SOLIDARITY IS THE PEOPLE'S WEAPON! - Viki

Solidarity is the
People’s Weapon!

Idon’t remember how we got to Aristotelos. When we reached Aristotelos Square and as soon as we began to feel better we realized that we were about 150 people and the police were trying to surround the square. The people in the square began to run straight towards the police and they receded leaving an open road, so we went down one of the side streets towards the sea. A group of about 15 people (including ourselves) tried to get back to the university to meet the others. We strated running and burning garbage containers to clean the atmosphere of the chemicals and to keep the police away (some threw molotovs). As soon as we reached Navarimou street we tried to go into a side street where a demonstration was taking place but the police were chasing us and we were surrounded so the only thing we could do was to go into a block of flats. We started to run inside the block of flats and ring the bells hoping that someone would open the door. Three of us managed to enter an apartment as someone opened the door and let us in. At first he and his friends were very friendly and offered us water and juice and let us rest in their kitchen to wait for the police to leave. About fifteen minutes later a girl standing on the balcony came in and spoke to the owner of the house (maybe the police had said something to her) He opened the door and began to shout and push us out. He slammed the door and the police came to the 4th floor and arrested us.
As soon as we were arrested the police pulled our hair and took us down out of the block of flats and pushed us against the wall (we had handcuffs on). The lawyers from the legal team 2003 saw us, approached and began to ask the police what they found in our bags. They said we all had molotovs and catapults but they hadn’t searched us, they just threw some bags next to us that we had seen for the first time. A group of people came out from the demonstration that was passing in a nearby street sand started trying to hit us shouting, ‘Put them in jail, they’ve burned the city!!!’ and things like that. At this point one of the girls arrested with us fainted and the cops pushed the people who were trying to hit us away because the lawyers were watching. They put us into a van, pushing the bags towards us because they wanted us to touch them and get our fingerprints on them. The police were taking photographs of us all the time and suddenly I realized that one of the people who had been in the block of flats with us and was wearing a mask and pretending he was one of us, was a policeman. They took us to Diavata. There more cops started swearing at us and hitting us with their truncheons. They searched us and put us in cells and when we told them we had the right to make a phone call they didn’t pay any attention. They didn’t give us any food or water that night and only early in the morning someone from the next cell gave us bottles of water and the lawyers sent us some sandwiches. At noon on Sunday we were transferred to the court but were kept at the general police station for some hours because there were about 300 people demonstrating for us outside the court. Later we were transferred to the basement of the court through the back door so as not to be seen by the people outside. Then the police attacked the people outside the court and arrested 2 of the medical team. We didn’t go to the prosecutor that day but went back to the general cop station.
On Monday morning we were transferred again to the court. The situation was horrible, they gave us nothing to eat while the police were outside the cell eating sandwiches. We were taken to the Prosecution and they announced our charges which had been changed.
On Tuesday noon they let us free after we saw the prosecutor again and he told us how much money we should pay and how often we must show up to the police station in our town of residence while awaiting trial.
They imprisoned 5 people – Suleiman Daktout (Castro), immigrant from Syria, Carlos and Fernando from Spain and Simon from the UK and Spiros, Mihalis and Dimitris from Greece. (About Sunday there was a tape showing the police changing Simon’s bag with another but the police only said they would talk about that in court and sent him to prison.)
Carlos’ hair was cut by the police and when he showed this to the prosecutor he said to keep it for the court but the cops took it from him.
All the people arrested were hit and sworn at by the cops with great savagery. None of us ever saw a doctor, some had very bad injuries, with broken hands, broken legs and bruises to their faces and all over their bodies.
The only thing that gave us strength is what the lawyers told us had happened outside, the people demonstrating outside the court demanding our freedom, the solidarity between us and the slogans we were shouting from the cells to the other prisoners.

SOLIDARITY IS THE PEOPLE’S WEAPON1

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