The Passion for Freedom

Yet one more episode in the chronicles of repression is now well-known to all: on October 1 Alfredo Bonanno (from Italy) and Christos Stratigopoulos (from Greece), two anarchists who have already been hit by repression on a number of occasions, were arrested in Greece following a robbery, and imprisoned in the small town of Amfissa. It is not our intention to comment on their action, which nevertheless has our full appreciation, nor will we indulge in other details concerning the comrades’ arrest, which have been abundantly exposed in previous leaflets and communiques.

On the contrary, what we feel the urge to do here is to remind all the comrades reading these lines that Christos and Alfredo are still being detained in the concentration camp of Amfissa and that it is the case to reflect upon this with greater determination.

Everybody now knows something of the conditions of detention in Amfissa. No living being should be placed in such a hellish place. Hence we wish it to be destroyed once and for all along with all the prisons and detention centres of this world, a desire we and many other comrades have been stressing over and over through written words and sometimes (far too few, we are afraid) through deeds. We all agree on much-debated points such as the attack on this system of exploitation that builds jails and represses every form of rebellion, and are for the total destruction of all prisons. We also agree that support and solidarity be given to imprisoned comrades everywhere. We want all our comrades free, along with each and every rebel currently detained in the dungeons of whatever State and, having our own concept of social retribution, are against prison even for our enemies.

It is within this context that we want to emphasize the specific case of Alfredo, whose age and state of health — alas — have also become part of the chronicle. It is quite obvious that his continued detention under the present conditions is a precise political choice, backed up by law — where power is taking to the ultimate degree its revenge on an anarchist revolutionary who has always been a sworn enemy of authority in all its forms.

It is time to act regarding Alfredo’s situation, which is becoming extremely serious, as well as to denounce the widespread barbaric conditions that continue to exist in the Greek jails in spite of a protracted hungerstrike undertaken by thousands of prisoners last year.

Benefit gigs and counterinformation can be important initiatives. Sporadic actions against the symbols of power are beautiful acts of solidarity. But all of these remain isolated in the absence of a constant attack on the State and capital as a whole, which includes working to extend the struggle to involve the exploited inside and outside the walls of infamy. This is a necessary road within which to elaborate specific actions, including those aimed at not abandoning individual comrades who find themselves in particular conditions in the hands of the enemy.

Let’s act now to keep the struggle against every kind of prison alive and effective until all prisoners are free and all prisons are destroyed, first and foremost the invisible walls that enclose mind and body in daily habit and unquestioning rituals of dissent.

Let’s show our comrades hostages of the State that we are with them in the ardent struggle for life and dignity, that the passion for freedom is not just a slogan, but a fearsome torrent of love and destruction.

FIRE TO THE PRISONS.