2. Widely Supported (Nationally and Internationally) Greece Social Movement Protest Leads to Release of Half of Greece's Prison Population that was Overcrowded and without Medical Care: over 50 prisoners died in the past year in Greek prisons due to lack of sanitation, medical care, uncontrolled fire, etc.
3. This seems like a very successful threat of action: an 18 day hunger strike of the Greece prison population. It was well thought out with three weeks to communicate demands, after which the hunger strike would start. The hunger strike kept expanding inside the prison seemingly in response to widespread social movement support from outside the prison until around 2/3 of all Greek prisoners were under hunger strike of some form. State/movement interaction is seen as well. State started to make deals after 11 days and after 11 days announced its pending legislation, still to be passed. The Hunger srike was called off after that, though the threat is that it will continue if wider medical and juvenile prison demands are unmet.
Prison reform based social movements, against overcrowding and lack of services, it seems to me, are very rare because of the deafness of the state to this population demographic? Important allies internationally were Amnesty International, a laywers group, EU 'law' discrepancies, as well as (quite typical) massive violence in the Greek streets and against Government buildings (paints and fire attacks) against the government from anarchists supporting the prison hunger strike.
Greek prisoners still have a political voice to adjust their country's direction--though it was a larger and wider mobilization than only this particular issue. The hunger strike made lots of international media as well.
Without many actions in their lives, it seems they were able to coordinate rejecting food as one of their only political acts.
Other groups refused to be released out of their cells for the daily walk in the prison yard.
Moreover, European Union ideas were political opportunities. The political opportunity and frame was their ability to show a WIDE difference of treatment in Greek versus European Union forms of legislation about prisoner treatment.
Still, this mobilization got only half of what they wanted from their communication below.
Though about half of the prison sentences will be monetarized into fines, the Greek government plans to build three more prisons over the coming years to solve overcrowding.
---------------------
newswire article reporting global 22.Nov.2008 07:32 actions & protests Hunger strike ends as Greek government caves author: Libcom.org Nov. 20, 2008
After 18 days 7,000 prisoners in Greece stop their hunger strike after the ministry of justice concedes to a series of their demands, promising to release half the country's prison population by April 2009.
On Thursday the 20th of November more than 7,000 hunger strikers in greek prisons demanding a comprehensive 45-point program of prison reform have decided to stop their hunger strike, already on its 18th day, after the Ministry of Justice responded to their struggle and to the widening solidarity movement which in the last weeks has held several mass protest marches in the greek cities by declaring that by next April the number of prisoners in greek jails will be reduced to 6.815 from the present 12.315, thus effectively releasing half of the country's prison population.
The Ministry's declaration in detail states that:
1) All persons convicted to a sentence up to five years for any offense including drug related crimes can transform their sentence into a monetary penalty. This will not be allowed in the case the jury decides that the payment is not enough to deter the convict from committing punishable acts in the future.
2) The minimum sum for transforming one day of prison sentence to monetary penalty is reduced from 10 euros to 3, with the provision of being reduced to 1 euro by decision of the jury.
3) All people who have served 1/5 of their prison sentence for 2 year sentences and 1/3 for sentences longer than 2 years are to be released, with no exceptions.
4) The minimum limit of served sentence is reduced to 3/5 for conditional release and for convicts for drug related crimes. Those condemned under conditions of law ?. 3459/2006 (articles 23 ??? 23?) are exempted.
5) The maximum limit of pre-trial imprisonment is reduced from 18 to 12 months, with the exemption of crimes punished by life or 20 year sentence.
6) The annual time of days-off prison is increased by one day. Tougher conditions for days-off are limited for those convicted for drug related crimes under 3459/2006.
7) Disciplinary penalties are to be integrated.
8) Integration after 4 years into national law of the European Council decision of drug trafficking (2004/757).
9) Expansion of implementation of conditional release of convicts suffering from AIDS, kidney failure, persistent TB, and tetraplegics.
What the Ministry failed to answer with regard to the prisoners' demands include:
1) Monetary exchange of prison sentences longer than 5 years, especially for 6.700 prisoners presently convicted for non-criminal offenses.
2) Abolition of juvenile prisons
3) Abolition of accumulative disciplinary penalties
4) Abolition of 18 months pre-trial imprisonment for a large number of offenses.
5) Satisfactory expansion of days off, despite the fact that the application of present liberties has been tested as successful during the last 18 years.
6) Immediate improvement of relocation conditions of convicts
7) Holding a meeting between the minister of justice and the prisoners' committee
Thus in a press release, the Prisoners' Committee announced that:
"The amendment submitted to the Parliament by the Ministry of Justice tackles but a few of our demands. The minister ought to materialize his promises for the immediate release of the suggested number of prisoners announced, and at the same time implement concrete measures regarding the totality of our demands. We the prisoners treat this amendment as a first step, a result of our struggle and of the solidarity shown by society. Yet it fails to covers us, it fails to solve our problems. With our struggle, we have first of all fought for our dignity. And this dignity we cannot offer as a present to no minister, to no screw. We shall tolerate no arbitrary acts, no vengeful relocation, no terrorizing disciplinary act. We are standing and we shall stay standing. We demand form the Parliament to move towards a complete abolition of the limit of 4/5 of served sentence, the abolition of accumulated time for disciplinary penalties, and the expansion of beneficial arrangements regarding days-off, and conditional releases for all categories of prisoners. Moreover, we demand the immediate legislation on the presently vague promises of the minister of justice regarding the improvement of prison conditions (abolition of juvenile prisons, foundation of therapeutic centers for drug dependents, implementation of social labour in exchange for prison sentence, upgrading of hospital care of prisoners, incorporation of European legislation favorable to the prisoners in the Greek law etc.).
Finally, we offer our thanks to the solidarity movement, to every component, party, medium, and militant who stood by us with all and any means of his or her choice, and we declare that our struggle against these human refuse dumps and for the victory of all our demands continues". Prisoners' Committee 20/11/08.
Greek prisons end hunger strike 21/11/2008 16:05 - (SA) Want to know more? Answerit can help.
Celebrating 10 years of PlayUKlottery.com in grand style! # Prisoners sew mouths shut # Greek inmates on hunger strike
Athens - Prisoners in Greece have ended a two-week hunger strike called to protest chronic overcrowding after the government took steps to meet their complaints, the justice ministry said on Friday.
"The strike has ended, the prisoners are taking meals again," ministry spokesperson Haris Nikolakakis told AFP.
The ministry on Thursday submitted draft legislation to parliament which it said would enable 5 500 prisoners to be freed by April 2009.
The legislation reforms the system of reduction of sentences and reduces the maximum length of preventive detention.
Long-term proposals include alternative sentences for drug addicts.
A committee of inmates at Korydallos prison, one of Greece's largest, a few hours later said the hunger strike would end in response to the measures which they said were "a first step" to meeting their demands.
"The inmates view this legislation as a first step ... which does not solve our basic problems," the inmates said in a statement.
"We expect the justice minister's announcements on improving prison conditions ... to become law within the next three months," they said.
The protest originally began on November 3 with thousands of inmates rejecting scheduled prison meals. It turned into a full-blown hunger strike on November 7 with the prisoners refusing all food.
The protest spread to 21 out of 24 prisons in Greece, the largest of its kind ever held in the country according to its organisers.
Earlier this week the Initiative for Prisoner Rights, a support group which helped organise the protest, said 8 000 prisoners were participating in the protest, including 5 500 who refused all food.
Justice ministry figures show that Greek prisons held more than 11 600 inmates in July this year, against an official capacity of 7 543. Prisoners themselves say the actual number is around 14 000.
The government has pledged to open three new prisons in 2009.
ATHENS, Greece: Prisoners said Thursday they will end their 18-day hunger strike against overcrowding in Greek lockups after the government proposed releasing thousands of inmates next year.
A group representing the prisoners said strikers will start accepting food Friday.
The decision came after the Justice Ministry unveiled draft legislation allowing the early release of 5,500 prisoners by April 2009, to relieve severe overcrowding.
The country's total prison population is around 12,300 in penitentiaries designed to hold 8,243.
Justice Minister Sotiris Hadjigakis said most will be released through a review of parole rules for convicts serving up to five years, and a reduction in the maximum pretrial detention period. Today in Europe $25 billion French fund to shield companies from takeovers French Socialists choose a new course Several countries remain in violation of land mine treaty
"This will end the unpleasant situation in some prisons where you had inmates serving lighter sentences sharing cells with people convicted of severe crimes," he said.
According to the Prisoners' Rights Initiative, participation in the 18-day hunger strike exceeded 5,800 by Thursday, while another 2,200 inmates were refusing prison meals but receiving food from visitors.
Hadjigakis said the draft legislation would not include drug smugglers and people convicted of "gruesome" crimes.
He said the bill would be presented Parliament on Thursday night. The governing conservatives hold 151 of the 300 seats in the legislature.
By Loreleï on Friday, November 21 2008, 15:53 - Society - Permalink
On Monday the 3rd of November a large hunger strike kicked off with more than 5,000 prisoners in every Greek prison participating. The reason for this massive action is that the prisoners want to protest against their detention conditions.
Even prison officers questioned by a journalist of the Makedonia newspaper, said these medieval conditions were nothing but archaic : 11 to 12 prisoners in each cell normally for 5 people, a roll of toilet paper for each prisoner a month, the sanitary areas seldom cleaned, not even a dustbin in the outside courtyard. The prisons are so dirty that diseases develop more easily. Ta Nea newspaper reminds us that 52 prisoners died in prisons in 2007 (none of these related to oldness…), and 4 burned to death in 2006 in the Korydallou prison because of prison officers’ negligence.
This description is not only expressed by some humanist observers, but also by international agencies such as the UN or the European Committee for the prevention of torture that compared Greek prisons with Guantanamo regarding the life quality of the prisoners (article in Makedonia).
ancienne prison à Thessalonique
Why have detention conditions so badly deteriorated in Greece ? The answer is very simple, according to the articles I have read : in 1990, there were 3500 prisoners in Greece, they are now in 2008 14,000, and only a few new structures were constructed to accomodate this population change. Among the prisoners, half are foreigner, and 2 out of 3 are condemned for drug traffic affairs.
But Manolis Lamtzidis, president of the Bar of Thessalonique, reveals other explanations : the non-application of community service and more and more severe punishments…
A pan-hellenic protest movement was thus created, and now deals with the majority of the prisons in the national territory.
The strikers have demanded 45 points to be improved in the carceral system, and included in these demands are some simple basic hygiene rules : e.g. clean sanitory areas, nicer visiting rooms, and above all a 24 hour medical service with more respect given to the sick prisoners. They also demand the possibility of taking part in creative activities during the detention time, and the abolition of the prison sentence for minors and the creation of closed specialized centers for the prisoners of this age.
Finally the possibility for foreigner prisoners to purge their punishment in their country, to ease a little the situation in the full Greek prisons.
The newspaper Eleftherotypia then looks at the government’s reaction.
They used « threats and intimidation » towards the strikers, whereas in Makedonia one can read about free citizens demonstrations in support of the prisoners, and that even a concert is planned for the 10th November in Athens behind the protest.
It could sound very strange that those whom the Right has considered to be responsible for causing trouble and disorder in the society claim for their rights. « Not at all », is the answer of the writer Eleni Karasaviddou. « The idea that there is a superior Right higher than the human right, is an idea as old as our civilization », she refers to Antigone’s myth who opposed herself to king Kreon and decided to bury his dead criminal brother, even if the king had forbidden it. Therefore there is no wonder to see the same old story developed by Sophokles being discussed again in Greece.
Moreover the prison situation is related to a wider debate such as the increase in criminality : «Criminality depends on economic, social and emotional inequalities, and is related directly to social, family, and state structures », Eléni Karasaviddou adds in Makedonia. But, according to the article published in Ta Nea, « the scandalous situation of Greek prisons for such a long time not only doesn’t contribute to the prisoners correction, but instead leads us to the opposite result!»
That means that the more prisons conditions deteriorate, the more the criminality that prisons always create, will continue increasing.
Greek group says 4,000 inmates on hunger strike The Associated Press Published: November 11, 2008
ATHENS, Greece: Thousands of Greek prison inmates were staging a hunger strike to protest overcrowding and poor living conditions, a prison rights group said Tuesday.
Some 4,000 have been refusing all food but drinking liquids for a week, while another 4,000 were rejecting prison meals but accepting food from visiting friends and relatives, Prisoners' Rights Initiative said.
That would mean 8,000 inmates — or two-thirds of Greece's 12,200 prison population — were participating in the strike to some degree. The Justice Ministry, however, put the total number of participants at 6,500.
There was no immediate way of reconciling the differing tolls or independently confirming either of them.
The prisoners are demanding better living conditions, including improved health care and less time in pretrial detention — demands that have gained support from the local Amnesty International office, lawyers' associations and former political prisoners including composer Mikis Theodorakis, jailed during Greece's 1967-74 military dictatorship.
Justice Minister Sotiris Hatzigakis said he would meet members of the protest campaign group Wednesday.
"This is an uprising of desperate people," said protest organizer Panos Lambrou, who is not an inmate.
Greece's 24 prisons are designed to hold a total of 8,000 inmates, according to government figures, but Lambrou said they often fail to provide basic health and sanitation facilities and offer few job-training opportunities.
A government committee on prison policy offered the justice minister a list of recommendations Tuesday that it said could lead to the release of 1,500 inmates. The proposals include early release provisions for minor offenses, making more crimes punishable by fines instead of jail time and more lenient parole guidelines for drug abusers.
The hunger strike is only a novel form of protest in a longer mobilization about this. Here is the cycle of protest about it: (There is little way for me to verify any of the following list though I include it because I'm sure it contains some interesting facts:
Greece: More than 5.000 prisoners in hungerstrike Wednesday, November 12 2008 @ 10:35 AM CST Contributed by: Anonymous Views: 241
EuropeMore than 5.000 prisoners in hunger strike, another 6.500 boycotting prison meals.
From the first of November:
1/11: Lawyers association express their sympathy for the prisoners mobilizations.
2/11: Around 30 anarchists march to Volos prisons chanting and spray painting walls with slogans in solidarity to prisoners struggle. 3/11: Prison guards invade cells, harass prisoners and try to intimidate them in the face of the collective hunger strike. Riot police brigades deployed around many prisons.
3/11: Unannounced motorbike demo of dozens of anarchists to Korydallos (Athens) prisons where they chanted slogans in solidarity to prisoners struggle. 3/11: More than 8.000 prisoners boycotting prison meals. 4/11: Committee of the (left) parliament party SYN/SYRIZA meets with "minister of justice", to discuss on an institutional committee from all parliament parties on prisons. 4/11: Anarchists/Antiauthoritarians in solidarity to prisoners organize demonstration-microphonics at Kamara, Thessaloniki centre. 4/11: At the juvenile prison of Volos, prisoners threw their stuff out of the cells and denied leaving their cells to go to the prison yard. 4/11: "Conspiracy of Cells of Fire" claims responsibility for a three-day rampage against military/police targets and sends "signal of fire to the prisoners that started a prison food strike since Monday, November 3". 5/11: The president of the republic K. Papoulias speaks of the "major problem of prisons" with the typical humanitarian banalities. 5/11: Clubs of football fans such as PAOK-GATE4 and Panahaiki-NAVAJO expressed their support to the prisoners struggle. 5/11 Collective official form of complaints sent to the authorities undersigned by most of the prisoners at Diavata prison, outside Thessaloniki 6/11: Committe of the (leftist) "Initiative for prisoners rights" meets with "minister of justice" S. Hatzidakis, to negotiate on the prisoners issue. 6/11: Around 400 anarchists and revolutionaries ride with motorbikes and cars to Diavata prisons where they chanted slogans, torn down part of the barbed wire fencing and threw fireworks. The prisoners responded with slogans and howls. 6/11 Attack with fire at ruling party offices in Thessaloniki in solidarity to prisoners struggle, by the Cells of Aggresive Solidarity to Prisoners (more info at http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/) 7/11: Around 1000 prisoners on hunger strike. Less than 10 had to be transfered to hospital. 7/11: Solidarity microphonics gathering in the market area of Chania, Crete 7/11: 98fm self-managed radio station of Athens, transmits prisoners demands and solidarity speach ( http://www.radio98fm.org/home.html) 7/11: Prison guards try to intimidate prisoners in Ioannina and Diavata prisons, some transfers and night invasions in cells continue. 7/11: Solidarity demonstration in Serres 7/11 Solidarity demonstration in Lamia 7/11: Prisoners demands and solidarity speech, and interview with ex-con on 1431AM, student self-managed radio station ( http://www.1431am.org/) 7/11: 2 mainstream radio stations are occupied by anarchists transmitting prisoners demands and solidarity speech in Thessaloniki and Lamia 7/11: Attack with paints against the council of state in Athens in solidarity to prisoners (more info at http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/) 8/11: Solidarity demonstration in Volos (photos at http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=923248) 8/11: Student unions and NGO express their sympathy to the prisoners mobilizations. 9/11: Three kurdish prisoners in Trikala, mainland Greece, sew their mouths in hunger strike! Another 14 will do the same the following days! 9/11: Solidarity demonstration in Lamia, afterwards police stops and harasses the demonstrators but leaves them free without charges few hours later and after lawyers and friends arrived at the police station. 9/11: Arsonists set on fire 4 expensive cars in Exarchia, Athens centre and attack the offices of PASOK. Unknown person phoned to "Eleftherotipia" newspaper claiming "The arsons of luxurious cars Saturday night in Athens centre were in solidarity to the hundreds of prisoners in hunger strike, at the dungeons of the greek republic. The owners of luxurious cars should limit their rides at the northern suburbs and keep off the proletarian neighborhoods of the centre. Fire to the mansions and the cars of the riches". 9/11: 3.300 in hunger strike. In juvenile prisons the vast majority are on hunger strike. 10/11: 4.500 in hunger strike. 10/11: Delta Squat organizes a solidarity intervention, with a huge banner and leaflets at Thessaloniki centre (photos at http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=923026) 10/11: Prison guards leave warm cooked food near prisoners on hunger strike (to torture them), or in other prisons invade in cells of prisoners that weren't on hunger strike but boycott prison meals and take away some food cans, later photos of these are sent to fascist media provocating the prisoners struggle! [INTERESTING, perhaps the state wanted to delegitmate the whole movement by showing that some were still eating.] 10/11: Al. Giotopoulos and V. Tzortzatos imprisoned in Korydallos special cells for allegedly involved with "November 17" organization political prisoners, go on hunger strike in solidarity of common prisoners and denounce the role of "initiatives that speak in the name of the prisoners and get to speak with the minister of justice, covering him politically for his apathy, even if they are indeed in solidarity to them, the only one legitimate to speak of the prisoners are the prisoners themselves". They state that "the only way is the common prisoners to be the only ones taking part in these committees" and that "the reason there are no prisoner insurrections is the vast dispersion of drugs within the prisons". 10/11: The leftist "Initiative for prisoners rights" organizes a solidarity concert in Athens centre. A bank is set on fire in Athens centre. 11/11: Solidarity flyers appear around towns in north western Greece. 10/11: New democracy offices at Halandri, Athens, burnt with an improvised gas canister device. 10/11: Kyriakoula Lymnioudi, medical attendant at Chios prisons, publishes an article at a local newspaper describing the medieval conditions of the prison. 11/11: Solidarity demonstration in Thessaloniki centre 11/11: The State's council on prisons, in a special meeting suggest the discharge of 1.500 prisoners and satisfaction of some of the prisoners demands (smaller sentences, 3/5 for drug users, 12 months of pre-trial imprisonment instead of 18, 6 days off instead of 5 etc).
[State starts to bargain after 10 days, as the protest cycle gets larger, and MANY social movements outside the prison take to violent tactics.]
11/11: 18 ANO group for social rehabilitation of toxic addicts expresses solidarity with prisoners mobilizations. 11/11: Prisoners demands and solidarity speech, and interview with ex-con (replay) on 1431AM, student self-managed radio station ( http://www.1431am.org/) 11/11: Around 40 anarchists attack with bottles filled with red and black paint the new offices of PASOK (opposition party) and G. Voulgarakis (ex-minister) offices in Athens centre. Two undercover policemen threatened them with their guns, but were repelled with bottles and stones. On their way back, the anarchists broke down a National bank and a Eurobank branch, a bank's van, undercover police motorbikes and a fascist bookshop of Adonis Georgiadis (LAOS right wing party member), throwing flyers in solidarity to prisoners struggle, throughout their way. 11/11: Around 10 anarchists attack the building of the ministry of press with stones and molotovs in solidarity to prisoners struggle. 11/11: More than 5.000 prisoners in hungerstrike, another 6.500 boycotting prison meals. Struggle continues...
October: Diverse actions such as boycottage of prison meals around Greek prisons and especially in Crete, informal prisoners committees form a network of communication and coordination.
They spread a letter with prisoners demands and give a deadline of three weeks for the authorities to start working on them.
After these three weeks mobilizations will peak with a boycottage of prison food, starting on 3/11 and a collective hunger strike from 7/11.
In Greece, more than 13.000 individuals are imprisoned, 1/3 of them without any trial yet, in awful conditions leading to more than 50 inmates losing their lives only last year.
On 30/10 the leftist "Initiative for prisoners rights" went with motorbikes to Diavata prisons in Thessaloniki.
On 30/10 also, the anarchist prisoner (accused for participation in the kidnapping of northern Greece's industrialist president) Polikarpos Georgiadis publishes an open letter on the prisoners mobilizations, making clear his disagreement with the hunger strike as having a deleterious effect on prisoners forces, creating fighters of many levels, some going on in a self-sacrifice spirit, others eating regularly etc. though stating his commitment to the prisoners struggle, "same as when he was outside" (letter can be found at http://halastor.blogspot.com/2008/10/blog-post_30.html).
More http://325collective.com/prisons_greece-hunger08.html http://anarcores.blogspot.com/
3. Protest in Iceland is very emotional. We can see how deserted and indignant people are now. Protest is getting chronic and radical but still don't know where it is going to be. Economic collapse or recession is one of crucial political opportunities for collective behavior in history. When times like this that most countries in world are to be expected to have minus growth rate, what will happen?
---------------------- November 21, 2008 - 2:45PM
Karlheinz Bellmann went to Iceland to find out what had happened to his savings of 110,000 euros ($A216,674), missing since the collapse of the country's Kaupthing Bank.
Four days later, on his way back to Germany, the father of four had other matters on his mind: "What can one do to help the people here?"
Crying fathers who told him how they had lost their jobs, how their wives had experienced the same fate and how they had lost their homes left a strong impression, just as the cynical reactions among Icelandic bank executives at the bar in the Grand Hotel: "Of course we played Monopoly with the country," they told me. "And we had fun.
"Most of the time it went fine."
Finally, Kaupthing and the other major banks Landsbanki and Glitnir reached the end of the line and the 320,000 inhabitants of the Atlantic island faced national ruin.
Prime Minister Geir Haarde has estimated that the aggressive expansion of the banks has resulted in a $US19 billion ($A29.83 billion) mountain of debt. That equals two-and-a-half state budgets or twice the gross domestic product.
The collapse of the financial sector and large layoffs have since October resulted in complete standstill in the construction industry, the first sign of a long downturn. Massive hoarding of goods at supermarkets and an inflation rate of 16 per cent are clear indications of the dire prospects facing the ancestors of the Vikings.
In return for a $US2.1 billion ($A3.3 billion) loan the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has demanded that the currency, the krone, which has been weak for the past year be allowed to float freely. That would further reduce the currency's value and make imported products for ordinary consumers even more expensive. A kilo of imported sugar will become a luxury product.
The government has said that a 20 per cent inflation rate and an unemployment rate of over 10 per cent will now have to be reckoned with. Until October, Iceland's "normal" unemployment rate was 1 per cent.
"Sturdy men broke down in tears in front of me and said that the future for Iceland is like a black hole, and that one has to start back in the Stone Age," Bellmann said.
Islanders fear that Iceland's pension funds could be raided.
They are practically the only possibility of getting funds without further running-up foreign debts.
The anger expressed by ordinary citizens has been limited, so far.
More and more people gather each Saturday in front of the parliament in Reykjavik.
Some of the 6,000 protesters at a demonstration on Saturday threw rolls of toilet paper at the building where a few months earlier the premier had declared that the Icelandic banks were robust and the country's finances were healthy. Now Haarde's party has made an about turn concerning membership of the European Union.
Above all, there seems to be an mood of collective shock.
"You have the feeling that the whole country has lost its self-confidence," publicist Oskar Gudmundsson said.
Bellmann expressed it differently: "It seems like on the Titanic, where people continued to dance even though the ship had hit the iceberg."
Staff at Kaupthing in Reykjavik have assured Bellmann that he is likely get back his assets. --- http://news.theage.com.au/business/icelanders-in-shock-after-global-crisis-20081121-6do9.html
1. Graciëla Nooitgedagt 2. Media ignoring President
3. I feel that this short article sends a big message of framing. The media has so much influence on people and in this example you can see that this newspaper is trying to make the new election not an important or big changing event in America's history. The say that they rather just report local news, since everybody would know that if McCain would have won, this paper would have had this news in big letters on its front page.
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Protests outside newspaper that ignored Barack Obama's victory Readers have picketed the offices of a Texan newspaper after it ignored Barack Obama's election victory.
By Matthew Moore Last Updated: 11:29AM GMT 12 Nov 2008
The Terrell Tribune's Nov 5 front page led with the results of the race to become local county commissioner, with no mention that the US had just elected its first African-American president.
Readers hoping to buy a memento of the historic event were shocked to find that Mr Obama's triumph was not deemed newsworthy enough to merit a single mention in the entire paper.
Around 25 residents of Kaufman County near Dallas arranged a protest outside the newspaper's offices the next day to register their anger.
"They could have knocked me over with a feather," Sarah Whitaker told WFAA television station.
"I was flabbergasted. I couldn't imagine such an historical event would not be on the front page somewhere on The Terrell Tribune."
Another protester, Lera Duncan, said that it was "very disappointing" that she had been denied a memento of Mr Obama's election.
The Terrell Tribune tends to stick to local stories, but it had devoted its election day front page to news of John McCain's last campaign stops. Most local newspapers in the US covered Mr Obama's win alongside local political results on their front pages.
The publisher of the 6,000-circulation newspaper insisted it had made the right decision. "We run a newspaper, not a memory book service," Bill Jordan said. "We covered the local commissioner's race. We thought that was more important."
Readers of the Sapulpa Daily Herald in Oklahoma also staged protests after the paper ignored Mr Obama's victory on its front page.
3. This article is about the protests in Thailand againt their present government, PPP. I've already heard through the news that the president of Thai ousted and fled before and returned before. But I didn't know that people have protested still now for ousting present prime minister. They've already ousted previous prime ministrer without blood, then they made some acheivement, I think. So actually I don't understand why they still protest now. It doesn't seem that there's no problem with present's prime minister except he is brother-in-law of the president. Also, even I guess the PAD which is leading this protest is probably another party of the government, so I carefully wonder if the common people are used for PAD's benefit or something. Well, actually I don't really know the real condition of the Thailand now, so that's why I can't say anything confidently. Maybe the present government of Thai is look like the present government of Korea, in this case I could understand protesters in Thai.
----------------------------
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- Thousands of anti-government protesters marched on Thailand's Parliament Monday morning, causing lawmakers to postpone their session fearing violence, said House speaker Chai Chidchob.
Thousands of protesters march to Parliament in Bangkok on Monday.
Protesters, led by the People's Alliance for Democracy, also surrounded Bangkok's police headquarters and the finance ministry building.
The demonstrators brought their own guards who were armed with clubs and long wooden poles in anticipation of clashes with police and pro-government supporters.
The anti-government alliance accuses the current administration -- led by the People Power Party (PPP) -- of being a proxy government for one-time Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The protesters want the resignation of the current prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat, who is Thaksin's brother-in-law.
Thaksin was ousted in a bloodless coup in 2006, but he returned to Thailand after the PPP swept into power in December 2007.
Then, in August, he fled again just as he was to appear in a corruption case against him.
The protesters want Thaksin extradited and tried on those charges.
It also accuses the PPP government of wanting to amend the constitution so Thaksin does not have to face charges.
The protesters have held almost-daily demonstrations since May. They seized the Government House in late August, fortifying it with sandbags, tires and shells of burned-out buses.
In September, the protesters accomplished one of their goals when Thailand's Constitutional Court stripped Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of his position, ruling that he had violated the constitution by appearing as a paid guest on a television cooking show.
The PAD had been demanding Samak's ouster.
But the PPP responded by picking Thaksin's brother-in-law as Samak's replacement -- further inflaming the protesters who have continued their campaign.
The last time protesters marched on Parliament, police efforts to disperse them resulted in running street battles, The Associated Press reported. Two people were killed and hundreds injured in the October 7 violence.
A very down to earth* kind of guy. I'm an environmental sociologist interested in establishing material and organizational sustainability worldwide. I'm always looking for interesting materials/technologies, inspiring ideas, or institutional examples of sustainability to inspire others to recognize their choices now. To be fatalistic about an unsustainable world is a sign of a captive mind, given all our options.
*(If "earth" is defined in a planetary sense, concerning comparative historical knowledge and interest in the past 10,000 years or so anywhere...) See both blogs.
4 comments:
1. Mark Whitaker
2. Widely Supported (Nationally and Internationally) Greece Social Movement Protest Leads to Release of Half of Greece's Prison Population that was Overcrowded and without Medical Care: over 50 prisoners died in the past year in Greek prisons due to lack of sanitation, medical care, uncontrolled fire, etc.
3. This seems like a very successful threat of action: an 18 day hunger strike of the Greece prison population. It was well thought out with three weeks to communicate demands, after which the hunger strike would start. The hunger strike kept expanding inside the prison seemingly in response to widespread social movement support from outside the prison until around 2/3 of all Greek prisoners were under hunger strike of some form. State/movement interaction is seen as well. State started to make deals after 11 days and after 11 days announced its pending legislation, still to be passed. The Hunger srike was called off after that, though the threat is that it will continue if wider medical and juvenile prison demands are unmet.
Prison reform based social movements, against overcrowding and lack of services, it seems to me, are very rare because of the deafness of the state to this population demographic? Important allies internationally were Amnesty International, a laywers group, EU 'law' discrepancies, as well as (quite typical) massive violence in the Greek streets and against Government buildings (paints and fire attacks) against the government from anarchists supporting the prison hunger strike.
Greek prisoners still have a political voice to adjust their country's direction--though it was a larger and wider mobilization than only this particular issue. The hunger strike made lots of international media as well.
Without many actions in their lives, it seems they were able to coordinate rejecting food as one of their only political acts.
Other groups refused to be released out of their cells for the daily walk in the prison yard.
Moreover, European Union ideas were political opportunities. The political opportunity and frame was their ability to show a WIDE difference of treatment in Greek versus European Union forms of legislation about prisoner treatment.
Still, this mobilization got only half of what they wanted from their communication below.
Though about half of the prison sentences will be monetarized into fines, the Greek government plans to build three more prisons over the coming years to solve overcrowding.
---------------------
newswire article reporting global 22.Nov.2008 07:32
actions & protests
Hunger strike ends as Greek government caves
author: Libcom.org
Nov. 20, 2008
After 18 days 7,000 prisoners in Greece stop their hunger strike after the ministry of justice concedes to a series of their demands, promising to release half the country's prison population by April 2009.
On Thursday the 20th of November more than 7,000 hunger strikers in greek prisons demanding a comprehensive 45-point program of prison reform have decided to stop
their hunger strike, already on its 18th day, after the Ministry of Justice responded to their struggle and to the widening solidarity movement which in the last weeks has held several mass protest marches in the greek cities by declaring that by next April the number of prisoners in greek jails will be reduced to 6.815 from the present 12.315, thus effectively releasing half of the country's prison population.
The Ministry's declaration in detail states that:
1) All persons convicted to a sentence up to five years for any
offense including drug related crimes can transform their sentence into a monetary penalty. This will not be allowed in the case the jury
decides that the payment is not enough to deter the convict from
committing punishable acts in the future.
2) The minimum sum for transforming one day of prison sentence to
monetary penalty is reduced from 10 euros to 3, with the provision of
being reduced to 1 euro by decision of the jury.
3) All people who have served 1/5 of their prison sentence for 2
year sentences and 1/3 for sentences longer than 2 years are to be released, with no exceptions.
4) The minimum limit of served sentence is reduced to 3/5 for
conditional release and for convicts for drug related crimes. Those condemned under conditions of law ?. 3459/2006 (articles 23 ??? 23?) are exempted.
5) The maximum limit of pre-trial imprisonment is reduced from 18 to
12 months, with the exemption of crimes punished by life or 20 year
sentence.
6) The annual time of days-off prison is increased by one day.
Tougher conditions for days-off are limited for those convicted for
drug related crimes under 3459/2006.
7) Disciplinary penalties are to be integrated.
8) Integration after 4 years into national law of the European Council decision of drug trafficking (2004/757).
9) Expansion of implementation of conditional release of convicts
suffering from AIDS, kidney failure, persistent TB, and tetraplegics.
What the Ministry failed to answer with regard to the prisoners' demands include:
1) Monetary exchange of prison sentences longer than 5 years,
especially for 6.700 prisoners presently convicted for non-criminal offenses.
2) Abolition of juvenile prisons
3) Abolition of accumulative disciplinary penalties
4) Abolition of 18 months pre-trial imprisonment for a large number of offenses.
5) Satisfactory expansion of days off, despite the fact that the
application of present liberties has been tested as successful during the last 18 years.
6) Immediate improvement of relocation conditions of convicts
7) Holding a meeting between the minister of justice and the prisoners' committee
Thus in a press release, the Prisoners' Committee announced that:
"The amendment submitted to the Parliament by the Ministry of
Justice tackles but a few of our demands. The minister ought to
materialize his promises for the immediate release of the suggested
number of prisoners announced, and at the same time implement concrete
measures regarding the totality of our demands. We the prisoners treat
this amendment as a first step, a result of our struggle and of the
solidarity shown by society. Yet it fails to covers us, it fails to
solve our problems. With our struggle, we have first of all fought for our dignity. And this dignity we cannot offer as a present to no minister, to no screw. We shall tolerate no arbitrary acts, no vengeful
relocation, no terrorizing disciplinary act. We are standing and we shall stay standing. We demand form the Parliament to move towards a complete abolition of the limit of 4/5 of served sentence, the abolition of accumulated time for disciplinary penalties, and the
expansion of beneficial arrangements regarding days-off, and conditional releases for all categories of prisoners. Moreover, we demand the immediate legislation on the presently vague promises of the minister of justice regarding the improvement of prison conditions (abolition of juvenile prisons, foundation of therapeutic centers for drug dependents, implementation of social labour in exchange for prison sentence, upgrading of hospital care of prisoners, incorporation of
European legislation favorable to the prisoners in the Greek law etc.).
Finally, we offer our thanks to the solidarity movement, to every
component, party, medium, and militant who stood by us with all and any means of his or her choice, and we declare that our struggle against these human refuse dumps and for the victory of all our demands continues".
Prisoners' Committee 20/11/08.
---
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/11/382748.shtml
2.
Greek prisons end hunger strike
21/11/2008 16:05 - (SA)
Want to know more?
Answerit can help.
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# Prisoners sew mouths shut
# Greek inmates on hunger strike
Athens - Prisoners in Greece have ended a two-week hunger strike called to protest chronic overcrowding after the government took steps to meet their complaints, the justice ministry said on Friday.
"The strike has ended, the prisoners are taking meals again," ministry spokesperson Haris Nikolakakis told AFP.
The ministry on Thursday submitted draft legislation to parliament which it said would enable 5 500 prisoners to be freed by April 2009.
The legislation reforms the system of reduction of sentences and reduces the maximum length of preventive detention.
Long-term proposals include alternative sentences for drug addicts.
A committee of inmates at Korydallos prison, one of Greece's largest, a few hours later said the hunger strike would end in response to the measures which they said were "a first step" to meeting their demands.
"The inmates view this legislation as a first step ... which does not solve our basic problems," the inmates said in a statement.
"We expect the justice minister's announcements on improving prison conditions ... to become law within the next three months," they said.
The protest originally began on November 3 with thousands of inmates rejecting scheduled prison meals. It turned into a full-blown hunger strike on November 7 with the prisoners refusing all food.
The protest spread to 21 out of 24 prisons in Greece, the largest of its kind ever held in the country according to its organisers.
Earlier this week the Initiative for Prisoner Rights, a support group which helped organise the protest, said 8 000 prisoners were participating in the protest, including 5 500 who refused all food.
Justice ministry figures show that Greek prisons held more than 11 600 inmates in July this year, against an official capacity of 7 543. Prisoners themselves say the actual number is around 14 000.
The government has pledged to open three new prisons in 2009.
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2430555,00.html
3.
ATHENS, Greece: Prisoners said Thursday they will end their 18-day hunger strike against overcrowding in Greek lockups after the government proposed releasing thousands of inmates next year.
A group representing the prisoners said strikers will start accepting food Friday.
The decision came after the Justice Ministry unveiled draft legislation allowing the early release of 5,500 prisoners by April 2009, to relieve severe overcrowding.
The country's total prison population is around 12,300 in penitentiaries designed to hold 8,243.
Justice Minister Sotiris Hadjigakis said most will be released through a review of parole rules for convicts serving up to five years, and a reduction in the maximum pretrial detention period.
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"This will end the unpleasant situation in some prisons where you had inmates serving lighter sentences sharing cells with people convicted of severe crimes," he said.
According to the Prisoners' Rights Initiative, participation in the 18-day hunger strike exceeded 5,800 by Thursday, while another 2,200 inmates were refusing prison meals but receiving food from visitors.
Hadjigakis said the draft legislation would not include drug smugglers and people convicted of "gruesome" crimes.
He said the bill would be presented Parliament on Thursday night. The governing conservatives hold 151 of the 300 seats in the legislature.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/20/europe/EU-Greece-Prison-Protest.php
4.
Prisonners in hunger strike
By Loreleï on Friday, November 21 2008, 15:53 - Society - Permalink
On Monday the 3rd of November a large hunger strike kicked off with more than 5,000 prisoners in every Greek prison participating. The reason for this massive action is that the prisoners want to protest against their detention conditions.
Even prison officers questioned by a journalist of the Makedonia newspaper, said these medieval conditions were nothing but archaic : 11 to 12 prisoners in each cell normally for 5 people, a roll of toilet paper for each prisoner a month, the sanitary areas seldom cleaned, not even a dustbin in the outside courtyard. The prisons are so dirty that diseases develop more easily. Ta Nea newspaper reminds us that 52 prisoners died in prisons in 2007 (none of these related to oldness…), and 4 burned to death in 2006 in the Korydallou prison because of prison officers’ negligence.
This description is not only expressed by some humanist observers, but also by international agencies such as the UN or the European Committee for the prevention of torture that compared Greek prisons with Guantanamo regarding the life quality of the prisoners (article in Makedonia).
ancienne prison à Thessalonique
Why have detention conditions so badly deteriorated in Greece ? The answer is very simple, according to the articles I have read : in 1990, there were 3500 prisoners in Greece, they are now in 2008 14,000, and only a few new structures were constructed to accomodate this population change. Among the prisoners, half are foreigner, and 2 out of 3 are condemned for drug traffic affairs.
But Manolis Lamtzidis, president of the Bar of Thessalonique, reveals other explanations : the non-application of community service and more and more severe punishments…
A pan-hellenic protest movement was thus created, and now deals with the majority of the prisons in the national territory.
The strikers have demanded 45 points to be improved in the carceral system, and included in these demands are some simple basic hygiene rules : e.g. clean sanitory areas, nicer visiting rooms, and above all a 24 hour medical service with more respect given to the sick prisoners. They also demand the possibility of taking part in creative activities during the detention time, and the abolition of the prison sentence for minors and the creation of closed specialized centers for the prisoners of this age.
Finally the possibility for foreigner prisoners to purge their punishment in their country, to ease a little the situation in the full Greek prisons.
The newspaper Eleftherotypia then looks at the government’s reaction.
They used « threats and intimidation » towards the strikers, whereas in Makedonia one can read about free citizens demonstrations in support of the prisoners, and that even a concert is planned for the 10th November in Athens behind the protest.
It could sound very strange that those whom the Right has considered to be responsible for causing trouble and disorder in the society claim for their rights. « Not at all », is the answer of the writer Eleni Karasaviddou. « The idea that there is a superior Right higher than the human right, is an idea as old as our civilization », she refers to Antigone’s myth who opposed herself to king Kreon and decided to bury his dead criminal brother, even if the king had forbidden it. Therefore there is no wonder to see the same old story developed by Sophokles being discussed again in Greece.
Moreover the prison situation is related to a wider debate such as the increase in criminality : «Criminality depends on economic, social and emotional inequalities, and is related directly to social, family, and state structures », Eléni Karasaviddou adds in Makedonia. But, according to the article published in Ta Nea, « the scandalous situation of Greek prisons for such a long time not only doesn’t contribute to the prisoners correction, but instead leads us to the opposite result!»
That means that the more prisons conditions deteriorate, the more the criminality that prisons always create, will continue increasing.
http://pressealagrecque.cafebabel.com/en/post/2008/11/21/Prisonners-in-hunger-strike
5.
Greek group says 4,000 inmates on hunger strike
The Associated Press
Published: November 11, 2008
ATHENS, Greece: Thousands of Greek prison inmates were staging a hunger strike to protest overcrowding and poor living conditions, a prison rights group said Tuesday.
Some 4,000 have been refusing all food but drinking liquids for a week, while another 4,000 were rejecting prison meals but accepting food from visiting friends and relatives, Prisoners' Rights Initiative said.
That would mean 8,000 inmates — or two-thirds of Greece's 12,200 prison population — were participating in the strike to some degree. The Justice Ministry, however, put the total number of participants at 6,500.
There was no immediate way of reconciling the differing tolls or independently confirming either of them.
The prisoners are demanding better living conditions, including improved health care and less time in pretrial detention — demands that have gained support from the local Amnesty International office, lawyers' associations and former political prisoners including composer Mikis Theodorakis, jailed during Greece's 1967-74 military dictatorship.
Justice Minister Sotiris Hatzigakis said he would meet members of the protest campaign group Wednesday.
"This is an uprising of desperate people," said protest organizer Panos Lambrou, who is not an inmate.
Greece's 24 prisons are designed to hold a total of 8,000 inmates, according to government figures, but Lambrou said they often fail to provide basic health and sanitation facilities and offer few job-training opportunities.
A government committee on prison policy offered the justice minister a list of recommendations Tuesday that it said could lead to the release of 1,500 inmates. The proposals include early release provisions for minor offenses, making more crimes punishable by fines instead of jail time and more lenient parole guidelines for drug abusers.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/11/europe/EU-Greece-Prison-Protest.php
The hunger strike is only a novel form of protest in a longer mobilization about this. Here is the cycle of protest about it: (There is little way for me to verify any of the following list though I include it because I'm sure it contains some interesting facts:
Greece: More than 5.000 prisoners in hungerstrike
Wednesday, November 12 2008 @ 10:35 AM CST
Contributed by: Anonymous
Views: 241
EuropeMore than 5.000 prisoners in hunger strike, another 6.500 boycotting prison meals.
From the first of November:
1/11: Lawyers association express their sympathy for the prisoners mobilizations.
2/11: Around 30 anarchists march to Volos prisons chanting and spray painting walls with slogans in solidarity to prisoners struggle.
3/11: Prison guards invade cells, harass prisoners and try to intimidate them in the face of the collective hunger strike. Riot police brigades deployed around many prisons.
3/11: Unannounced motorbike demo of dozens of anarchists to Korydallos (Athens) prisons where they chanted slogans in solidarity to prisoners struggle.
3/11: More than 8.000 prisoners boycotting prison meals.
4/11: Committee of the (left) parliament party SYN/SYRIZA meets with "minister of justice", to discuss on an institutional committee from all parliament parties on prisons.
4/11: Anarchists/Antiauthoritarians in solidarity to prisoners organize demonstration-microphonics at Kamara, Thessaloniki centre.
4/11: At the juvenile prison of Volos, prisoners threw their stuff out of the cells and denied leaving their cells to go to the prison yard.
4/11: "Conspiracy of Cells of Fire" claims responsibility for a three-day rampage against military/police targets and sends "signal of fire to the prisoners that started a prison food strike since Monday, November 3".
5/11: The president of the republic K. Papoulias speaks of the "major problem of prisons" with the typical humanitarian banalities.
5/11: Clubs of football fans such as PAOK-GATE4 and Panahaiki-NAVAJO expressed their support to the prisoners struggle.
5/11 Collective official form of complaints sent to the authorities undersigned by most of the prisoners at Diavata prison, outside Thessaloniki
6/11: Committe of the (leftist) "Initiative for prisoners rights" meets with "minister of justice" S. Hatzidakis, to negotiate on the prisoners issue.
6/11: Around 400 anarchists and revolutionaries ride with motorbikes and cars to Diavata prisons where they chanted slogans, torn down part of the barbed wire fencing and threw fireworks. The prisoners responded with slogans and howls.
6/11 Attack with fire at ruling party offices in Thessaloniki in solidarity to prisoners struggle, by the Cells of Aggresive Solidarity to Prisoners (more info at http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/)
7/11: Around 1000 prisoners on hunger strike. Less than 10 had to be transfered to hospital.
7/11: Solidarity microphonics gathering in the market area of Chania, Crete
7/11: 98fm self-managed radio station of Athens, transmits prisoners demands and solidarity speach ( http://www.radio98fm.org/home.html)
7/11: Prison guards try to intimidate prisoners in Ioannina and Diavata prisons, some transfers and night invasions in cells continue.
7/11: Solidarity demonstration in Serres
7/11 Solidarity demonstration in Lamia
7/11: Prisoners demands and solidarity speech, and interview with ex-con on 1431AM, student self-managed radio station ( http://www.1431am.org/)
7/11: 2 mainstream radio stations are occupied by anarchists transmitting prisoners demands and solidarity speech in Thessaloniki and Lamia
7/11: Attack with paints against the council of state in Athens in solidarity to prisoners (more info at http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/)
8/11: Solidarity demonstration in Volos (photos at http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=923248)
8/11: Student unions and NGO express their sympathy to the prisoners mobilizations.
9/11: Three kurdish prisoners in Trikala, mainland Greece, sew their mouths in hunger strike! Another 14 will do the same the following days!
9/11: Solidarity demonstration in Lamia, afterwards police stops and harasses the demonstrators but leaves them free without charges few hours later and after lawyers and friends arrived at the police station.
9/11: Arsonists set on fire 4 expensive cars in Exarchia, Athens centre and attack the offices of PASOK. Unknown person phoned to "Eleftherotipia" newspaper claiming "The arsons of luxurious cars Saturday night in Athens centre were in solidarity to the hundreds of prisoners in hunger strike, at the dungeons of the greek republic. The owners of luxurious cars should limit their rides at the northern suburbs and keep off the proletarian neighborhoods of the centre. Fire to the mansions and the cars of the riches".
9/11: 3.300 in hunger strike. In juvenile prisons the vast majority are on hunger strike.
10/11: 4.500 in hunger strike.
10/11: Delta Squat organizes a solidarity intervention, with a huge banner and leaflets at Thessaloniki centre (photos at http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=923026)
10/11: Prison guards leave warm cooked food near prisoners on hunger strike (to torture them), or in other prisons invade in cells of prisoners that weren't on hunger strike but boycott prison meals and take away some food cans, later photos of these are sent to fascist media provocating the prisoners struggle!
[INTERESTING, perhaps the state wanted to delegitmate the whole movement by showing that some were still eating.]
10/11: Al. Giotopoulos and V. Tzortzatos imprisoned in Korydallos special cells for allegedly involved with "November 17" organization political prisoners, go on hunger strike in solidarity of common prisoners and denounce the role of "initiatives that speak in the name of the prisoners and get to speak with the minister of justice, covering him politically for his apathy, even if they are indeed in solidarity to them, the only one legitimate to speak of the prisoners are the prisoners themselves". They state that "the only way is the common prisoners to be the only ones taking part in these committees" and that "the reason there are no prisoner insurrections is the vast dispersion of drugs within the prisons".
10/11: The leftist "Initiative for prisoners rights" organizes a solidarity concert in Athens centre. A bank is set on fire in Athens centre.
11/11: Solidarity flyers appear around towns in north western Greece.
10/11: New democracy offices at Halandri, Athens, burnt with an improvised gas canister device.
10/11: Kyriakoula Lymnioudi, medical attendant at Chios prisons, publishes an article at a local newspaper describing the medieval conditions of the prison.
11/11: Solidarity demonstration in Thessaloniki centre
11/11: The State's council on prisons, in a special meeting suggest the discharge of 1.500 prisoners and satisfaction of some of the prisoners demands (smaller sentences, 3/5 for drug users, 12 months of pre-trial imprisonment instead of 18, 6 days off instead of 5 etc).
[State starts to bargain after 10 days, as the protest cycle gets larger, and MANY social movements outside the prison take to violent tactics.]
11/11: 18 ANO group for social rehabilitation of toxic addicts expresses solidarity with prisoners mobilizations.
11/11: Prisoners demands and solidarity speech, and interview with ex-con (replay) on 1431AM, student self-managed radio station ( http://www.1431am.org/)
11/11: Around 40 anarchists attack with bottles filled with red and black paint the new offices of PASOK (opposition party) and G. Voulgarakis (ex-minister) offices in Athens centre. Two undercover policemen threatened them with their guns, but were repelled with bottles and stones. On their way back, the anarchists broke down a National bank and a Eurobank branch, a bank's van, undercover police motorbikes and a fascist bookshop of Adonis Georgiadis (LAOS right wing party member), throwing flyers in solidarity to prisoners struggle, throughout their way.
11/11: Around 10 anarchists attack the building of the ministry of press with stones and molotovs in solidarity to prisoners struggle.
11/11: More than 5.000 prisoners in hungerstrike, another 6.500 boycotting prison meals.
Struggle continues...
October: Diverse actions such as boycottage of prison meals around Greek prisons and especially in Crete, informal prisoners committees form a network of communication and coordination.
They spread a letter with prisoners demands and give a deadline of three weeks for the authorities to start working on them.
After these three weeks mobilizations will peak with a boycottage of prison food, starting on 3/11 and a collective hunger strike from 7/11.
In Greece, more than 13.000 individuals are imprisoned, 1/3 of them without any trial yet, in awful conditions leading to more than 50 inmates losing their lives only last year.
On 30/10 the leftist "Initiative for prisoners rights" went with motorbikes to Diavata prisons in Thessaloniki.
On 30/10 also, the anarchist prisoner (accused for participation in the kidnapping of northern Greece's industrialist president) Polikarpos Georgiadis publishes an open letter on the prisoners mobilizations, making clear his disagreement with the hunger strike as having a deleterious effect on prisoners forces, creating fighters of many levels, some going on in a self-sacrifice spirit, others eating regularly etc. though stating his commitment to the prisoners struggle, "same as when he was outside" (letter can be found at http://halastor.blogspot.com/2008/10/blog-post_30.html).
More
http://325collective.com/prisons_greece-hunger08.html
http://anarcores.blogspot.com/
---
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20081112103521878
1.Kyung-hee, Kang
2.Icelanders in shock after global crisis
3.
Protest in Iceland is very emotional. We can see how deserted and indignant people are now. Protest is getting chronic and radical but still don't know where it is going to be.
Economic collapse or recession is one of crucial political opportunities for collective behavior in history. When times like this that most countries in world are to be expected to have minus growth rate, what will happen?
----------------------
November 21, 2008 - 2:45PM
Karlheinz Bellmann went to Iceland to find out what had happened to his savings of 110,000 euros ($A216,674), missing since the collapse of the country's Kaupthing Bank.
Four days later, on his way back to Germany, the father of four had other matters on his mind: "What can one do to help the people here?"
Crying fathers who told him how they had lost their jobs, how their wives had experienced the same fate and how they had lost their homes left a strong impression, just as the cynical reactions among Icelandic bank executives at the bar in the Grand Hotel: "Of course we played Monopoly with the country," they told me. "And we had fun.
"Most of the time it went fine."
Finally, Kaupthing and the other major banks Landsbanki and Glitnir reached the end of the line and the 320,000 inhabitants of the Atlantic island faced national ruin.
Prime Minister Geir Haarde has estimated that the aggressive expansion of the banks has resulted in a $US19 billion ($A29.83 billion) mountain of debt. That equals two-and-a-half state budgets or twice the gross domestic product.
The collapse of the financial sector and large layoffs have since October resulted in complete standstill in the construction industry, the first sign of a long downturn. Massive hoarding of goods at supermarkets and an inflation rate of 16 per cent are clear indications of the dire prospects facing the ancestors of the Vikings.
In return for a $US2.1 billion ($A3.3 billion) loan the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has demanded that the currency, the krone, which has been weak for the past year be allowed to float freely. That would further reduce the currency's value and make imported products for ordinary consumers even more expensive. A kilo of imported sugar will become a luxury product.
The government has said that a 20 per cent inflation rate and an unemployment rate of over 10 per cent will now have to be reckoned with. Until October, Iceland's "normal" unemployment rate was 1 per cent.
"Sturdy men broke down in tears in front of me and said that the future for Iceland is like a black hole, and that one has to start back in the Stone Age," Bellmann said.
Islanders fear that Iceland's pension funds could be raided.
They are practically the only possibility of getting funds without further running-up foreign debts.
The anger expressed by ordinary citizens has been limited, so far.
More and more people gather each Saturday in front of the parliament in Reykjavik.
Some of the 6,000 protesters at a demonstration on Saturday threw rolls of toilet paper at the building where a few months earlier the premier had declared that the Icelandic banks were robust and the country's finances were healthy. Now Haarde's party has made an about turn concerning membership of the European Union.
Above all, there seems to be an mood of collective shock.
"You have the feeling that the whole country has lost its self-confidence," publicist Oskar Gudmundsson said.
Bellmann expressed it differently: "It seems like on the Titanic, where people continued to dance even though the ship had hit the iceberg."
Staff at Kaupthing in Reykjavik have assured Bellmann that he is likely get back his assets.
---
http://news.theage.com.au/business/icelanders-in-shock-after-global-crisis-20081121-6do9.html
1. Graciëla Nooitgedagt
2. Media ignoring President
3. I feel that this short article sends a big message of framing. The media has so much influence on people and in this example you can see that this newspaper is trying to make the new election not an important or big changing event in America's history. The say that they rather just report local news, since everybody would know that if McCain would have won, this paper would have had this news in big letters on its front page.
-----------------------------
Protests outside newspaper that ignored Barack Obama's victory
Readers have picketed the offices of a Texan newspaper after it ignored Barack Obama's election victory.
By Matthew Moore
Last Updated: 11:29AM GMT 12 Nov 2008
The Terrell Tribune's Nov 5 front page led with the results of the race to become local county commissioner, with no mention that the US had just elected its first African-American president.
Readers hoping to buy a memento of the historic event were shocked to find that Mr Obama's triumph was not deemed newsworthy enough to merit a single mention in the entire paper.
Around 25 residents of Kaufman County near Dallas arranged a protest outside the newspaper's offices the next day to register their anger.
"They could have knocked me over with a feather," Sarah Whitaker told WFAA television station.
"I was flabbergasted. I couldn't imagine such an historical event would not be on the front page somewhere on The Terrell Tribune."
Another protester, Lera Duncan, said that it was "very disappointing" that she had been denied a memento of Mr Obama's election.
The Terrell Tribune tends to stick to local stories, but it had devoted its election day front page to news of John McCain's last campaign stops. Most local newspapers in the US covered Mr Obama's win alongside local political results on their front pages.
The publisher of the 6,000-circulation newspaper insisted it had made the right decision. "We run a newspaper, not a memory book service," Bill Jordan said. "We covered the local commissioner's race. We thought that was more important."
Readers of the Sapulpa Daily Herald in Oklahoma also staged protests after the paper ignored Mr Obama's victory on its front page.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/3445475/Protests-outside-newspaper-that-ignored-Barack-Obamas-victory.html
1. So youn Kim
2. Protests cancel Thai parliament session
3. This article is about the protests in Thailand againt their present government, PPP. I've already heard through the news that the president of Thai ousted and fled before and returned before. But I didn't know that people have protested still now for ousting present prime minister. They've already ousted previous prime ministrer without blood, then they made some acheivement, I think. So actually I don't understand why they still protest now. It doesn't seem that there's no problem with present's prime minister except he is brother-in-law of the president. Also, even I guess the PAD which is leading this protest is probably another party of the government, so I carefully wonder if the common people are used for PAD's benefit or something. Well, actually I don't really know the real condition of the Thailand now, so that's why I can't say anything confidently. Maybe the present government of Thai is look like the present government of Korea, in this case I could understand protesters in Thai.
----------------------------
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- Thousands of anti-government protesters marched on Thailand's Parliament Monday morning, causing lawmakers to postpone their session fearing violence, said House speaker Chai Chidchob.
Thousands of protesters march to Parliament in Bangkok on Monday.
Protesters, led by the People's Alliance for Democracy, also surrounded Bangkok's police headquarters and the finance ministry building.
The demonstrators brought their own guards who were armed with clubs and long wooden poles in anticipation of clashes with police and pro-government supporters.
The anti-government alliance accuses the current administration -- led by the People Power Party (PPP) -- of being a proxy government for one-time Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The protesters want the resignation of the current prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat, who is Thaksin's brother-in-law.
Thaksin was ousted in a bloodless coup in 2006, but he returned to Thailand after the PPP swept into power in December 2007.
Then, in August, he fled again just as he was to appear in a corruption case against him.
The protesters want Thaksin extradited and tried on those charges.
It also accuses the PPP government of wanting to amend the constitution so Thaksin does not have to face charges.
The protesters have held almost-daily demonstrations since May. They seized the Government House in late August, fortifying it with sandbags, tires and shells of burned-out buses.
In September, the protesters accomplished one of their goals when Thailand's Constitutional Court stripped Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej of his position, ruling that he had violated the constitution by appearing as a paid guest on a television cooking show.
The PAD had been demanding Samak's ouster.
But the PPP responded by picking Thaksin's brother-in-law as Samak's replacement -- further inflaming the protesters who have continued their campaign.
The last time protesters marched on Parliament, police efforts to disperse them resulted in running street battles, The Associated Press reported. Two people were killed and hundreds injured in the October 7 violence.
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http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/24/thailand.unrest/index.html
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