Greek police attacks Rocinante on the occasion of 17/11

"Anarcho-syndicalist Initiative - Rocinante" is a Greek working , federalist , union , and anti- libertarian organization that intervenes and competes Capitalism with work , from the standpoint of defending the interests of Labour.

17th of November is the anniversary of the revolt of the Polytechnic school against the military junta in Greece.
It’s a day that every year is comemmorated by thousands and thousands of people in Greece and in the rest of the world.

ROCINANTE PRESS LETTER

This year, we are reached by the news that the block of Rocinante was targeted and attacked by the police.
They marched peacefully, as usual, when the police attacked them.
The police did beat people up and attacked with teargas on several occasions.

We salute the comrades who managed to stay calm, proceed with the demonstration, look after each other, stay organized and not letting the police arrest anyone.

At the same time, we stongly condemn the behaviour of the police. They, for sure, show the times of the junta are not far away.

Greek governement chose todays celebration to remind people how liberal democracy really looks like. For their information, the people never forget!

Today, 17th of November was the 41st anniversary of the “revolt of the Polytechnic school” against the military junta of Greece which lasted from 1967 until 1974. In November 17 of 1973 students occupied the Technical University in Athens against the military coup, which resulted in the army and the police entering the school with a tank and several people getting killed. Every year on this date a demonstration is organized as a tribute to that and every year Rocinante participates in it.

The last couple of years it was obvious that the police forces were paying close attention to our block, but this year they clearily targeted us. In many cases the cops were commenting on comrades calling them by their names while they were marching and in other cases they warned each other that our block was passing through and that they should prepare themselves, wear their masks and get ready for a clash.

During the march and while the block was marching peacefully, they attacked us and started hitting people, but we managed to hold on, stay together and proceed with the demo. After the demo was officially over we kept our block and marched towards our offices in an organized fashion so that the police wouldn’t have the chance to find, beat and arrest individual comrades. After reaching our offices with all comrades safe, they attacked us again with tear gases outside our offices. Fortunately up to now we don’t have reports on arrests or serious injuries.

Tomorrow we will give a press conferences on greek media along with comrades from other organizations and we would like to also read out messages of solidarity from comrades abroad. In the hopes that this email reaches you in time we would appreciate that you send your messages by tomorrow late in the morning (11am-12pm) so that we have them for the press conference.

inter.rocinante@riseup.net