A-Infos (en) Greece, APO, land & freedom: For the police ban and suppression of the demonstration against rape and gender-based violence (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

THE STATE WASHES RAPES - EXTERMINATES COMPETITORS ---- For the police ban and 
suppression of the demonstration against rape and gender violence ---- On Friday 
22/7 there was an invited gathering in Exarchion square - on the initiative of 
"Comrades against patriarchy and gender-based violence' and then by the APO 
'anti-patriarchy group', the Rubicon feminist sector, Sabbat and other 
collectives - against rape attempts that occurred in the area in the past. More 
specifically, on Thursday 14/7 in Psellou street, below the Strefi hill, a woman 
was attacked by two men who robbed her, beat her severely and then tried to rape 
her, which fortunately was prevented with the help of her residents neighborhood 
who heard her voices. One of the two perpetrators was recognized by the woman and 
caught with the help of a passer-by, and the second escaped towards the Strefi 
hill, with the typical indifference of the police to look for him, while numerous 
forces are camped in Exarchia targeting militants. At A.T. From the beginning, 
the woman, who went to report the robbery, beating and attempted rape she had 
suffered, received disrespect and insults from the police, while her torture 
continued at Evangelismos hospital where she was forced to stay for hours waiting 
for him to come medical examiner to examine her.
It is not the first time that such events have occurred, in an area where drug 
mafias in direct collaboration with the police attempt to impose conditions of 
social cannibalism, hand in hand with state repression and its targeting. And it 
is not the first time that as women and as anarchists we take to the streets 
erecting ramparts against gender-based violence and sexist attacks by the police, 
as was done with the two demonstrations in 2019, against rape as well as against 
the police occupation of Exarchia, when camped platoons harassed women and girls 
who live, work, frequent and fight in the area on a daily basis.
Yesterday's rally was called in an environment of intensifying competition 
between the killers who rule and that society that resists. In the midst of anger 
at the generalized patriarchal, class and state violence that is supported and 
covered up by the institutions (with the release of the child rapist Lingadis and 
the rapist Filippidis, with the cops who killed Jacques being acquitted and the 
Hortaria-Dimopoulos walking free, with Korkoneas to be released from prison, 
Georgia's rapists to be freed by judicial will, at the same time that rape 
victims are paraded in courtrooms and in the media). In the days when the hunger 
strike of the anarchist Yannis Michaelidis culminates, whose life is now in 
immediate danger, with the vindictive extension of his imprisonment while he has 
completed the prescribed time of his sentence, while on Thursday 21/7 the police 
had surrounded and attempted also to ban the solidarity march in the center of 
Athens. At the same time, the plan to suppress the occupied struggle spaces 
continues, with the evacuation of occupation 111 in Thessaloniki, the ultimatum 
to the occupation of the Old Cemetery in Alexandroupolis, and the constant threat 
that all occupations face, being constantly in the crosshairs of the state's 
counter-insurgency campaign. Immigrants and refugees are being murdered at the 
border with the practice of pushbacks by the Greek state, and at the same time we 
are living once again the horror of the destruction and looting of nature, which 
leaves behind scorched earth, charred trees, animals and houses, with forests 
burning in across the country, and public green spaces within the city to be 
surrendered to privatization and commercialization to become zones of capitalist 
profiteering, repression and control. (Exarchia square, Strefi hill, Cyprus and 
Patision park, Dracopoulos estate etc.). So this is the environment in which the 
state proceeds to ban demonstrations.
On Friday 22/7, an hour and a half before the invited gathering, strong police 
forces of all kinds (MAT, DRASI, OPKE and finally EKAM) camp around the perimeter 
of the square and in the surrounding narrow streets. Comrades and solidarity, we 
gather in the square and the crowd gradually grows. Announcements are read on the 
microphone, slogans are shouted, texts are shared.

When the protesters take to the street, a police barricade is set up in front of 
them, preventing the march from moving forward. The riot police attack, globbing 
the comrades in the front chains and throwing tear gas and flashbangs at the body 
of the protest.

We regroup under the fumes of tear gas. We stand with our banners facing the MAT 
and the wind, comrades, side by side. Another savage attack follows while the 
surrounding roads are blocked. The people trying to escape, protesters, residents 
and passers-by, are hit by MAT police who converge from the narrow streets. The 
brutal beating and arrest of a young man on Em Street is recorded. Benaki and 
eight other arrivals at the junction of Tositsa and Oikonomou streets, while 
residents of the area have come out angry on the balconies, screaming at the 
policemen to get up and leave.

Initially, an apartment building where people have taken refuge is surrounded, as 
well as the coffee shop in Exarchion square. A little later, in the presence of 
lawyers and photojournalists, the MAT leave the entrance of the apartment 
building and all their forces gather in front of the coffee shop, with the MAT 
kaffirs sticking their faces on the windows, threatening and making sexist 
gestures to the women who are inside. Among them is a minor child, as well as 
girlfriends hit by the previous attack by the cops. A new suffocating police 
cordon is set up around the cafe and even lawyers are prevented from approaching, 
who are pushed away by the MAT with their shields. A cage and a shuttle arrive at 
the scene to pick up the arrested. A prosecutor never showed up.

For more than two hours, while the evacuation operation lasts, we gather in front 
of the police barrier (Stournaris and Oikonomou). Comrades, we unfurl the banner 
and refuse to leave the spot, shouting slogans of solidarity against state 
terrorism. The world is growing. One of the MATatjis who is lined up one meter in 
front of our banner, threatens us with his gun. Once again, we are not backing down.

As long as the detainees are being led to the cages, slogans echo. No one alone - 
no one alone in the face of state repression. The companions in the cafe refuse 
to be physically checked by the male police officers and thus the process of 
bringing them in is blocked.
Shortly before the evacuation of the cafe is complete, the gathering is attacked 
again with tear gas and a chase is launched in the surrounding streets. An entire 
neighborhood is shouting POLICE TV JUDICIAL AUTHORITY, ALL TOGETHER FLUSH EVERY 
RUSSIAN.

A new rally is taking place outside GADA. Most of the perpetrators are released 
in the early hours of Saturday, while of the 57 arraignments, three were turned 
into arrests, with a ridiculous indictment, and taken to the prosecutor.
On Saturday, July 23, the orgy of state repression continued, with preventive 
arrests of anarchist comrades and a new ban on demonstrations in Exarcheion 
square, which for another day was suffocatingly surrounded for many hours by 
police forces.

State gangs don't scare us, they infuriate us.

EVERYONE IN THE STREETS, EVERYONE IN THE SQUARES - OUT THE ROUGH, THE POLICE AND 
THE MAFIA

VICTORY IN THE HUNGER STRIKE OF YIANNIS MICHAILIDES

AGAINST STATE AND PATRIARCHY FOR MANAGERSHIP AND ANARCHY

Anti-Patriarchy Group - Anarchist Political Organization

*material from land and freedom, kinimatini, Nikolas Georgiou & companion profiles

https://landandfreedom.gr/el/agones/883-gia-tin-astynomiki-apagorefsi-kai-katastoli-tis-diadilosis-enantia-stous-viasmoys-kai-tin-emfyli-via
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