When we look at the situation in Europe we see that the Operation Fenix in Czech Republic didn’t come out of the blue. There have been many police provocations and agent infiltrations followed by big waves of repression all over the world. In the European context most recent acts of police repressions was Operación Pandora and Operación Piñata in Spain just few months ago.
We put #Pandora RSS feed on our blog so you can follow news from our comrades who are facing a massive wave of repression. Here is an email we received containing the most recent news about the situation in Spain:
News from Spain: 3 anarchist prisoners of Operación Piñata released
On June 1 we got the great news that three of the five comrades being
held in preventive detention, accused of being part of a terrorist group
under Operation Piñata (including one who was already arrested and
imprisoned in Operation Pandora) are being released without bail. They
still have all their charges and have to sign in frequently at court,
and two of them are prohibited from leaving the country.
Operation Pandora was launched in December in Catalunya, and Operation
Piñata on March 30 all across the Spanish state but focused in Madrid.
The operations resulted in the arrests of 26 anarchist comrades (plus
the arrests of over a dozen more for resisting the raid on a social
center) on anti-terrorism charges, the raids of dozens of houses and
social centers, the theft of cash, and the seizure of computers,
harddrives, phones, etc.
The 5 Piñata arrestees had just been given “dispersal”, sent to high
security prisons as far away from their friends and families as
possible, when the Audiencia Nacional ruled in favor of an appeal by
defense attorneys, agreeing that the judge in charge of the
investigation, the megalomaniac Eloy Velasco who is a crusader for the
use of anti-terrorism laws and who is already infamous for his
repression of the Basque struggle, did not show any direct connection
between the detainees and specific acts of sabotage (“terrorism”) nor
any connection between the public anarchist group GAC (Grupos
Anarquistas Coordinados) and the FAI-FRI, which has been declared a
terrorist organization by the European Union.
The other two detainees still being held pending trial might be released
shortly.
In worst news, the same day, the Spanish government put an embargo on
the bank accounts that were opened to collect solidarity money for the
lawyers, commissary expenses, and transportation expenses (for family
members to visit those imprisoned) around Operation Pandora. The
government continues to criminalize solidarity, following the same model
it used to repress the Basque independence movement (with the difference
that the anarchist movement in Spain has not killed anybody, nor among
its diverse currents can support be found for the type of actions that
inevitably cause collateral damage or kill and maim random people, a
practice the Spanish government has had no problem with in its wars in
other countries). If it is able to succeed, it will be able to prosecute
sabotage as terrorism, portray the struggle against domination as
terrorism, and even imprison those who write or raise money or protest
in support of detainees as terrorists.
Solidarity and resist!