This week, we are sharing an interview with a member of the Solidarity Fund for Imprisoned and Persecuted Revolutionaries, or Tameio. We talk about the case of the explosion in an apartment in the Athens district of Ampelokipi from late October of 2024 which left comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris dead and left Marianna badly injured, after which there have been arrests of four other comrades (so far), including Nikos Romanos. Some supporters of those arrested believes the case is the New Democracy government distracting from their economic collapse by increasing repression and the spectre of terrorism
- Transcript
- PDF (Unimposed) – pending
- Zine (Imposed PDF) – pending
We also speak about the anti-repression landscape that Tameio participates in, the end of asylum protections against police on university campuses and difficulties faced by the anti-authoritarian and anarchist movements in Greece today.
- https://tameio.net
- https://athens.indymedia.org/
- Nikos Romanos’ letter on the case from December 5th, 2024: https://actforfree.noblogs.org/2024/12/08/letter-from-anarchist-comrade-nikos-romanos-from-korydallos-prison-greece/
. … . ..
Transcription
Tameio participant: Hello. Today I’m speaking as a member of a Greek group, Solidarity Fund for Imprisoned and Persecuted Revolutionaries. I will present the group and the work we are doing, but at the same time, I could say that I’m speaking as individual. All my answers probably don’t representing the whole group. We don’t have an official opinion altogether about all the issues to be discussed. This group started in 2010 in Greece. There are people in Athens and Thessaloniki, mainly, and also in other cities of Greece that are part of this group. Our main goal is support, politically, ethically and materially, the political prisoners in Greece.
TFSR: Great. Thank you so much for having this conversation with me.
Tameio participant: Thank you also for this conversation and for the support. We think that we can show in this way, that solidarity is very important. It’s not a thing based inside countries or regions, but it’s something more global. We support each other. It doesn’t matter where we are located.
TFSR: Yeah, I totally agree. Do you want to name the group that you’re a part of?
Tameio participant: Yes, the English version is Solidarity Fund for Imprisoned and Persecuted Revolutionaries in Greece. The Greek word that we used is Tameio. It’s a Greek word. The full name in Greek is Tameío Allilengýis Fylakisménon kai Diokómenon Agonist(ri)ón ( Ταμείο Αλληλεγγύης Φυλακισμένων και Διωκόμενων Αγωνιστ(ρι)ών ). It’s the total translation in English. In order not to say the whole name, we say the Tameio, like the fund, but we understand that we are talking about this group.
TFSR: Okay, I’ve heard it translated as “cash register” before. So I wanted to check. I didn’t know if that was the word that people used.
Tameio participant: Tameio [“tam-ee-yo”]can be used in different ways. I can understand why it is translated that way.
TFSR: There was a tragic explosion last year that resulted in the death of a comrade, severe injuries to another comrade, and multiple arrests, including that of well-known anarchist Nikos Romanos. Do you have more information about the situation and ways that people abroad can show their support?
Tameio participant: Indeed, we had this very tragic explosion on 31st of October, in an apartment in the center of Athens. Exactly as you said, it resulted in the death of a comrade. Another comrade that was inside the flat, was fortunately in another room but still got badly injured. After this explosion, there were arrests of comrades regarding this case, the injured comrade, of course, and another two comrades who were connected because they had the keys of the flat. I don’t know if it’s okay to say more details. If you want I can describe more details about this case, how the people arrested are connected. After these two arrests, we had the arrest of Nikos Romanos based on a part of fingerprint on a supermarket bag found in the flat. In this bag there was a gun. After Nikos Romanos, another comrade was arrested for the same reason, because a part of his fingerprint was also found on the same supermarket bag.
TFSR: With the people who had the keys allegedly on them–the police would have had to stop them to find the keys, right? So they were sought for other reasons that they tied them into this case?
Tameio participant: I can explain. The flat where the explosion took place belonged to a person living abroad. This person gave the keys to the arrested comrades just to use the flat for a few days while he was living abroad. So they had the keys of the flat, and they gave the keys to the injured comrade. I’m using these names just for people to understand. And that’s it. This was their involvement. They took the keys from the owner, and they gave the keys to the injured comrade, and that’s it. From these two arrested comrades, one was abroad during the explosion, and the other person would have returned the keys, but the explosion happened. The comrade went hours later, showed up to the police to explain what happened, that he has the keys, and that’s it. But they arrested him. The other comrade that was abroad at this moment. She was studying abroad and returned to Greece on her own. She was arrested also. Regardless of their statements, the police said that they were connected with the explosion, blah, blah, blah. They were arrested, accused of being part of terrorist group, having explosives, related accusations etc. They were sent to prison to wait for the trial.
TFSR: For people in the United States, it’s not illegal to have a gun. Are guns illegal in Greece?
Tameio participant: Yes, they are illegal, generally, except for police or army, etc. Maybe other cases people will request officially to be allowed because they are in danger, like maybe for politicians, or some very specific cases where they request from the police, to be allowed to carry a weapon. Otherwise it’s illegal. Of course, there are people that go hunting for animals, so they have official allowance to have a specific gun used for the hunting. People that do it as sport but again, with police allowance, official papers that they have a gun for a specific reason. There is a distinction in Greece for having a gun at your home, locked in a case, for a special reason. That’s different than carrying it with you. These are very specific cases, where you request special licenses.
TFSR: I had mentioned the name Nikos Romanos. Can you tell listeners a little bit about this person and why it’s notable that he’s been drawn into this case.
Tameio participant: Yes, as you said in the beginning, he’s a well-known anarchist because Nikos Romanos was a very close friend with Alexis Grigoropoulos, who was killed in 2008 in Exarchia by a cop. It’s globally known what happened in 2008 in Greece [an uprising lasting for years, rapid growth of assemblies, increased extraparliamentary actions – ed]. Nikos Romanos was a close friend of Alexis Grigoropoulos. He was next to him when the policeman killed Alexis Grigoropoulos. Then in 2013, because Romanos was arrested with other comrades and accused of a robbery in Northern Greece, he was imprisoned. He went on a hunger strike, requesting to be allowed to have university classes while he was incarcerated. This is something that is allowed in Greece, you can be a student in university while you are in prison. You are officially allowed to leave prison for a few hours to go to university and back. This is allowed for every prisoner, but political prisoners are treated differently in Greece, and of course everywhere. In 2014, Nikos Romanos was on a hunger strike, and he won. He was afterwards allowed to take his classes. Then after a few years, he was released.
As he said in his statement, after his official release, he was not arrested in any other case. Now suddenly, the police said that inside the flat (that was totally, totally destroyed by the explosion) they found the supermarket bag with a small part of a fingerprint from Nikos Romanos. Because Nikos Romanos is well known, they used media propaganda to give extra meaning to this case.
TFSR: Yeah it’s like, “This is a well known terrorist, and he’s a part of this.”
Tameio participant: Exactly. It was like suddenly they found a new terrorist group and the people who are involved are linked Nikos Romanos, with known anarchists, and terrorists that the government, the State, would recognize. It was easier for the State to involve someone famous.
TFSR: According to his page on prisonersolidarity.com which is run by some of the Anarchist Black Cross Federation chapters in the US, it mentions that he had taken responsibility for actions after Grigoropoulos was killed–activities affiliated with the Informal Anarchist Federation or the FAI. So even if he hasn’t been arrested for anything since then, they’ve tried to put other affiliations on him and bring him in on this case. As you said, surprisingly, this one fingerprint from a from a grocery store bag shows up, or two fingerprints, and they’ve already got his fingerprints on file, so they can just tie him into this and potentially associate the whole case with the creation of a conspiracy.
Tameio participant: Yes indeed. After the last arrest that I mentioned, we didn’t have any news. For many days, it was the hot topic in the Greek news. There were many, many articles about this case. They were in the media so we didn’t know if it was true. The police gave information to the journalists, either based on events that took place or things that they invent in their mind to be used as propaganda. So we know what the police said via the journalists. They were saying that they would have many arrests, that there were many things connected to this explosion, blah, blah, blah. But there was no other evidence, no other cases, no other arrests. We’ll see how it will continue.
TFSR: The case and the response of the State, seems to have offered the the ruling New Democracy Party, a chance of even worsening their repression against anarchists in the country. Do you have any more information on what the State’s response to this case might mean for the movement going forward?
Tameio participant: During this period for Greece, socially and economically, it’s really hard and getting harder. The only thing that the State and the government, the New Democracy Party, can show to their voters is repression. They are trying to use any case as something that they succeeded at. I mean, all this happened based on an accident. They were saying in the news “Our success in this case, blah, blah, blah”. It was not a success, it was an accident, but they will use it to distract people from the real problems that they have in their daily life. Again, the State will use it for more repression. The repression in Greece, no matter the case with the explosion, is getting harder and harder. Police are everywhere and there are many evictions of the remaining squats. At the same moment, the State is constantly changing the laws regarding imprisonment and stuff like this. So it’s easier now than before to get accused of something in Greece and to have a sentence and to be transferred in jail, even for a small sentence. This was not the case in the previous years. They use such things for media propaganda to make the case that terrorism is not dead in Greece, that people are trying to create new terrorist organizations and continue terrorism in Greece so we have to have more police on the streets and employ more policemen and stuff like this. They use such events but in any case, the repression is getting harder. Also, the case is that police will assault demonstrations more often than before. Even small demonstrations are attacked by the police. They are using all their means to either arrest people or make people afraid of doing things and be active in the movement.
TFSR: This regime brought back the Deltas. Right? Is that the name of one of the police forces on motorcycles?
Tameio participant: Yes.
TFSR: So they increased violence and then, as you say, they’re using opportunities in the media to ramp up general fear and are creating more laws that allow for easier sentencing of people to longer periods in prison.
Tameio participant: Yes, indeed.
TFSR: Can you talk about the conditions of the people that were arrested in this case? I’ve seen this case referred to as Ampelokipoi Case. Is that what it’s called?
Tameio participant: Ampelokipoi is the name of the district inside the center of Athens, where the flat was located. We call it the case of Ampelokipoi because of the name of the neighborhood.
The arrested are all in prisons located in Athens. The injured comrade was transferred to jail after having surgeries because she was really injured. The day after the second surgery, she was transferred to jail. They didn’t allow a few days, like everyone that has surgery usually gets. So the conditions in the prisons are very hard. The standard things you would imagine are not standard in Greek prisons. It’s not guaranteed that you will have the medical attention you need or things from the pharmacy that you will maybe need. They are generally treated harder. It depends generally on the situation, but maybe they have more restrictions than prisoners regarding things that they can receive, let’s say letters or books. The other problem is due to the this bad situation, there is a lot of violence sometimes, to earn things that they need for food or for the sale of things to clean their cell. There is a commissary inside the prison where you can purchase food, extra food than the food that is officially offered.
So people are fighting for extra good in prison. Or if someone has something, maybe they will fight to take it from them. Peace is not something that you will find in inside the prison. These are more or less common things in many prisons in Greece. But the conditions are not totally the same in all prisons so it depends on which prison you are in and the local conditions that exist there, based on the guards and the director of the prison and stuff like this.
TFSR: And probably whether or not you’ve been convicted of the crime yet, because these people are pretrial, right?
Tameio participant: Indeed. In Greece, the pretrial period is 18 months. So yes, they are in pretrial and there are prisons used for pretrial cases. Some prisons are more often used for pretrial prisoners.
TFSR: You had mentioned political prisoners being treated differently from other people. Is ‘political prisoner’ a recognized status by the Greek State? Or is that something that individuals fight for once they’ve been convicted or preconviction based on their political identity?
Tameio participant: The State does not recognize the political identity. They officially treat you like a common criminal. In reality, there are obvious differences in the sentences, not only in the conditions of the prisons. Very huge differences are applied to political prisoners when it comes to release terms. Even the State does not follow its laws. This has happened many times when it is release time for a prisoner. They won’t admit it officially. Also at the level of law, it was a struggle for political prisoners to be recognized as political prisoners. For the State, officially, it’s not recognized. They pretend like there are no political prisoners anymore in Greece, that it was something in the past decades.
TFSR: In the US context, the use of fire, explosives or other potentially anti-personnel devices is pretty rare at this point in political struggle. Have the accused made any claims in terms of the charges that they face, any affiliations or any responsibility?
Tameio participant: Until now, the comrades have published texts about the conditions in prisons. They have published a few texts for the dead comrade also, but there are no official detailed statement about the case and the accusations about what happened. I have mentioned about the comrades with the keys. Things were published when they were arrested. Nikos Romanos has published a small statement that he was involved in this case, for propaganda, for media purposes. More or less what we have mentioned before, and that’s it.
TFSR: There was the construction of a conspiracy case a few years ago called the Comrades Case, or Comrades Conspiracy? Is this a thing that could help audiences understand maybe what we might see with with this more recent case?
Tameio participant: No, I would say that they are different kinds of cases. A common thing during the last decades, the State does, is try to use personal relationships and relationships between comrades and such connections, to involve more people in cases, to make it seem some like something huge. Also, in order to give the accusation of being in a terrorist group, you have to be more than three people in the group. So there were times that the State tried to involve people without any evidence, just to be able to use this accusation of a terrorist group, because if there were one or two people, they couldn’t use this designation. If you have a sentence for being in a terrorist group, all the all the other sentences, for example for the explosives, are doubled. If you have explosives, and you are in a terrorist group, the sentence of the explosives could be double. So the State is always trying to create a terrorist group just to use it for this designation, and this in order to give bigger sentences to political prisoners.
TFSR: Can you talk about the university asylum laws in Greece, how they came about? Have they contributed to the infrastructure of the anarchist movement, both in terms of radicalizing young people and having a space for raising funds for political prisoners and against repression?
Tameio participant: The university asylum has been very, very important in Greece. Places inside of universities all over Greece were used for organizing discussions or concerts or events supporting the anarchists and the infrastructure of the anarchist movement, like squats, projects, or of course, political prisoners. Many festivals, many discussions and assemblies took place, which helped in the way that more people were involved in the movement and radicalized. We had plenty of such places inside the university asylum, to use whenever we wanted, without asking for permissions from the university. It provided safe areas that the police could not enter officially, at least, which is not the case now. The asylum does not exist anymore.
We are trying, and the students and the movement generally are trying to keep the sense of asylum in practice, but officially it does not exist. Police very easily enter the university and may attack students if they are organizing struggles, or if something takes place in university that can be considered illegal. The police can enter whenever they want. Many places are locked and closed in a way that they can be not be used by the movement in many places in Athens. This obviously makes it harder to connect with people, to gather, to have discussions, or to organize fundraising events. At the same time, the evictions of the squats are more and more frequent. So you don’t have the asylum and you don’t have the squads. There are fewer and fewer places to gather and organize events and the movement. So yes, the asylum, is really important. It has been a really important point for the movement in Greece.
TFSR: Can you talk about how that came to be? Because it wasn’t always the case that there was asylum on university campuses, right? I thought it was because of the polytechnic attack.
Tameio participant: As you said, there was a fascist junta government in Greece from 1967 until 1974. Officially, the asylum was put in law in 1982 after this, and it stopped existing in 2019.
TFSR: I didn’t know that it came so recently. 1982 is a while after [the attack at the polytechnic]. I thought it was in reference to the tank attack on the gates that killed students.
Tameio participant: Yes, that took place at the end of 1973, a few months before the end of the fascist government. But officially, the law was introduced in 1982.
TFSR: Do the creation of conspiracy laws, anti-hooligan laws, and even the prosecution of the fascist Golden Dawn help to offer new and creative ways for the State to target anarchists in the country?
Tameio participant: Golden Dawn was sentenced as a criminal group. In the Greek law, there is the term “criminal group,” and a sub term of “terrorist group.” For people that are not Greeks, I’m trying to think how to explain this part of the law describing the criminal group. It’s like it has Part A, and Part B. So Part A is the criminal group, Part B is the terrorist group. The sentences are the same, because the terrorist group is also a criminal group, but they have this distinction.
The State propaganda was based on the two edges. We have the anarchists, or leftists, and the other side, the fascists. But these two sides are the same.
TFSR: So the State views them as extremists and outside of the rights that the State has to use violence, right? I could see laws that were used to prosecute hooligans or Golden Dawn, even though Golden Dawn had participation in the government and has police among its membership and such, that when the State uses laws or creates laws or precedent to apply to one group, as you say, of this one edge, they can use it against anarchists and autonomous and extra-parliamentary left as well.
Tameio participant: Yes indeed. When the Golden Dawn was sentenced, they were officially considered as a legal group. They were elected but afterwards they were considered to be an illegal group.
TFSR: Are there ways that the tools the State used in order to bring about COVID lockdowns in Greece affected how people are able to politically organize in Greece? For instance, creating limitations on public gatherings or curfews or other tools of monitoring people moving around or gathering?
Tameio participant: During lockdown, there were such restrictions about the how many people could gather, where, etc. Even to organize and meet with a few people for discussion may be considered illegal. There were special conditions during COVID. The restrictions that were applied during the COVID period stopped afterwards. How you can gather there, how many people you could gather and where, etc: these are not in place anymore. But the repression is getting harder. There were no places to organize things, as we said about squats and asylum. So it’s getting worse and worse due to the whole repressive situation in Greece. I’m trying to think if we have any other effects based on COVID, but I don’t think so. During COVID, restrictions made it very hard for the movement.
TFSR: So, there became an interruption in the organizing of the movement.
Pivoting back to Tameio, can you talk about how many prisoners rely on the solidarity fund each month to get by inside of the prisons? How are the funds coordinated by the group?
Tameio participant: At this moment, we are supporting 15 political prisoners. We are trying to support them materially as well. We are organizing events, discussions, publishing books and [movement] diaries that we are selling to raise funds. We are organizing bazaars for selling books. We are organizing concerts. We are organizing bars with with music for fundraising. We are supported by individuals and political groups from Greece and, of course, from abroad, which is very important for us. People in Greece and outside Greece, are organizing, are collecting money or organizing events in cooperation with us or even by themselves. They are supporting us in this way. “Us” meaning the political prisoners. We are just the people in between.
We are also trying to be connected with the political prisoners, to communicate with them, to publish their texts, to help them publish their general opinion. So the things that they write from prison. We are organizing gatherings for their cases, or gatherings in the court when they have their trials, or any other legal procedures.
TFSR: And does Tameio also support people when they’re going through their cases, through their legal defense and such, or is that other groups that do that?
Tameio participant: You mean people that are not in jail, but they are accused of political action? Sometimes we co-organize. For example, gathering during the trials, or political events, political discussions about cases. But there are also other groups, mainly solidarity groups, that are organizing. There is an open solidarity assembly that is organizing events and gatherings or demonstrations for people under repression facing charges. We also take part in these. Also when there are cases that comrades have to pay an amount to not go to pretrial jail, we help with this.
TFSR: Are there other groups in Greece that are similar to Tameio that you would like to recognize for international attention and support?
Tameio participant: There are not other groups like Tameio, exactly how Tameio works. But there are others: solidarity groups acting like open assemblies that organize the support of political prisoners and people with charges. Of course, other political groups may also organize events and support for people facing charges or political prisoners. In the past, before Tameio and since, there were smaller groups that were created for a specific case. They were mostly contributing to organizing things and fundraising for a specific case. When Tameio was created, we were thinking that we should have a big group structure that could help support all the cases. It was complimentary. It was not against the small groups that would support specific cases, but we needed an anarchist movement infrastructure that could support all the cases, all the political prisoners.
TFSR: So people will start support committees for a specific case, especially if they’re close to the person, or organized in the same circles or loved ones. Then you have a wider structure that can exist in between those cases, or to help coordinate things, while not taking over that job from them, just helping facilitate that. That makes a lot of sense. Is that correct?
What are some good news and counter-information sources that interested listeners might find helpful in keeping up on the struggles of our comrades in so called Greece?
Tameio participant: Tameio has its site, tameio.net. We are trying to have information about all the cases and also publish our text and their text, etc. There’s also athens.indymedia.org, that is very, very, very active. Someone could find everything happening in Greece. It’s mostly in Greek, but there are some articles that are translated to English and other languages.
TFSR: If you want, you can send me links afterwards. Is there anything that I didn’t ask about that you wanted to mention?
Tameio participant: For Tameio and political prisoners? Someone could find info on our site for the political prisoners. We could speak about each one of them, but I don’t know if it is needed. We talked about Ampelokipoi case, because it was something very huge. Also for Greece, it was very huge. We published a new book for 2025 but it’s in Greek, so that doesn’t make sense to say to a US audience.
TFSR: Do they get translated into English ever?
Tameio participant: Good question! We were talking unofficially with comrades that we should create something in English next year. In some years before, there was an initiative from comrades and they translated a small book in English, and we published it. Or we were selling the English version to be published by groups in other countries where they thought there would be a lot of people that would really like to buy. But lately we haven’t created something in English, and it’s something that I’m constantly talking about. We just printed stickers in English and maybe hopefully a poster. But that’s it. We will keep it in mind to translate something. In Greece, every year we publish the year’s agenda. We present on a lot of movement events or things that took place. For example, we’re saying from 20-blah blah till 20-blah blah, we’ve been publishing this year in the agenda this year. Next year, we are publishing the next years, etc. It’s like a collection of the main events that took place during the last two decades. So it’s for archive proposals. It’s a very nice project, but indeed, only in Greek, until now. Yeah, the last versions that we did were in Greek, but we started discussing that maybe we should have something in English also.
TFSR: That’s a lot of work.
Tameio participant: Yes, it’s a lot of work.
TFSR: Thank you so much for having this conversation and taking the time to speak in English about this.
Tameio participant: Thank you very much for your support and your initiative and all the things. Thank you very much for this.