Thessaloniki, Greece: Arson Attack on House of New Democracy Politician
For a year and a half now, we have been witnessing a genocide in a live broadcast. The murderous state of Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in an attempt to implement its colonial plan to displace them from Palestine. 77 years of expulsions, imprisonments, torture and murders. Coming to the present day, the fascist state of Israel is moving into the next phase and seeks the complete extermination of the Palestinian population that counts over 55,000 dead. In recent times, hunger has been used as another tool of death, preventing any kind of humanitarian aid from passing through and leading to starvation of the Palestinians, culminating in the drone attack on the Freedom Flotilla and the kidnapping and deportation of the Madleen crew.
All this is happening with the wishes of the civilized West, which is not only deafeningly silent but actively supports this genocidal war, with the eyes of multinational capital turned to Gaza and the West Bank. U.S. President Donald Trump’s statements about the investment opportunity to transform Palestinian land into a tourist resort were characteristic. The Greek state could not remain inactive by maintaining one of the toughest stances in Europe, thus hoping to strengthen its leading position in the Eastern Mediterranean and its role on the global chessboard more broadly. It continues to maintain energy alliances with Israel, ensuring the service of Greek shipowners’ capital. Some examples of Greece’s collaborations with Israel are the construction of an electrical interconnection through a 1518 km long subsea cable, which will unite Israel, Cyprus, Crete and mainland Greece. The creation of a natural gas power plant in Larissa with an investment of 600 million euros and the IMEC economic corridor, between India, the Middle East and Europe, where the passage to the latter is discussed to be through the port of Piraeus. As far as the military sector is concerned, in 2023 Greece ceded its airspace to Israel for Iranian bombing simulation exercises. At the same time, Greece’s role in operations in the Red Sea has been upgraded with its participation in the U.S.-led operation ‘Guardian of Prosperity’ against the Houthis and the direction of the European Operation Shields with the operations headquarters based at the base in Larissa. Finally, Greek capital is strengthened by the investments of Israeli companies with the purchase of residential, hotel and commercial real estate, making Greece a leisure destination for Zionist tourists and active IDF soldiers who need a break from the genocidal war they participate in (see NGO Swords of Iron which provides soldiers with complete vacation packages in Greek destinations).
On the other hand, the Palestinians have been resisting for 77 years with whatever means at their disposal. From their staying in their territories, which in itself is an act of resistance, to their organization into armed organizations, they show the way to all the peoples of the world and are a source of inspiration for every rebellious person. We dedicate our action to the fighting people of Palestine.
We take responsibility for the low-power arson attack on the house of Stratos Simopoulos, MP of New Democracy in Thessaloniki, at 1 Karyotaki Street, in the area of March, in the early hours of June 9th.
He also served as general secretary of public works at the Ministry of Transport from 2012 to 2014, while to this day he expresses the extreme right-wing space of New Democracy with timeless statements of racist, homophobic and sexist content (he has mentioned that he honors Metaxas, that his values are the homeland, religion and family, referring to the fence of Evros) while there are also statements by him that downplay the problems of society such as the dead of the pandemic. (He has characterized the dead of the pandemic as a stain and that the pandemic concerns a small part of society and many people have a good time and have fun)
“The decision to block the site was welcome”
Stratos Simopoulos
More than two years have passed since the capitalist crime of Tempi when two trains collided head-on, resulting in 57 people losing their lives and at least 87 being injured. Already the day after the conflict, the media and state apparatus as a whole tried to disorient public opinion and abdicate its responsibilities by throwing all the burden of the dissonance on the station master and presenting it as an individual mistake. However, despite the orchestrated attempt at a cover-up, it is obvious that Tempi was neither an accident nor a human error, but precisely a predetermined crime. A tangible proof that our lives within the capitalist system are expendable, as insignificant as their profit dictates.
The condition of the Greek railways has been degraded for decades. As early as the 90s, when TRAINOSE was created, undertaking the passenger transport part as a subsidiary of OSE, the lack of modernization was evident, while debts began to accumulate. Thus, gradually, in an effort to comply with the requirements of the EU, in 1996 under the PASOK government and then in 2005 under the New Democracy government, OSE is fragmented, with the latter even talking about the need for immediate privatization. In 2009, the PASOK government ceded 49% of TRAINOSE to private individuals, while by 2010 the company had acquired a debt of 10.7 billion, paving the way for collapse and complete privatization. Then, in 2013, the PASOK New Democracy coalition government, in alignment with the memorandum policies, carried out the legislative framework of its private exploitation, which was finally fulfilled by the SYRIZA/ANEL government in 2017 with the sale for 45 million euros to the Italian Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane Group. Specifically, the part of passenger transport and ticket profits were sold off, while the responsibility for the maintenance of the lines and infrastructure, i.e. the most damaging part, remained under the management of the Greek state. These policies, therefore, were the result of the combination of decisions of the national state administration and the international political and economic situation. In fact, it is important to emphasize that they did not just come to serve the interests of bad foreign capital, but that at the same time they strengthened the profit of small and large local capital, as is the case with the degradation of all public services. That is why logics that want more of a welfare state and present it as a protector that will heal us, can only disorient us from what its role really is as a guarantor of capitalist profitability and oppressor of our lives. It is not only privatizations that give birth to death, but also the inevitable murderous unity of the interests of the state and capital.
Within all this context, in order to bring out the broken ones of fragmentation and privatization, there was a lack of any technological means and understaffing, betting on roulette for the lives of workers and passengers. A key point in this story is also the non-implementation of the 717 contract, regarding the implementation of the system of remote control signaling, the installation of traffic lights and the general modernization of the network. The New Democracy government, with Kostas Karamanlis as the competent minister, donated 600 million euros to Hellenic Train, money that was intended for investments for the benefit of the public. Workers and technical safety officers have been trying to warn about this desperate situation for years with letters and memoranda. These warnings were not only ostentatiously ignored, but also considered the work stoppages of the train drivers’ union illegal. In fact, we do not forget that the crime in Tempi was also one of the biggest employer murders (11 employees). Even then, of course, Hellenic Train maintained its voracious stance, proceeding to mass layoffs of workers.
In that first year of 2023, despite the strikes and the massive participation of people in the demonstrations, it was not possible to create a dynamic organized movement as they managed to prevail the narratives of dysfunction, human error and national mourning, washing away the overall responsibility of the state and capital. However, arriving two years later, we witnessed an unprecedented situation, starting with the march of January 26 and culminating in the strike of February 28, which was the most massive march since the change of government, while the demonstrations that followed the following week were just as dynamic with widespread clashes, proving that the crime of Tempe, is not just an expired issue, but a boiling cauldron. At the same time, in those days, the media apparatus had engaged in an attempt to intimidate and delegitimize social anger, referring to provocateurs and agents, a rhetoric that also serves the interests of the state apparatus by presenting it as the holder of the monopoly of violence and preventively suppressing any reaction. An important role in this revival and the dynamic return of the issue to the forefront of the news were contributed by the new evidence that came to light, linking the government to the existence of illegal flammable materials in commercial trains, revealing that the boundaries between state and parastate are indistinguishable, even non-existent. Buried archives of photographic and videotape material that were excluded from the case file, audio documents with the last moments of people on the train, lightning blockade of the crime scene by government order, forgiveness of sins of the Hellenic Train administration, the Ministry of Transport, and all those responsible over the years created the mosaic of cover-up. Obviously, we are not impressed by the takeovers of the state with the parastate, the mafia and the black economy, as they are the sides of the same coin. Nor will we insist on misleading dipoles between the rule of law or a corrupt government, because they can only work in a disorienting way. The truth is not behind a curtain in the dark, but in front of our eyes. The responsibilities do not lie with individual persons, but with the state and capital as a whole.
These magnificent marches were accompanied by subjects with clear distances, and various demands, often in opposition to each other, with the main one being the administration of justice and against the cover-up. Of course, we know that quantity alone is not enough. The bet, however, is that we will interpret the situation and leave a legacy. How can we transform quantity into quality, diffuse indignation and anger into organization, and fragmentary reactions into intransigent and continuous struggle.
Through the emergence of the state-capitalist murder of Tempe, the discussion about the better policy that the Greek state has followed over time inevitably arises. We choose to make an extensive reference with central legislation introduced by the New Democracy government in the last six years as a natural continuation and enrichment of previous governments. We believe that in recent years, there has been an acceleration towards two paths that complement each other: one political direction concerns the privatization of all aspects of life and the other the ideological and “practical” completion of the doctrine of law and order in all fields. The combination of these two axes could not be better reflected in the government program of New Democracy for universities. The complete (re)abolition of asylum in 2019 was the first step followed by the passage of Law 4777 in February 2021, known as the Kerameos Chrysochoidis Law. The provision of this legislation is the educational restructuring with the cooperation of the Ministry of Education, the expulsion of students with the implementation of Law 2, the establishment of university police and disciplinary councils with the aim of repression of struggling students. Of course, the vote of 4777 turned a blind eye to private education, for which the law on private universities in Greece was voted in March 2024. Of course, all this does not pass without a fight. The huge student movement that broke out in 2021, managed to put the implementation of the law on ice (the OPPI cops were abolished), while its continuation in the spring of 2022 with the daily mobilizations and clashes against the police camp at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, as well as the mass occupations of the faculties at the beginning of 2024 against the private universities, threatened state and government targets.
We perceive the ideological obsession of New Democracy with the universities as an obsession that comes over time from the rulers who suppress the resistances that are born within the universities. Resistances that we detect at least from the years of the dictatorship, from the fall of the junta and the deaths of the Polytechnic, resistances that create radical struggles by students and non-students, squats, hangouts, clashes with the police, fascists and DAPites.
The graveyard silence that they are trying to impose on a space that historically gives birth to struggles, naturally wants to prevail in the slums of capitalism, that is, in the workplaces, with the aim of further impoverishing the proletariat and bending all resistance. With the passage of the Hatzidakis law in 2021 and its continuation with the Georgiadis law in 2023, the abolition of the 8-hour workday, the legalization of unpaid overtime and Sunday work in more sectors, the abolition of the five-day work week in industry are institutionalized. For the circumvention of these gains that were won through bloody struggles, such a law clearly includes its repressive provisions by applying the criminalization of trade unionism, strikes, prison sentences and heavy fines for the occupation of buildings by workers. The message is clear: in voracious capitalism you live only to work and consume. Anyone who fights is targeted and repressed, while at the same time we count almost 100 employer murders in 2025 alone.
Picking up the thread of privatizations again, one of the most miserable conditions is taking place in the field of public health and the dismantling of the NHS. We do not forget the dead of the pandemic. The legalization of the afternoon surgeries, the understaffing, the resignations and dismissals of staff denouncing the miserable conditions and the closure of hospitals and health centers demonstrate the direction towards the privatization of healthcare. Of course, the mental health structures were not left unscathed, which led to set-off and closure after the passage of the Vartzopoulos law of 2024. We are not fetishists of the public sector or defenders of state bodies, but we make it clear that the privatization of all social benefits is the class attack of the state and capital on the social base.
In the wake of the government’s agenda, the anti-immigration policy and the organized attack against the Roma (with a recent example being the announcement of the creation of special security forces for Roma) could not be missing as an integral part of the racist policy of the Greek state. Every week we are spectators of state killings of migrants at sea and land borders, with the most massive taking place on June 14, 2023 off the coast of Pylos with 600 dead migrants.
From the list of hostile reforms could not be missing the tightening of the penal code that contributes to absolute penal populism. The direction is more prison, and it is reflected in increases in minimum and maximum sentence limits and in the difficulty of the suspension that leads to the actual execution of a sentence for minor offenses. All this in a landscape where type C prisons are maintained while at the same time revenge transfers and disciplinary measures are carried out on people who are fighting within the walls.
Finally, in order to complete the agenda of order and security, we cannot fail to mention the all-out state attack against the a/a space, the eternal internal enemy. The ultimatums for the occupations and the countless evictions in recent years show the state’s anger towards the structures of struggle and the attempt to dismantle territorialization within the urban fabric. Lately we have also observed the frequent raids of the cops on the homes of comrades with little evidence. No matter how much the state and its proxies try to distract public opinion from the misery of our lives, we will remain a thorn in their neck and remind them that nothing is over and that everything continues.
We mention all this in order to bring back to the forefront some key policies that have been implemented in recent years. We are not targeting any anti-government propaganda. As we have said, the state has continuity and we do not enter into the logic of good and bad governments, since we understand that whatever color the rulers wear, they exist to serve the interests of capital. Nevertheless, we want to demonstrate the policies that are exercised by the state, of which New Democracy is the main administrator. At the same time, we do not ignore the fact that this government is a state within a state, it has been deeply involved in the state apparatus for decades, while the family rule within it as the elite of the ruling class in Greece has been traced at least since the Second World War. Our aim is neither to sow terror nor to talk about an unprecedented repressive condition. This is neither the first nor the last time that the state has tried to end every aspect of life on the altar of profit. However, it is important in times when there is no strong social resistance and there is a generalized climate of fear, to create political costs with our action and to demonstrate the criminal policies of the Greek state.
For our part, we recognize that the struggle by all means has always existed as a necessary condition for the continuation of the multifaceted revolutionary struggle against the state and capital. As long as power intensifies the repressive policy, the strugglers must take action and sharpen the class and social war. The state is not an abstract concept that operates in the automatic, on the contrary it has structures and positions staffed by persons, it has facilities that can become our targets and be attacked, breaking social calm. Our visits to the homes of politicians, cops and judges return a minimal percentage of violence that we receive every day and reminds us that the position they have chosen in social competition has consequences and will always be in our sights. Whoever speaks of resistance, of revolution and of rupture with the existing and does not act in this direction, has a corpse in his mouth. We cannot wait for the right timing to organize our class self-defense, while capitalist barbarism is advancing more and more. If we want to talk about totalitarian regimes and epochs that resemble dictatorships, we must also make the corresponding choices that will be able to hurt the enemy and overturn the existing unfavorable conditions. Revolutionary class warfare carries responsibilities, risks and losses, and the world that chooses to take a fighting position in it are not aliens. She is your neighbor who destroys her body in the dungeons of wage slavery and fights daily for her survival. It’s the student who works while studying because the rents have reached god, it’s people next door who have the same problems as the working class since they’re part of it.
One such person was comrade Kyriakos Ximitiris who lost his life on 31/10 in an apartment on Arcadias Street after a bomb explosion. A man given to the struggle for the social revolution who, realizing the issues at stake of the time, armed his denials and walked on the difficult path of the anti-state struggle. We may not have had the good fortune to meet him, yet he is always in our thoughts when we take action.
After the death of our partner and the injury of our comrade Marianna who was in the apartment, the anti-terrorist police, as usual, set up a repressive scene by torturing the comrade while she was still hospitalized in a serious condition. They took DNA without her approval and with fast track procedures they detained her and transferred her to the women’s prison of Korydallos, one day after the second surgery she had undergone. They then targeted the close circle of comrades and with minimal evidence, they arrested and detained comrade Dimitra and comrade Dimitris. Finally, in order to serve the narrative of the connection between old and new terrorists and with the only element being a partial imprint in a bag in a destroyed apartment, the anti-terrorist police arrest comrade Nikos Romanos and A.K. and integrate them into the same terrorist organization as the rest of the arrested and imprison them. A key role in this whole affair was played by the media. Fully in tune with the narrative of the anti-terrorist police on a daily basis, through the 20:00 bulletins, they described as a success the dismantling of the police and the witch hunt they had unleashed. They released photos and information about the personal lives of those arrested, while at the same time presenting comrade Kyriakos as a near-murderer who would plant a bomb with many victims. We want to make it clear that the murderers and terrorists are you who have been plunging society into poverty and misery for decades. You who are doing everything to bury the crime of Tempi by mocking and threatening even the relatives of the victims. We will be forever against you, fighting you in every possible way until the moment when the anger of the people sends you to the garbage of history.
KYRIAKOS XIMITIRIS ALWAYS PRESENT
STATE AND CAPITAL ARE THE ONLY TERRORISTS
THE CRIME IN TEMPI WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN
FREEDOM TO ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS
FREEDOM IN PALESTINE
Core of Revolutionary Violence
Source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1636876/
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=19917
#anarchist #coreOfRevolutionaryViolence #DirectAction #europe #greece #KyriakosXymitiris #palestineSolidarity #thessaloniki
