Category: Social control and repression

Russian antifascist arrested in Madrid

Post author By alboroto
Post date August 24, 2012

It has been reported that russian antifascist Pjotr Silajev has been detained in Madrid, here is a report about his current situation:

Russian writer and antifascist Pjotr Silajev is still arrested in Madrid. Silajev had been granted a political asylum in Finland early this year. The Finnish embassy in Madrid has said that Silajev can be kept arrested for 40 days!

The Spanish police arrested Silajev in Granada because of request from Interpol on the 21st of august. Contrary to the expectations, he was not released in a trial in Madrid on the 22nd of august, even though the Finnish embassy had provided all the papers concerning his asylum and right to stay in the country. The court wouldnt comment the case. The Spanish police said that he only had a Russian passport when he was arrested. It is not clear how the Finnish state will react to the arrest.

The Moscow Times interviewed Tanya Lokshina from The Human Rights Watch, who said that the Spanish state does not have to take into concideration the asylum from Finland and are free to send him back to Russia. This does not seem possible. The Finnish YLE news has interviewed the head of the immigration office Esko Repo who said that all the European Union countries are committed to not sending people to countries where they might face prosecution.

The lawyer of Silajev said the situation looks bad.

The Moscow Times said that the hardening line of the Russian government towards protests can lead to even more cases where people need to flee the country. The case of Silajev can be connected to other cases where people who had fled the country have been tried to be sent back.

Silajev was granted asylum from Finland in april of this year. The reason was the continuing political prosecution in Russia. The Russian Federation wants him convicted for demonstrations against a highway in the Khimki region outside Moscow. Among other protests, the house of the city council was attacked and some people throw stones and fireworks in the building in 2010.

The hunt of Silajev seems to be the last resort for the prosecutor to convict someone from the Khimki protests. Last year Aleksey Gaskarov, who was arrested for months, was releassed of all charges and Maxim Solopov received a two year sentence for hooliganism. The third suspect Denis Solopov has received an asylum from the Netherlands.

The Moscow Times have said that the mayor of Khimki Vladimir Strelchenko resigned last week because of pressure from the new governor of Moscow. Strelchenko is suspected of organising attacks against the protesters who were resisting the building of the highway.

We are asking for solidarity from our comrades in Madrid and other parts of the Spanish state! Support our anarchist and antifascist comrade!

Spread the word!

Taken from Finnish anarchist web page Takku.net

Source: indymedia.org.uk

Original source: takku.net

Tags arrest, Madrid, Pjotr Silajev

Social control and repression

Gathering against the killing of Juan Pablo

Post author By alboroto
Post date August 7, 2012

Juan Pablo Torroija, an Argentinian squatter living in the town of Girona (Catalonia), was arrested last month. A few hours after the arrest he ended up in hospital, where he died. According to police, he hanged himself in his cell, but the beaten marks on his body and the fact there was no fracture on his neck prove we may be in front of a new case of police torture and assassination. A gathering has been called for August 9 to demand explanations and denounce the killing. Below is a statement by comrades from Girona:

Juan Pablo, from what we could reconstruct, was arrested on July 10 or 11 at night by a joint patrol of local police and Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalan police) at the Noon street of Girona, although we don’t know why. He is wildly beaten and taken to a police station in town, and enters hospital on July 11, in severe condition.

According to police statements, Juan Pablo had tried to hang himself at the police station. Police never informed of his arrest and the following hospitalization neither to any relative nor the phone numbers listed in his legal residence in Spain, which means that Juan Pablo stayed four days alone while being heavily injured.

The only person who managed to find out what had happened was a friend of Juan Pablo, that turned up at the Vista Alegre police station (Girona) where they told him that Juan Pablo Torroija was admitted to the intensive care unit of the Trueta hospital for an alleged suicide attempt in the cells of that same police station. This friend managed to see Juan Pablo at the hospital and has now explained that he was brutally beaten on the head, the ribs of his left side, on both arms, on the legs and with all the his neck full of marks, as if they were traumas. All the beaten parts were covered by a white tape as a way to hide the injuries. No doctor wanted to give any explanations about the events, and they only told him he had irreversible damage by asphyxia and they believed he would not survive.

Juan Pablo died a day later (July 14), alone. His body was taken to the Mémora funeral home and given to the Court No 1 of Girona. Neither his family nor the Argentine Consulate or, obviously, the public opinion, were informed of his arrest and death.

We denounce the number of big irregularities in the process that ended up with the death of Juan Pablo, the lack of communication by the judicial authorities, the statements made by Juan Pablo’s friends, who report a situation of persecution, harassment, detention and torture in the police station, the evident irregularities in the autopsy presented and and the speed they have managed to the have the case closed, with the intention of having to repatriate the body. And we demand explanations, responsabilities to be clarified and the end of police impunity and state terrorism.

Not everyone is here: Juan Pablo is missing!
The police tortures and murders!

Juan Pablo, assassinated in the police station of Girona
Stop police police immunity
One of us is touched, all of us are touched
Gathering – Thursday 9 at 20:00 in Vi square

For more information in English: The death of an Argentinian squatter

Source: barcelona.indymedia.org

Tags assassination, Catalonia, Girona, Juan Pablo Torroija, police brutality

Prisons Social control and repression

Amadeu Casellas faces jail once again

Post author By alboroto
Post date July 31, 2012

On July 2, Amadeu Casellas is notified to present himself to the court of Barcelona, and once there he is told to have 10 days to enter the Manresa prison in order to serve a 3 years sentence. An appeal is requested to deduct these 3 years from the 8 years that the “injustice” of the state owes him and that the state institutions themselves had recognized after a hard period of struggle.

After visiting the Penitentiary Surveillance court, the jail of Manresa and holding different meetings, in order to change this “illogical” situation, he is told his appeal cannot be “attended” as he hasn’t entered jail yet and has no “jail record”, while they promise him to fastly attend his situation once he is inside.

The shamelessness of telling a person to re-enter prison just to check his “jail record”, after jailing that person and kidnapping him for eight long years, can only come a sickening and avenging state.

Obviously, a dissatisfied Amadeu kept on fighting for his freedom, and after several meetings with the General Secretariat of Prisons of Catalonia, two years and eight months are deducted, but they are unable to overturn the order of entering jail and offer him a Third Degree status, which apparently allows inmates to spend eight hours of the day in freedom.

The following step was the court of Barcelona again, where the president cancelled the order given for July 12, although all the bureaucracy in different courts was still pending before being sure the sentence is completely overturned .

Now, Amadeu has been told again he has to enter prison on August 2. Unbelievable but true! If it wasn’t true, it could even look like some kind of sick joke, but it is the harsh reality of the bourgeois law, its extermination centers and its “calculation mistakes”, which required up to three hunger strikes for them to take the decision to start counting the years Amadeu had to actually serve.

We know that during August and early September it will be difficult to handle any issue related with the bourgeois legal bureaucracy, so in case he was finally jailed, Amadeu will be exposed to any kind of manipulation, provocation, set-up, etc. which will only make his release harder.

Now it’s the time to fight again against the beast, to fight with our best weapon: solidarity.

Amadeu Casellas Ramón is not alone, your freedom is ours, his struggle is ours. His choice has never been to be silent, neither ours.

FOR FREEDOM!

FOR SOLIDARITY!

FOR ANARCHY!

DOWN WITH THE PRISON WALLS!

Source: barcelona.indymedia.org

For those wishing to know about Amadeu Casellas past struggle: Amadeu Casellas is Free!!!

Tags Amadeu Casellas, Catalonia, Manresa, prisons

Social control and repression

Police attacks protesters in Tenerife, 2 arrested

Post author By alboroto
Post date July 22, 2012

Police attacked protesters yesterday in Tenerife. Here is the report provided by lahaine.org:

A gathering had been called yesterday morning in front of the Victor theatre in Tenerife, where the PP party was holding a congress. At around 10am police violently attacked protesters, leaving 5 people injured and arresting 2 others.

One of the detainees, a boy, was charged with offense against authority. He was physically assaulted both at the time of the arrest, with the cops’ knees over his head and several baton beatings, and inside the van as he was heading to the police station, when he was beaten again with the batons. He was also attacked at the entrance of the police station and inside the cell. It should be pointed out that the boy suffers from anxiety and due to the tension of the events, he asked for medical help: for two hours he was kept in a backyard near the police station, with an increasing anxiety attack because of the high temperatures that can be reached inside a police van. When arriving at the police station he was attacked once again and kept in the same cell than the other girl arrested. Since he had not received medical care yet, he continued asking for it until cops opened the door and attacked the boy again by kicking him and tightening even more the handcuffs. He was taken to hospital and when he came back he was put in solitary confinement. Many were the marks left on his body: bruises on his back, knee injuries, wounds in the wrists and mainly cheek swelling.

The other girl arrested was charged with civil disobedience. She was physically attacked at the time of arrest and while being transferred to the police station, when she received constant provocations and psychological abuse.

Tags police brutality, PP, Tenerife