A call for support

On Friday, October 30th, Doug Zuidema, Director of Judiciary Affairs at UCSC, notified a collection of students — many of whom were journalists reporting outside the Humanities 2 Occupation — that they were potentially subject to disciplinary proceedings. The charge: simply being present in a space in which a political action was taking place. On Thursday evening, UCSC officials dispatched campus police to disperse a group of students and faculty meeting in a library to discuss the impact of the budget crisis on public education. University officials are engaged in an armed campaign to intimidate protestors, threaten press coverage of political action and restrict students’ and workers’ right to assemble. After witnessing two occupations on a single campus during the first month of the academic calendar, the UCSC administration is terrified that a new radical student-worker movement is gaining strength and numbers. The University increasingly functions like a police apparatus: taking surveillance photos at protests, compiling dossiers on individuals, modifying response protocols and manufacturing phony charges against students and workers for kangaroo courts. As further evidence of administrative paranoia, university officials preemptively evacuated several buildings which were thought to be the targets of future occupations.

In the eyes of the bureaucrats running this system, direct action constitutes a serious threat. Their response strategy is clear: attack anyone around political actions — and anyone discussing them for that matter — in order to scare away support for any political action at all. These are attempts to govern with fear, to silence our dissent. The administration seeks to divide us from one another, to alienate “the protestors” from “the campus community.” But we are increasingly realizing the truth of our collective situation: our community is being torn apart by this crisis. We are the crisis. These expressions of dissent through action ARE forms of discourse as well. They are modes of opening conversation beyond the limited forums available and ways of provoking discussion.

This is a call to students, workers, and faculty to support the freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and freedom of speech on this campus. We can use these disciplinary actions and police operations as a flashpoint for generalizing our collective struggle. Indeed, a diversity of tactics will be necessary in the days to come. It would be a perilous mistake to tolerate these brute tactics of intimidation and threat.

To the active demand for a free society, the University responds with a pair of handcuffs and a can of mace. There is a word for this policy: barbarism.

None of this should come as a surprise. The administration encourages us to express our dissent in discourse, but they criminalize all expression of dissent through action. It is only during a real political crisis that we catch sight of this ugly fact, lurking behind the glimmering facade of every ivory tower.

We’ve Been Robbed Of Our Future. Now What?

a discussion about occupations, tactics, and the future of the student-worker movement

tuesday 5:30pm-7:30pm

outside 8/oakes dining hall

&

outside 9/10 dining hall

What is a Movement and How Do We Get One?

In response to the analysis of the Aufheben* Collective

[*not to be confused with the UK anti-state communist journal Aufheben, which we like]

What is a Movement & How Do We Get One?

I want to respond to some of the points made by the “Aufheben Collective” in their recently circulated analysis of the Oct. 24th statewide conference. [see below] I feel the need to do this not to argue with them as individuals – we will probably have those discussions face to face, over coffee or booze – but rather to counter several lines of thinking that I believe are both widespread and erroneous. For this reason, any time I address the attitudes of Aufheben, know that what I am really concerned with is the general attitudes represented by Aufheben’s analysis.

In general, the analysis is characteristic of the logic of creating a unilateral movement – a sort of “united front” – that resembles a campaign of a political party: centrally planned, rhetorically aligned, and claiming to represent the interests of those who are not involved. I would like to counterpose to this the vision of a truly open, democratic movement shaped by autonomous individuals and groups, in coordination insofar as it informs their actions but not claiming representational authority nor a false sense of “legitimacy.”

To begin, we have to look at the framework and thus the very ideology behind this convergence. We have to be very critical about these gatherings, the ends they claim to be organizing towards, and whom they claim to represent. For one thing, there are many, many active groups at UCSC that were not present, and I wonder what their reaction would have been to the charade we witnessed.

We need to be clear about who are our allies and who are not; what kind of organizing is positive, and what is negative. This is not to be divisive – all sectors can potentially play a role. But we cannot have overarching faith in the power of dialogue – indeed, the structural constraints imposed on the dialogical and decision-making processes in that space point to the essential shortcomings of such an approach. Neither can we ignore or blow off such conferences. I will of course keep participating in any way I can. But why must a movement, in order to grow, in order to “represent the interests of the working class,” in order to ultimately lead to not just one militant action, but sustained militant activity, continually glorify convergences that are fundamentally alienating and diversionary?

They Pledged Your Tuition – Part II & III Released

This is a series of letters produced by Bob Meister, professor at UCSC in regard to how the University of California issues bonds:

Part I (which you’ve hopefully already read)

Part II – Response to Faculty

Part III – Response to UCOP

Public Forum – Thursday 10/29

A public forum on the budget cuts at UCSC in Classroom Unit 2, at 7pm

the details can be found here.

Of note, the author of They Pledge Your Tuition (an article on corrupt UC bonds and construction projects), Bob Meister will be a panelist.

Modesto: Dance Party Against Fee Hikes

story at Modesto Anarcho

Austria Is Occupied!

The following universities have been occupied:

• University of Vienna
• University of Graz
• University of Linz
• University of Klagenfurt
• Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna
• Technical University of Graz
• Technical University of Vienna

From the University of Vienna

UC Strike

The Solidarity Alliance of UCB and Student Worker Action Team (SWAT) at UCB has a called for a 3 day strike in the UC starting November 18th (during the UC Regents meeting). They have also compiled an online petition available here. The following text is taken from that website:

We demand that the Regents vote no on the proposed fee increases.

We demand that the UC stop cuts and layoffs, and end its aggressive union-busting tactics.

We demand transparency of the UC budget, including complete figures on how much of the additional revenue from fees will be diverted for construction and used as bond collateral.

We demand that the Regents expand enrollment of underrepresented groups and ensure equal access to education for all by maintaining all educational institutions as sanctuary spaces for undocumented students and workers and by providing adequate financial aid for undocumented and underrepresented students.

We demand an explanation for the failure of the UC leadership to make an effective case for public higher education. As both students and taxpayers, we demand leaders who can make that case, and an administration whose transparency can once again inspire the confidence of the state and its citizens.

Fresno State: Sit-in

From Indybay:

This Wednesday October 21st, Fresno State saw one of it’s largest mobilizations since the 60s. The Student Walkout was in protest to the most recent fee increase of 32% (fees go up almost every year by around 10% usually), class furloughs (pay more get less!), over-crowded classrooms, faculty lay-offs, staff layoffs, corrupt administration, corrupt ASI who refuses to represent the students, really to challenge the entire CSU system. The CSU master plan from the 1960s promised free education to all, now the university is a for-profit corporation.
The rally before the march was well attended fluctuating from 100-300 students and faculty. People spoke and expressed their shared rage.
This was followed by a march of well over 600 students chanting things like “no cuts! no fees! education should be free!” and “hey! hey! ho! ho! Welty’s gotta go!”. This march went down Shaw from Maple to Cedar and went around the Shaw/Cedar intersection several times before rallying in front of the school.
After the march there was a post-rally followed by a group of the students taking the list of demands to Welty’s office on the 4th floor of the library (in the rally there were many references to Welty’s tower where he could look down on his subjects and maintain inaccessibility). The students were initially met by campus police who blocked the elevator saying they had to make sure it was okay for us to come up, so we took the stairs. Once the small group made it up there we were met in the hallway by campus police who said President Welty was not there, we asked where he was. As this dialogue was going on, students just kept coming out of the elevators, eventually they had to let us further in so everyone could fit, by the end we had moved forward nearly 30 feet and had 80 students clogging up the hallway leading to the administators offices. We talked to Welty’s assistant who explained that he was at a meeting. The then-non-organizer students said “fine, we’ll wait” and all sat down. This is a very amazing sight for an organizer especially at fresno state where there seems to be a lot of apathy. VP Olario came out and we had “dialogue” with him for over an hour until Welty actually came back and agreed to a public meeting on Nov. 3 in the peace garden at noon. This is where he will respond to our demands (which he has previously ignored repeatedly) and hear directly from the students in front of media.
Fresno Copwatch was present and captured the interaction with admin.

RESOLUTION FOR THE COMPLIANCE OF CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, STUDENT/FACULTY DEMANDS

WHEREAS, the representatives of the people in the California State Assembly and State Senate and the Governor have chosen to put the profits of corporations and the wealth of the richest Californians ahead of the basic needs of the people, including college students; and faculty.

WHEREAS, the administrators of the CSU system, starting with Charles Reed and the Board of Trustees have completely failed to defend the basic interests of the university while continuing to accept obscene salaries (some larger than the President of the United States) and benefits, and

WHEREAS, student fees have tripled over the last decade while the quality of education has deteriorated severely, and course offerings have been dramatically reduced

LET IT BE RESOLVED, that the Students/Faculty of California State University demand that:

1. That the recent student fee increase be abolished and all funds derived from the 32%

increase be refunded to students; student fees be returned to the level they were at in the year 2000 and that no student fee increase be allowed that exceeds the rate of annual inflation or 4% annually, whichever is lower;

2. That all administrative perks and privileges from associate deans up through the chancellor be immediately rescinded including free houses, free cars, free travel, and any other such privileges not available to faculty; and no salary exceed double the average base annual salaries for the top paid professors at each of the 23 campuses;

3. That all furlough days be abolished, professors that have been laid-off be reinstated, and that all classes that have been cut be re-established.

4. That current CSU Fresno budget be reviewed by a special committee of faculty and students (the committee to be elected by students and faculty members) and that any such projects and programs deemed non-essential be eliminated

5. That funding for these demands be achieved through the support of a severance tax on oil extracted in California as provided for in Assembly Bill 656 as well as a surtax of 2% on the income of any California citizen whose annual income exceeds one million dollars

LET IF FURTHER BE RESOLVED that all students, student organizations, student government, all faculty, faculty bodies, as well as any administrators of conscience to support these reasonable demands and a CSU system-wide walkout on October 21, 2009. Failure to comply with these demands will be met by increased levels of activism by students.

The university is not our enemy. It is a visible staging ground on which a battle is to be fought.

To clarify:

The public university is not our enemy. It is not a monolithic beast to be simply countered, but a complex assemblage, intersecting vectors of thinking and money, invested capital and seething discontent, workers and the disappearing prospects of work, of reactionary forms and vast potential. And it is reeling, deeply in crisis. To speak of killing it is like speaking of rope in the cell of a prisoner to be hanged the following morning. Such an outcome waits around the corner, in years to come, not at our hands but beneath the weight and hunger of global capitalism in its current desperation.

This must be countered.  The notion and promise of what public education can and should be must be protected at all costs.  For whatever its failures, the public university itself remains a critical space for beginning to counter those economic processes and social models that far exceed the scope and reach of this campus, of any network of campuses. We remain committed to truly public education, to wider discourse, to rigorous analyses, to theories of action, as both means and end. These things can be and must be weapons to be shared and learned, tools to pry open frozen forms of uncritical thought and sad resignation. Machines for amplification and networks for mass communication.

If we are to speak of opening the university wider, of taking its spaces in order to make it a common zone (at once seeming paradox and concrete tactic), a zone of contention and resistance, we have to start with understanding it as a site, not as object, of antagonism. We have to grasp where it is already open and where its many blockades to access stand heavy. How to use those blockages against their ends, to expose them and use them for better, sharper purposes. How to see these openings and find emerging allies who also know that this situation must become the emergency that we already know it to be. No false enemies in a time of real enemies.

The university is not our enemy. It is a visible staging ground on which a battle is to be fought.

ECW

In solidarity with the students occupying the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts

In Vienna, Austria, the students have occupied the Academy of Fine Arts. This is the English-language statement they have issued:

“The Bologna process aims at extensive convergence with the Anglo-American education system. The goal is to enter competition in the global education market to strengthen its own economic position and increase research dependent revenues. The establishment of regulative norms and the harmonization of standards are its basis and at the same time its precondition: without standardization no measurability, without measurability no comparability, without comparability no competition. Economization and competition logic are imposed on every level of the knowledge landscape.

The result is intercontinental as well as inter-EU competition, within which single universities and their departments compete amongst themselves for the best results and statistics. The processes involved in the creation of an education economy with knowledge as the traded commodity correspond with the general ambitions of privatization and commodification in all spheres of life under neoliberal capitalism. They lead to educational institution’s increased dependency on their sponsors; cynically defined as the autonomization of the universities.

In this context autonomy is a euphemism for the new forms of governing institutions. The autonomized universities are not autonomous in the sense of self-determined at all. They are rather directed to fulfil the needs of economy and industry, as well as to subjugate themselves to market logic; efficiency, competition and managerial ruling structures. The democratisation of the universities, implemented in the 1970s, is successively abolished; democratically legitimized bodies are disenfranchised and replaced by top-down hierarchical structures.

In the composition of the Bologna 3-level study model, a paradigm change has manifested itself, in the last few years there has been a shift from a pluralistic education ideal to an economy orientated education. The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna has repeatedly and explicitly positioned itself against this degradation and the establishment of the Bachelor-Master system.

We refuse to subjugate ourselves to the logic of politics and economy!

We’re fighting to define learning, teaching and research for ourselves!

We declare solidarity with the education protests in Bangladesh, Brazil, Germany, Finland, France, Greece, Great Britain, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Croatia, Netherlands, Serbia, South Africa, USA!”

We declare solidarity right back with them. We agree that the commodification of education, and its subjugation to the concerns of the market – measurability, profitability, and above all competition – is disastrous. These students eloquently attack the terrible effects that have been brought upon our schools and universities by the logic of competition. In the United States, the arts, humanities, and social sciences are being systematically defunded and devalued on the grounds that they bring small to no fiscal returns. These departments, within and among universities, are fighting and scrabbling amongst themselves for the remaining scraps, and their students are shown, every day and in countless ways, that their education is regarded by the university as a burden to be borne as minimally as possible. This affects the sciences as well, where faculty are valued only according to their ability to cultivate grants, increasingly from private sources, and their ability to churn out students who will labor in the increasingly corporatized science fields.

Worse is the way in which students have internalized this logic of economic competition. Over and over we hear students ventriloquizing these kinds of claims: There is no money. Education is expensive. You can’t get something for nothing. There are few jobs. The university is a social Darwinist crucible in which the less fit departments, faculty, students, are dissolved. The fit emerge to compete in a dwindling job market. What can we do?

We can take back what is ours. Education is not, regardless of what we are told, an economic process, not a competition, not a zero-sum game. It is a process which we ourselves value, carry out, and ultimately control. Occupy, escalate, stick to your guns.

We stand in fervent, appreciative solidarity with the students of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts.

In solidarity,

Occupy California, an autonomous collective at UC Santa Cruz

Will Occupation Become a Movement?

Will Occupation Become a Movement?

By Marc Bousquet

from The Chronicle of Higher Education

With a 150-person sit-in at Berkeley and members of the two UCSC occupations beginning a southern tour of talks at several campuses near Los Angeles this week, the movement appears to be gathering steam. In the next 24 hours, occupiers will explain their strategy for movement building — “demand nothing, occupy everything” at UCLA, Irvine, and Cal State Fullerton.

The administration appears to be helping to set the stage for escalation by, according to witnesses and victim testimony on the movement blog, macing students without warning and heavy-handed efforts at police infiltration and espionage.

I interviewed a graduate student with knowledge of the events surrounding the second occupation at UC Santa Cruz last Thursday and Friday:

Q. I understand the group occupied a particular administrator’s office. Can you tell me how that decision came about?

The administrator in question is the Dean of Social Sciences, Sheldon Kamieniecki. The social sciences have been particularly threatened by the “necessary” budget cuts and restructurings, with proposed layoffs that would destroy both the Community Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies programs. Among those who planned this action, the sense was that Dean Kamieniecki did not pursue alternatives, particularly in terms of keeping the jobs of lecturers vital to these programs, and accepted the cuts passed down in spite of massive student discontent. The decisions of the group are both political and tactical, if the two can be separated. As such, the space was chosen both because of Kamieniecki’s office and because its central location and physical layout made it possible to take the building and to bring a large number of students there to participate following an earlier potluck and discussion.

Q. Shortly after the occupation began, there was an incident with the campus police. What happened?

Three students, not involved in the occupation itself, were moving a picnic table in front of the building and were pepper-sprayed at very close range by the police. They were not told to cease and desist, they were not warned that they were about to be sprayed (for doing something that was not in any way physically threatening to an officer or any students in the area), and the one who was arrested was not read his Miranda rights. (He was later told that, “any pain you feel, you deserve.”) This violent response to the action is clearly unacceptable.

Q. Have any charges been filed?

Yes, the student who was arrested was charged with misdemeanor obstruction of justice. We expect that the university will try to pursue “disciplinary measures” of their own. We urge them strongly not to do so and to consider once more the gulf between how they valorize a radical past of protest and dissent and how they respond to students pursuing radical actions in the present. It is all too evident that the elevation of past protests as part of a storied history serves equally to denigrate the real attempts now to fight back as misguided anger and to claim and hold spaces as petty vandalism.

Q. Overall, the police response was different this time — is that correct? They were photographing persons gathered outside in support of the occupiers? Do you think this is a change of tactics by the administration?

Yes, that is correct. They were photographing and taking the information of persons gathered in support, not to mention the earlier brutality of outside supporters. The tactics are not necessarily different, but the severity of the response certainly is. It shows that the administration is worried about such events and about the possibility of a far wider radical movement emerging, one that incorporates greater numbers and a broader range of students, workers, and faculty. For this reason, they appear intent on making an example out of those who participate in these actions and on attempting to divide students by falsely portraying the actions.

Q. What motivated the end to the occupation?

The mistreatment and threat, physical and legal, to supporters outside motivated the end of the occupation. Those involved felt that it was not safe to those there in solidarity in this situation. To be clear, this is not how we wanted this action to go. But we remain committed to not putting students and supporters in harm’s way, a commitment the administration seems entirely to lack. We know that the situation has escalated, and we can only expect that their future responses will be escalated as well. We are not interested in human barricades and refuse to put bystanders and supporters at risk of violence. We are interested in seeing these spaces not simply as calculations of property that has to be protected at all costs, and we will claim them accordingly. Not small numbers of us who ask for the solidarity of others or who assume that we “represent” other students. Massive numbers of us who wish to express discontent in any way that we find productive and necessary. Occupation is one such way, but far from the only one.

Q. What should we look for next — at UCSC and across the state?

Look for the real and rapid expansion of protest across the state, as networks of committed activists merge with those who have not felt actively involved previously. Look for the broadening and innovation of tactics as we respond to the changing conditions and political climate. We should all look forward to, and prepare ourselves for, a far longer struggle, a struggle for which these actions, regardless of what one thinks of them, do not serve as inspirations but rather as concrete expressions of what is felt by countless others across the system and world.

On the narcs who visited the occupation

Three people recently entered some radical spaces in Santa Cruz and behaved in ways that led many people who encountered them to conclude that they were police agents. What follows is a description of these individuals and a summary of the sequence of events that led people to draw these conclusions. Although it may seem at first glance that they might just be some stupid naive kids eager to impress, read the whole story first because it does look really bad. In fact, the best thing that could be said of them is that they’re dangerously stupid and would therefore also be very unsafe people for that reason. Unfortunately no pictures were obtained.

THE CHARACTERS
Identifying themselves as “anarchist travelers”, all of these people look like they’re around 18-20, white, average height and size, wear alternative/”punk”-looking but strangely very clean clothes, and are very clean overall.
- “Kao” is male, cleanshaven, shoulder-length brown hair (often in a camo headband), “conventionally attractive” features, anarchy-sign “tattoo” (?) on the side of his neck. Claims to be from Louisiana.
- “Carrie”, “Casey” or possibly “Cammie”: female, with braces, blond “fauxhawk” with sides shaves and some kind of rat tail or dread in the back, juggles a little, carries a ukulele around with her. From Laguna Beach, supposedly.
- Another male who didn’t really say anything to anyone, no one seems to have caught his name, bearded, wearing a plaid shirt and carhartts.

THE STORY
The trio arrived late in the evening to the occupied Grad Student Commons at UCSC (see http://occupycalifornia.wordpress.com). They were mistakenly let in even though the informal policy was to only let in people who were known and trusted by someone inside. They were really vague about how they wound up there, where they were coming from or how they had heard about the occupation, but were interested very specifically in checking out the space and inquiring about future plans. Kao, who has a very macho “militant” demeanor, seemed to be in charge and doing most of the talking. They immediately wanted to inspect the barricades, “to see if they could be put together better”; Kao said he had military training and wanted to know about future plans such as other buildings to occupy. Kao was talking about organizing the takeover of another building himself and asked questions like “Do you have blueprints?” After making everyone extremely uncomfortable within about 5 minutes, and after a conversation in which Kao gave a lot of really vague and weird answers about what they were doing there, they were asked politely to leave on the grounds that they weren’t known or trusted by anyone inside and people were going to sleep soon. During this conversation Kao also said that if anyone thought he was an informant, they should check out the anarchy sign tattoo on his neck.

Carrie came back the next day. Without asking anyone if it was ok, without anyone telling them they’d be allowed in the space again, she had left her phone plugged in in the main room, on and open. She asked for it back; it was returned to her (some people feel this was also a mistake). She was not allowed inside and a friend of ours had a long conversation with her. She expressed eagerness to do anything possible to support the occupation and reiterated that she and Kao were ready and willing to assume major roles in any future occupation or escalation of tactics, mentioning some buildings downtown and on campus that she thought could be taken over and/or destroyed. This is where it gets really fucked: She said that last night, after they were asked to leave, they got a ride downtown with a cop – as if in case we had followed them and watched them get into a cop car (no one actually saw where they went). She said the cop was really chill and they talked about the occupation. She said the cop told him they weren’t “scared” of the occupiers and they should do something more intense and dramatic (like occupying a store downtown or blowing up a science building on campus). It is apparent to us that anyone who gets into a police car and chats about illegal activities is as good as a snitch whether that is actually their job or not.

Kao and Carrie also showed up at Sub Rosa infoshop and Chavez co-op and were asked to leave both places because people were uncomfortable with their behavior in those spaces, and because of what people had heard about them. They told people they were headed to Portland next.

STAY SAFE, FUCK THE POLICE
in solidarity,
your friends in santa cruz

New slander from the bastards at the Sentinel

A new article in today’s Santa Cruz Sentinel is full of the same old absurd lies the powerful like to tell: that we are an “organization”; that the pigs “asked” Brian and Olivia to do anything before macing them; that the hikes, cuts and firings are simply due to state budget losses; that we are “demonstrators” who “hope to send a message”.

It does get a few things right though: that “expected next month to approve a plan to increase student fees by more than 30 percent, pushing the annual cost of a University of California education well past $10,000″ (remember to mark your calendars, Nov. 18th) and that we students and workers “have the capacity, if we act in concert, to stop the university from functioning” (come to Kresge Town Hall tomorrow night!).

The headline of the article, by the way, claims that “UCSC will handle occupations one by one” to which we say, GOOD FUCKING LUCK!

Athens: Anti-repression demo leads to clashes and occupation of city hall

Anti-torture demo, over death of electroshocked immigrant, leads to clashes with riot police, arrests and occupation of city hall, in Nikea, an industrial suburb of Athens.

The city hall of Nikea, an industrial and prominently communist suburb of Athens, is under occupation since Saturday 17/10 afternoon by anarchists demanding the release of people arrested during clashes with riot police outside the police department where a Pakistani immigrant, Mohamed Karman Atif, was tortured by beating and electric shocks ileading to his death last week

The demo, organised by several anarchist collectives, marched to the police station, where it was confronted by strong riot police forces. The protesters tried to break through the blockade by throwing stones to the police. In the clashes that ensued several people were detained, out of which some are being reported as arrested and charged.

The protesters then regathered and occupied the city hall in a surprise move. The mayor of the suburb, a Communist Party (KKE) cadre, has visited the occupied city hall and has declared that the police should by no means attempt to evacuate the 300 protesters who remain in it, nor arrest anyone leaving the premises.

What follows is the first communique of the occupied city hall:

Communique of the Occupied City Hall of Nikea
400 protesters gathered today October 17 in the streets of Nikea in a march of rage against the recent assassination of the 25 year old pakistani immigrant Mohamed Karman Atif by torture in the police station of Nikea, a march called by anarchist collectives and a local assembly of the area. We crossed the main streets of the area, from the house of the murdered man and moved towards the police station. Strong riot police forces (MAT) and motorised police forces (Z-team) that “accompanied the demo have proved the official stance of the now Socialist Ministry of Public Order (Ministry of Citizens Protection): whitewashing and protecting torturers murderers, the police occupation of the area. All that was happening will continue as normal: beatings, torture, humiliations in all the police stations of the country. During the protest march there was strong rain. But what rained near the police station of Nikea was not just water drops. The riot police brigade blocking the way to the police station received a rain of stones. The organised continuation of the march and the retreat from the hot-spot was hampered by a combined force of riot policemen at the back and on the sides of the march. Our defenses held, while locals from the sidewalks swore and verbally attacked the police army of occupation. Yet, in a cloud of tear gas and glob attacks some got cut off from the march and as a result they were detained. The march was completed in the location perivolaki, as planned and given the detentions a great number of the protesters moved to occupy the city hall demanding the immediate release of the hostage comrades. Some people who decided to leave were stopped by motorised police forces and were also detained. The exact number of detentions is yet not known, but is certainly double-digit. The process of arrest has already started for some. This is the apex of the new state dogma of “democracy and strength” as announced by the new minster of Public Order Michalis Chrisochoidis against the world of the insurgency and anyone potentially resisting. It is like two days ago during the demo of the Perama shipyard workers and unemployed at the Ministry of Labour. It is like the now police-occupied Exarcheia. It is like the recent persecutions of high-school occupations. It will be the same with the dockworkers of Peiraeus who are against the sell-out to COSCO, or the 1,400 workers of the Skaramangas shipyards threatened to be sacked.Police barbarity is only the repressive side of state-capitalist barbarity: oppression, exploitation, subjugation, death. The new political management’s main role is to manage the social dimension of the crisis of our times: the all-expanding disobedience to and clash with the demands of political and economic power. There is no place for illusions. No change will come from no new government. This has always been the case.State terrorism continues and with it continues the struggle for social and individual liberation, for a free world without power.

Immediate release of detained protesters!
Removal of all accusations against them!
Immediate retreat of all police forces from the neighborhoods of Nikea and from around the city hall!
The assembly of the occupied city hall of Nikea.

The municipal workers association of Nikea stand in solidarity with anarchists occupying the city hall since Saturday

As the occupation of the city hall of Nikea enters its third day, the support of locals so visual during the protest march regarding the police torture and death of Mohamed Karman Atif, which led to serious clashes with the police and 8 arrests last Saturday 17/10, has been expressed in a communique by the municipal worker’s association of Nikea.

Communique of Workers Association of the municipality of Nikea about murder–detentions-occupation

Nikea City Hall is occupied by anarchist groups from the afternoon of Saturday after a protest, for the death of the unfortunate Pakistani immigrant that took place in the Police Station of Nikea.

The Workers Association demands that the forces of repression leave from within the boundaries of the historic City of Nikea. The occupation of the City Hall by the protesters is a political act, and the attempt to criminalise it is unacceptable and undemocratic.

The workers of Kokkinia [red neighborhood] disapprove strongly the attack of the forces of repression against the demonstrators and the mindless use of chemical gasses in a densely populated area. The police rule imposed cannot intimidate protesters and workers.

We demand the immediate clarification of the case of the death of our fellow human being, the immigrant. We call the Minister of Protection of Citizens [Minister of Public Order] to deal himself with this dark case and not attempt to conceal or whitewash this tragic case.

The Association of Workers protests strongly against xenophobia and racism that extreme-right centers and para-centers are trying to impose on Greek society.