Freedom News

This Black December

Banners are dropped across the first and fourth wings of the Korydallos Prison in Greece. Weeks earlier, prisoners, including hunger-striker Nikos Romanos, called for a “detonator for the restart of anarchist insurgency, inside and outside the prisons” in the stirring insurrectionist communique ‘For a Black December’. The banners ring true: “Insurrection is always timely”, as is proven by this Black December’s recent revolts. People have been hitting back at state control, the prison-industrial complex and private property in Chile, Brazil, Greece, Britain and elsewhere.

United Kingdom

On November 25th in Bristol, the Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF) claimed responsibility for burning a car belonging to the French corporation GDF Suez and a 4×4 of one of the biggest security companies in the UK. “Against class society and industrial development” and in solidarity with “the rotating hunger strike in the Greek prison system…and all prisoners at war with the prison,” the action struck at the intersection of prison society and capitalist accumulation.

London Anarchist Black Cross have announced a solidarity demonstration outside Pentonville and Holloway prisons as part of the global actions against the prison system on new year’s eve. An important and visible show of solidarity with imprisoned Londoners, criminalised under capitalism and state racism, the demonstration will start at Pentonville prison at eight o’clock and move to Holloway for half-past nine.

Chile

Anarchists in Santiago built street barricades and blockaded roads for over an hour on November 26th. Carrying out the direct action outside the Juan Gomez campus, they list the names of fallen comrades in an anonymous communique released shortly afterwards:

…May our ideals live in everyday and violent action. A salute to the combatants: Juan Aliste Vega, Marcelo Villarroel, Freddy Fuentevilla, Carlos Quiduleo, Juan Flores, Nataly Casanova, Guillermo Duran, Alejandro Astorga, Sol Vergara and all prisoners in the territory occupied by the state of Chile, as well as to Monica Caballero and Francisco Solar, to the prisoners of Mexico, Indonesia, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, to Nikos Romanos and Yannis Michailidis, both on hunger strike demonstrating that the anti-authoritarian struggle does not end in prison, but another breach opens from there, other means to keep blowing out the existent. Also all our love and memory to our comrades who have fallen in combat, Claudia Lopez, Jhony Cariqueo, Mauricio Morales, Sebastian Oversluij, Jorge Saldivia, the latter two brothers killed in bank robberies. All our loving remembrance will always take the form of fire and war against every authority. Long live anarchy.”

Subsequently, between November 28th and December 2nd, anarchists sabotaged transport lines in Santiago and have attacked an upmarket pet shop. The communique that followed, claiming responsibility, quotes Sebastian Oversluij, who died in a failed bank expropriation in 2013, on how prison society extends onto other species:

Along with educating and informing, (…) taking yourself out of the laws of the capital system, (…) spraying and sabotaging companies (…) we are not thinking only of the animals but of the whole ecosystem that is getting worse everyday. If we should destroy the property of those who support animal exploitation then we will not hesitate to use all our weapons, even burning that evil place.”

The communique continues: “To contribute to revitalizing our own territory, anti-speciesist action is also our form of solidarity with the anarchist and vegan prisoner Osmar Evcan, on hunger strike since November 10 in the prisons of the State of Turkey, who risks his life using his body as a weapon demanding the restoration of vegan food in the prison.”

Spain

On December 5th, a spontaneous demonstration in memory of Alexis Grigoropoulos occurred in Madrid.

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Madrid

Brazil

On November 15th, four banks were attacked and their windows were broken in Sao Paulo. The “Carlo Giuliani” cell of the Anarchist Insurgent Movement (MIA) assumed responsibility for the four incendiary attacks. Echoing the calls for an insurgence inside and outside the prisons, their communique attacks the lie of pacifism:

…There is no way to remain a pacifist in the face of one of the most violent societies ever constructed over the course of history. We not delude ourselves into believing that this gigantic pyramid of hierarchised oppressions can be overthrown or even delegitimised through pacifist actions.”

United States

Michael Kimble, Black and gay anarchist prisoner, wrote ‘Black December in memory of our fallen comrades’ from within his long-term incarceration. Imprisoned for defending himself and others against a racist and homophobic attack in the 80s, Kimble has become a strong voice for radical action for prison abolition in America:

For me devising a strategy to destroy the state is simple. Attack the symbols of power using all tactics including improvised ammunitions, molotovs, demonstrations etc. In other words, our strategy should be by any means necessary, including everything and excluding nothing. The debate about the fetishization of direct action needs to end. Direct action and counter-info projects both contribute to the destruction of power.”

Greece

Between the November 17th and 19th in Athens, the locals offices of ruling-party Nea Dimokratia were attacked in solidarity with imprisoned Nikos Romanos, Iraklis Kostaris and Yannis Michailidis and a security vehicle was burned in the Metamorfosi region.

On November 23rd, anarchists in Thessaloniki placed an explosive at the house of Dimitris Padiotis, president of the Thessaloniki Police Officers Union. They claimed the action in solidarity with Nikos Romanos and Yannis Michailidis.

November 26th became the day of escalation when anarchists in Ioannina vandalized cash machines with glue, cash machines were set alight with gasoline in Athens and the lawyer Alexis Kougias was spontaneously assaulted. Kougias previously defended the policemen that murdered Alexis Grigoropoulos in 2008.

athensContinuing the escalation, on November 29th, in Volos a police station was attacked with stones and paint in solidarity with Nikos Romanos. A group sabotaged a press meeting of Minister of Public Order Vassilis Kikilias while another attacked the offices of the Legal Council of the State in Heraklion in Crete.

A small riot broke out in Exarchia in Athens on November 30th. The rioters threw molotovs at police, erected barricades and smashed luxury cars. Slogans in solidarity with Nikos Romanos could be heard for hours in the borough.

In the two days before the anniversary of the murder of fifteen year-old anarchist Alexis Grigoropoulos by police, anarchists rioted in the Exarcheia district of Athens. Small groups of people targeted police lines with projectiles and shouted chants in remembrance of Grigoropoulos.

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