Police state rehearsed in Athens
Submitted by taxikipali on Mar 17 2009
New repressive and legislative measures aim to create state of siege for the Greek capital.
After holding meetings with the Scotland Yard as well as American security advisers, the frail Greek government with only one MP majority has announced the imposition of draconian measures aimed to halt the rising social antagonistic movement across the country. With the support of the corporate media, the government has announced it will not tolerate any more political violence on the streets, giving a carte blanche to the regime’s praetorian guard, as the ex-Minister of Public Order, Byron Polidoras, has called the riot police, to exercise unlimited force on demonstrators. In addition, the government has announced the formation of a rapid reaction force of 300 armed policemen mounted on fast motorbikes to patrol the heart of the Athens and the introduction of police dogs in pedestrian patrols. The Minister of Justice has also announced the introduction of a new law that will severely punish hoods, masks and other feature distorting clothing in protest marches. The corporate press has been ahistorically using the term “koukouloforos”, i.e. hooded man, to refer to anarchists and other radicals, trying to identify the social movement with the hooded Nazi collaborators of the German occupation in the 1940s, a tactic of psychological warfare endorsed by the Communist Party [KKE]. The corporate media, which are fanning the fears of conservative sections of the population with talk of an impeding civil war, have also been supporting the government and its allies to the far-right in their attempt to open up the issue of the university asylum, a clause in Greece’s Constitution. Earlier attempts to that cause were thwarted by the huge student movement in 2006-2007.
Left wing and independent media as well as a wide spectrum of the social movement have condemned the measures as a police state rehearsal aimed to impose a stage of siege in Athens and to repress social and labour struggles, pointing out that the State’s priority should be the dissolution of the neonazi parastate, the immediate release of the imprisoned insurgents of December, and that policemen should be disarmed (several thousands of them were estimated yesterday as unfit for carrying weapons) and be forced to wear numbers indicating their identity, something that does not happen today.
The new measures are expected to rise rather than dampen social tension, especially as the government has lately proved its propensity towards totalitarianism, amongst other things by appointing the old propaganda chief of the colonels’ junta as director of the state archives, thus placing the future of both academic and independent research at the hands of one of the darkest figures of recent Greek history. The current government is run by the Nea Dimokratia Party, the immediate successor of the junta and a transformation of the post civil war royalist party that filled the islands with concentration camps for communists in the 1950s.
[ Waterdown - 'Cut the cord' ]
14.05: Prisoner Katerina Goulioni dies in police custody under mysterious circumstances; new government law against hoodies
According to various newssite reports,prisoner Katerina Goulioni, prisoner and militant prisoners’ rights activist, has died in police custody this morning.
UPDATE, 15.48 Latest comments from IMC Athens reveal that Katerina was on the same boat to Crete with fascist prisoner “Periandros”. Periandros attacked anarchist prisoner Yannis Dimitrakis outside the boat (Yannis is in the hospital but is now ok in his health), only to be later attacked back by other prisoners in his own cell.
Katerina, who was held at the prison of Thiva in mainland Greece, was under transfer to Crete. In the boat from Pireaus to Crete, the guards forced her to sit alone, 15 seats behind the other prisoners, hands tied behind the back. At 6am this morning Katerina was found dead; according to testimonies by other prisoners, she was badly hit on the face.
The coroner refuses to give out any information before the official report, which is not expected before next week. Prisoners at the prison of Thiva already refuse their meals.
Katerina was one of the most active prisoners in defence of prisoners’ rights and was often put in isolation.
(This is breaking news, more will hopefully follow)
Meanwhile, the conservative government’s justice minister has announced a new law, echoing the often-repeated demand of LAOS, the extreme-right parliamentary party. According to the new law, those arrested and convicted of crimes while concealing their identity will be facing longer charges - ranging between 2 and 10 years more. This is not a german-style banning of hoodies all together (which has also been suggested by LAOS) and is virtually inneforcible.
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