This afternoon, Saturday August 13th, three people handing out handbills at the popular weekly outdoor market in Kallidromou, in Athens, were surrounded by the DELTA motorcycle squad, detained and brought to the police station for questioning.
The cops claim the three looked like suspects wanted in a robbery, but of course this is nonsense. Since an army of cops took over Exarcheia Square on August 8, Exarcheia has been under a full military-style police occupation, and the three were targeted because of their handbills.
This kind of "suspicion" of another crime is a common pretext to harass and intimidate suspected anarchists. People are rounded up, brought to the police station, put in a cell, their ID taken, questioned and maybe held "until the victim of the robbery can come make an identification." The supposed victim of the supposed robbery never shows; it's just political bullying.
As a small gesture of solidarity with these three and all others who are fighting the current and extreme police occupation of Exarcheia, I have translated the flyer they were handing out into English.
I would note that point 5, "We show solidarity/open doors to protesters," includes the most literal meaning. When there is active repression, it's common for sympathetic locals to offer protesters shelter in their homes or businesses.
TO ALL:
A CALL TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF EXARCHEIA
The daily intensity of the attack, in the context of gentrification and the violence of capital, is wide-ranging for workers, residents and political movements in the neighborhood. The rent increases, the evictions of tenants due to exploitation by REAL ESTATE predators, international capital and big investors, the conversions of apartments and entire buildings to AIRBNB, all create a huge housing problem in the neighborhood, displacing those with lower incomes. The neighborhood's public schools are challenged every day, with classes emptied due to the inability of families to respond to rent increases, while the immigrants and the socially excluded who traditionally found refuge in Exarcheia "disappear" to detention centers or elsewhere, the targets of daily police operations ordered by the Municipality of Athens.
On August 9 at 4:30 a.m. there was an unprecedented operation by contractors accompanied by an occupying army to fence off Exarcheia Square with sheet metal. Since then, the square has been turned into a police-controlled construction site, as it's expected to remain for the next 8 years. In the next phase, they will excavate the square, the 70 trees in the square will be cut down, the only square in the neighborhood will be destroyed and political resistance will receive an irreparable injury, since the Square has been an emblematic point for counterpower movements from the post-colonial period through today.
At the same time, the attack on the social character of Strefi Hill is underway with the consttruction company TOMI AVETE (A subsidiary of AKTOR) having started the machinery to turn the hill into a tourist resort, a commercial zone, an area of social control that will result in its sterilization.
WE REJECT
- the imposed "development" of the city center and its transformation into a tourist resort.
- a vast construction site of contractors and startups, like the Great Walk.
- the destruction of spaces vital to the social fabric, such as the museumification of the Polytechnic.
- the sterilization of public universities, the looting of public and free spaces and green spaces.
- the increase in rents, the privatization of Strefi Hill, the conversion of residential neighborhoods into zones of commerce.
LET US SUPPORT THE STRUGGLE:
The forces of repression have occupied our neighborhood for the interests of businessmen.
- We participate in the community assembly every Friday at 18:30 at Strefi theater
- We hang banners or black flags from our balconies as a sign of protest and resistance
- We discourage the police forces with slogans, shouting, banging pots
- We record police brutality on video
- We show solidarity/open doors to protesters
NO METRO STATION AT EXARCHEIA SQUARE
NO HANDOVER OF STREFI HILL TO PRIVATE INTERESTS
POLYTECHNIC WILL REMAIN A PLACE FOR MEETINGS AND RESISTANCE
FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE CULTURE OF RACISM, SEXISM AND AUTHORITY
RENT REDUCTIONS / NO EVICTIONS
MAFIA OUT OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD
— Coordinated Action for the Defense of Exarcheia