A well-known Italian anarchist and a Greek man have been arrested in Trikala, central Greece, on suspicion of carrying out an armed robbery at a local bank.
Police sources named the men as Alfredo Bonanno, 72, and Christos Stratigopoulos, 46. Bonanno has served 18 months in jail for his 1998 essay called “Anarchist Tension” [PDF] and was also given a six-year term in 2003 for armed robbery and other crimes when he was found to be the ideological leader of an armed group. [See : The Marini Trial: Italian State Repression of Anarchist Revolt and Anarchist Responses, Venomous Butterfly Publications, 2003 (PDF); Chronology of events related to the Marini Trial (September 1994–April 2004).]
According to police, Stratigopoulos carried out the robbery at a branch of Piraeus bank on Thursday. He forced employees to hand over 46,900 euros, which he then apparently handed to Bonanno, who was waiting outside in a rented car. A witness noted the license plate of the vehicle and informed the police, who stopped the car on a road leading to Kalambaka. Officers found the stolen cash in the vehicle. Stratigopoulos was arrested in Kalabaka.
Bonanno is widely regarded as being one of the chief propagandists on behalf of the insurrectionary trend within anarchist thought. In Australia, the clarion call to action has been responded to by relatively few, but it did inspire Melbourne band the Cosmic Psychos to record the track ‘Go the Hack’ (1989), which manages to encapsulate the insurrectionist philosophy in a few minutes of bulldozer punk.
Dave Hann, co-author, with Steve Tilzey, of No Retreat : The Secret War between Britain’s Anti-fascists and the Far Right (Milo Books), died of cancer on September 29, 2009.
Hurrah! Jeff ‘Free’ Luers was ‘free’… for a few hours, anyway, before prison authorities decided that he should be caged again. “October 2, 2009 – this morning Jeff enjoyed a few hours of freedom, after being released early. Then in a bizarre turn of events he was taken back into custody because the prison had made a “mistake”. December 2009 is now his release date.”
FREE THE BELGRADE 5 6!
On September 3, 2009 — and in the days following — six members and associates of the ‘Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative’ in Belgrade, Serbia were arrested by Serbian authorities and charged with the crime of ‘international terrorism’. The six are alleged to have been responsible for spraying graffiti and throwing a Molotov cocktail at the Greek Embassy in Belgrade on August 25, 2009. The six deny the charges. Placed on 30-days detention by a court, that term is now due to expire…
The investigative phase of the case was meant to come to a close on the 28th, however people are still being questioned. Greek Embassy people who were supposed to testify did not show up.
A member of ASI was interrogated and the police are calling more of them in.
If the investigation concerns a crime which carries a sentence of more than 10 years in jail, the comrades may be held up to six months.
Although things are not certain, it looks as if the police have decided to prolong the case as long as possible. In this case, we call for the escalation of protests.
Protest actions have taken place in Bratislava, Czech Republic (September 7); Ljubljana, Slovenia (September 10), London, England / Sydney, Australia / Vienna, Austria and Warsaw, Poland (September 11); Zagreb, Croatia (September 14); Moscow and Kiev, Russia (September 15); Athens, Greece / Denver, United States and Hamburg, Germany (September 16); Berlin, Germany / The Hague, Holland / Sofia, Bulgaria and Thessaloniki, Greece (September 18); Komotini, Greece (September 19); Frankfurt, Germany and Skopje, Macedonia (September 25); London, England (September 28); Budapest, Hungary (September 29); Bern, Switzerland / Madrid, Spain and Oslo, Norway (October 2).
Sofia Papazoglou, a popular folk singer, was attacked by members of the Golden Dawn neo-nazi party in Athens after throwing election leaflets handed to her in the garbage. The singer remains hospitalised with serious burns from use of unidentified acid spray and with impaired vision.
Sofia Papazoglou, a popular folk singer of the “entehno” genre known for her progressive politics, was attacked on Thursday 1st of October outside the metro station of Katehaki, in Athens, by ten members of the neo-nazi party Golden Dawn when she threw election leaflets handed to her by the thugs in the garbage.
The Golden Dawn was created in the 1980s by the convicted neo-nazi bomber Mihaloliakos at the orders of the imprisoned head of the military junta of 1967-1974 Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos. Since, the Golden Dawn has been waging a campaign of terror against the left wing and anarchists as well as immigrants, people of color and Jews. Nevertheless, as it comes under the explicit protection of EYP, the Greek secret services (the daily Eleftherotypia has published a pay-sheet of Mihaloliakos by EYP), the neo-nazi group has never been persecuted and is allowed to participate in national elections. [Eleftherotypia (Greek: Ελευθεροτυπία meaning “free press”) is a daily newspaper published in Athens (Greece).] As a clear indication of the above patron-client relation with the secret services, the election campaign booth of the neo-nazis was placed this year directly under the headquarters of the EYP, in Katehaki avenue, a few meters away from the main riot police camp of the Greek capital.
When Ms Papazoglou threw the racist leaflets in the bin, ten thugs attacked her with a still unidentified acid spray in the eyes and then proceeded to beat her up savagely. The police did not intervene and the folk singer was taken to hospital after the intervention of metro workers. Half an hour later the neo-nazis were dispersed by anarchists who arrived at the spot upon hearing the news of the new vicious attack.
Ms Papazoglou remains in hospital with impaired vision and serious burns and bruises on her body. The Golden Dawn denies involvement in the incident, decrying it as “rumors spread by dirty jews and freemasons” and “protectors of ecologists and greens”.
Jock Palfreeman is an Australian citizen, currently in prison in Sofia (Bulgaria). He is undergoing trial on a charge of murder and attempted murder, following a clash, in December 2007, between Jock and a group of right-wing football hooligans (the group were assaulting a Roma at the time of Jock’s intervention).
Jock’s most recent court hearing was on Monday, September 28.
Expert witnesses for the prosecution again failed to appear in court — which is somewhat unusual, given that all of those called upon by the prosecution and who failed to appear are state employees. In general, however, it’s not unusual for witnesses to fail to appear in court in Bulgaria, and trial cannot continue unless they do so. Consequently, depending on the circumstances, trial can take a very long time to complete.
Thus far, Jock has been held in prison, undergoing trial, for almost two years.
Delays in Jock’s trial have been numerous and ongoing, while Bulgarian media are apparently claiming that trial has been delayed as a result of the failure of defence witnesses to appear. In reality, both Greyham [?] and Lindsay Welsh — two key defence witnesses who were with Jock on the night — have already tendered evidence to the court.
A forensic report on clothing materials was officially submitted to the court, as were the findings of blood alcohol tests, and a report on the wounds Jock received during the course of the attack upon him in December 2007.
The person responsible for collecting some CCTV footage of the alleged assaults also submitted a report. He was not questioned (but may be in future).
Bulgarian media have been reporting that the available video footage of the clash is unusable and that, therefore, Jock is not implicated in any crime by such evidence. However, these reports fail to consider the fact that the prosecution has actually requested that the relevant video footage be thrown out. Further, this is because — it is claimed by the defence — that the same footage is able to demonstrate that Jock was attacked prior to there being any assault, by Jock, upon the victim, Andrei Monov (a fact also confirmed by previous testimony by members of the group Monov was with).
Here at Petersham RSL Club, we take pride in the quality of service we are able to offer you, your guests and colleagues (even if you are neo-Nazis). We thank you for your interest in conducting your function with us and will ensure that your every need is accommodated with the utmost enthusiasm and professionalism…
Marrickville Street Festival is one of the largest annual festivals in the Marrickville area, drawing crowds of more than 50,000 people each year to celebrate Marrickville’s cultural diversity. The event is a feast for the senses – with live entertainment and cultural performances spread across 2 main stages, plus an additional community performance area in the Alex Travallion Plaza; also a dedicated Kids Space with free workshops and performances, international foods, arts and crafts, displays, rides, over 100 stalls, and much more.
Petersham RSL once again sponsored this year’s Marrickville Festival, held on Sunday 12th September on Marrickville Road, Illawarra Road, Marrickville from 11am to 5 pm… It was pleasing once again to see so many young people involved in the remembrance activities. (No doubt everyone will forget our hosting a group of fascists only two weeks later! Tee hee!)
I think I’ve been a little harsh in my criticisms of the “national anarchists”. I write this as not one not two but three new “national anarchist” blogs have recently sprung into existence, and they’re great!
Other neat-o blogs I’ve stumbledupon recently are:
AntiFa StreetArt : nice. different. unusual. street art against fascism Anti-Fascist Action Wellington : what it says on the label At Home He’s A Turista : anarchist, communist and working class news dokumentationsarchiv : a multi-lingual blog collating articles and media reports on the antics of the far right Gather Around Me : It Makes All Of Your Dreams Come True! squattercity : Robert Neuwirth is “a writer who spent two years living in squatter communities in four continents” — this is his blog
The intellectual challenge for social democrats is not just to repudiate the neo-liberal extremism that has landed us in this mess, but to advance the case that the social-democratic state offers the best guarantee of preserving the productive capacity of properly regulated competitive markets, while ensuring that government is the regulator, that government is the funder or provider of public goods and that government offsets the inevitable inequalities of the market with a commitment to fairness for all. Social democracy’s continuing philosophical claim to political legitimacy is its capacity to balance the private and the public, profit and wages, the market and the state. That philosophy once again speaks with clarity and cogency to the challenges of our time.
Social-democratic governments across the world must rise to the further challenge of developing a practical policy response to the crisis that rebuilds shattered economic growth, while also devising a new regulatory regime for the financial markets of the future. This is our immediate challenge. But if we fail, there is a grave danger that new political voices of the extreme Left and the nationalist Right will begin to achieve a legitimacy hitherto denied them. Again, history is replete with the most disturbing of precedents.
~ KRudd, ‘The Global Financial Crisis’, The Monthly, February 2009, p.21.
Originally, in the late nineteenth century, an ostensibly revolutionary doctrine — a marriage, presided over by Marxism, of the industrial working class and the middle class intelligentsia — in Australia, ‘social democracy’ is the ideological blanket in which the ‘Australian Labor Party’ has wrapped itself for many years. As an instrument through which the aspiring middle class can obtain some degree of influence over the political process, the party has been relatively successful. But over previous decades keeping the coal-powered fluorescent bulb burning on that hill in Canberra — and various State parliaments — has rendered the party a lifeless husk: somewhat dependent on the million-dollar sponsorship of the ALP-dominated cash-cows otherwise known as ‘trade unions’; increasingly reliant on the corporate sector for the filthy lucre necessary to defeat the Tories come election time; and almost entirely bereft of ideas.
In Germany, ‘social democracy’ is in heap ’em big trouble. In the federal election held over last weekend, the SPD gained just 23% of the popular vote — a drop of 11.2% on the last time the part-ay went to the polls — in the process losing 76 seats in the Bundestag (dropping from 222 to 146), and mourning over its worst performance in post-WWII Germany.
Germany’s Social Democrats are in crisis. And they are not alone. Across Europe, social democratic parties are struggling to connect with a new generation of voters. What’s the problem?
Germany’s Social Democrats were set for a sweeping leadership reshuffle on Tuesday as advocates of a sharp leftward shift moved to grab the helm of the country’s oldest party following Sunday’s historic electoral debacle.
Whoever becomes the party’s next chairman will decide the political direction of Europe’s largest Social Democratic force at a time when the centre-left is on the defensive across the continent.
Sunday’s general election, where the SPD obtained 23 per cent of the votes and only 146 seats in parliament – its worst result in the Federal Republic’s 60 years – could mark the end of an era for the centrist reformists who have dominated over the past decade…
Otherwise, the hard men of the NPD turned into Mr. Floppy at the ballot box — making Welf Herfurth and other “national anarchists” shed hot tears of disappointment. A total of 635,437 people voted for the NPD in the federal election on Sunday, a drop of 0.1% (1.5 ~versus~ 1.6) on the 2005 election results.
In the UK, Brown gambles on law and order (Paola Totaro, The Age, September 30, 2009). Apparently, while the great majority of the police, seemingly ever-patient and self-controlled, have stood for years as kids baited and yelled, shoved and provoked — and only a handful of officers have used well-placed elbows, their batons raised only in response to vandalism — the Government has had enough of the UK’s most pressing concern: anti-social families, teenage drunkenness and problem children.
The councilor comes with his battered old suit
And his head all filled with plans
Says “It’s not for myself, for the fame or wealth
But to help my fellow man”
Fist in the air and the first to stand
When the Internationale plays
Says “We’ll break down the walls of the old Town Hall
And we’ll fight all the lifelong day!”
Ten years later where is he now?
He’s ditched all the old ideas
Milked all the life from the old cash cow
Now he’s got a fine career
Now he’s got a fine career
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
