with us who were separated from us in the court that was held for this case. This is due to the erosion of consciences in the space, the extent of the defeat in the struggle and the alienation of the concept of solidarity as solidarity has become a matter of individual and self-interest.

But to be fair, I have to tell you that there are parts of the anarchist space and movement that are in solidarity with us, that support us in any way they can, as well as from abroad. But this does not negate the grim situation I have described to you. And this situation is the reason why I will be the only prisoner so far with a temporary sentence, not a life sentence, who will be released not on parole but on completion of the whole sentence.

Another thing I should point out is that at the moment in Greek prisons there is nothing like the 41 bis that exists in Italy and a general isolation regime. In 2014 a special regime was created, the type C prisons, namely in Domokos prison and I was the first prisoner to be transferred there. This regime was quickly abolished in the spring of 2015 after a hunger strike by political-anarchist prisoners. However, the current government from 2022 has legislated a special detention regime, the so-called ‘maximum security’ prisons, which however have not yet been opened and it is planned to detain those accused or convicted under the ‘anti-terrorism’ law, i.e. political prisoners, for ‘organised’ crime or prisoners who have committed disciplinary offences within the prison.

I should also point out that apart from the retreat of struggles and resistance in society, in the last 5 years, although the state has repeatedly revised the penal and “penitentiary” code for the worse, with the aim, as I said before, of increasing sentences and keeping most of the prisoners in prison by raising the parole limits, there are no struggles of prisoners in prison. All of the relevant bills have passed without any opposition. The only notable ones have been in 2020, a stand by women prisoners in Korydallos prison who kept their cells open at midday closing time which was organised by comrade Roupa – and related to covid measures – and for which the comrade was transferred the next day to Thebes prison. And a revolt also by women prisoners in Thebes prison at the same time when a prisoner died from inadequate medical care because she had to go to hospital and they didn’t take her. And more recently there were some mobilisations in the women’s prison in Korydallos. Also, while several bills were passed to revise the penal and ”correctional” code, there were some very late attempts of mobilizations in 2023-’24 in the men’s prisons without any success.

Unfortunately, comrades, we live in an ever-increasing state and regime totalitarianism with the state advancing and the resistance spaces and the “movement” constantly retreating. Nevertheless, we must not lose heart and continue the struggle.

Despite the cost I am paying, I am more convinced than ever of the rightness and justice of my choices and the rightness of the action of the Revolutionary Struggle, of the correctness of its proposals, of what it said. Because our analyses and predictions have been vindicated in time and because his proposals for another society, free of the staterand the capital and without classes remain relevant.

I wish all the comrades, the fighters strength and health. I send a big hug to all the comrades all over the world who are in prison and I wish that they remain standing despite the difficulties of incarceration.

STRUGGLE AGAINST THE STATE AND THE CAPITAL

SOLIDARITY TO ALL DETAINED REVOLUTIONARIES

LONG LIVE THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Nikos Maziotis,

convicted for the action of the Revolutionary Struggle,

4th ward of Domokos prison

Εδώ το μέρος της εκδήλωσης που αφορά τον Ε.Α.: https://we.tl/t-KxTe2iwR8M

  via: Νίκος Μαζιώτης-Πόλα Ρούπα

source: Act For Freedom

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=19704

#anarchism #europe #greece #revolutionaryStruggle