Text from anarchist Rami Syrianos announcing the start of his hunger strike (Greece)

325 receives and transmits:
-On 26 of March I’m transferred from Nigrita’s prison to the courts of Thessaloniki, due to the trial against me for the expropriation of ODDY’s* auction.
After the trial being postponed once again, i am transferred back to Nigrita’s prison the same day. There i am subjected into search investigation during which I deny, once again, to consent in putting off my underwear (a procedure well-known to the prisons as “bend & cough”). They transfer me into the “newcomers’ cells” and present me subsequently before the prosecutor, who officially imposes me the penalty of disciplinary jail transfer, accusing me for ‘disobedience’ as well as the indefinite isolation in this particular cell, unofficially, until I consent in the realization of this particular search investigation or (until) the disciplinary transfer is made.
-I remain, ever since, under this special detention regime, awaiting my jail transfer.
-It’s clear, judging by the analogy itself between the initial denial and the subsequent penalty, that the whole issue has a minimum relation with the specific investigation and the possible consequences that it’s denial can have in the jail’s function. The declarations from the prison’s administration side, speaking about their fear that this particular practice could become a common one, as well as the threats -during the prisoners’ mobilizations 4 months ago- which were actually pre-announcing the imposition of a disciplinary jail transfer against me, on the 26th of March, have much more to say about the essence of this two-months isolation, than all the rhetorics upon prison security measures, spoken on behalf of the prison’s directors.
-The prison’s environment consists primarily a totalitarian mechanism of authoritarian reproduction. Being the hardened reflection of the wider social situation, jail holds the role of a laboratory, where the procedure of the individual’s obedience towards the authority, happens in the most absolute way.
Within the prison’s environment, nothing occurs by chance.
From the spatial planning to the procedures of the ‘benefits’ and the disciplinary penalties, every aspect of the correctional system’s function is built in a way that the prisoners should internalize the ideas of permanent surveillance, slavishness, snitching and no-term obedience to the orders.
Within this condition, where they try to take every part of your existence away from your control, that the bars intend to find their way inside you until your dreams to stay imprisoned behind them, what inviolably remains under your control, is the choice of negation. Negations that stay always partial, ‘few’, among the countless contracts you make daily. It would be hard for anyone to claim that he remained totally disobedient inside the walls.
-Speaking particularly upon the search investigation procedure, there would certainly be lots to write. Through stripping, bending and coughing, the prisoner’s position within the prison’s hierarchy is tried to be made clear under the most evident way, while at the same time this procedure is marked as a central and crucial act of his transformation, from a dignified person into a manipulated object.
-The actual denial of this procedure is a minimum denial of this particular imposed position. This denial, however, unquestionably does not consist the epitome of all negations. Neither some thin line separating dignity from non-dignity. But what it does consist, is the drawing of a border, which stands as a reminder to myself as well as to every uniformed person, that I am still alive, that I do not obey, that the prison has not entered inside me.
-These two months of isolation, are the cost of this very disobedience. Having -since the beginning- rejected the possibility to succumb to the blackmail of agreeing for the investigation in order for this situation to finish, I decided to demand its end in a dynamic way, using the only means available. Therefore, I started a trolley-food denial on the 5th of May, demanding the immediate end of this condition and an immediate jail transfer. One week later, realizing that this symbolic move was inefficient, i decided to use the ultimate means that someone has under this circumstances and start a hunger strike on May’s 15th, demanding the satisfaction of the above.
I would like to send my warm comrade greetings to all those that broke the walls of isolation through their words and actions, both inside and outside the prisons…

Rami Syrianos
May the 15th
Nigrita’s prison

*ODDY is (was) a public organization that among other activities used to place in auction and sell various confiscated -by the police- items, mainly personal vehicles and cars. Nothing more than official dealers of stolen goods.
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Text in Greek



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