“Hallucination, intimidation and controlâ€

There can be many and varied explanations for the repressive blow of December 16th, just as the general and specific causes that intertwined to create a delirious net of power leading to the arrest of our friends and comrades are many.

Perhaps one of the general causes could be the introduction of the Law on Citizens Security, known as the ‘Gag law’; this, along with the exacerbation of the penal code, which has re-introduced life sentences, creates a pattern whereby the control exercised by power is more efficient and strengthened by constant paranoia. Sentences for attacks on authorities, public disorder and disobedience have been exacerbated; at the same time social protests like those of 15M [blockade of parliament] and of PAH (a group against housing taxes) are being punished. Progressives and social-democrats say that the State is ‘leaving less space for freedom’ and that ‘the struggle for rights is being criminalized’. As you can see, the turn of the screw by the repressive-judicial apparatus is striking citizens, that is to say those who struggle for more and better laws, more and better democracy, for more participation in the management of misery. Freedom and law is inconsistent with one another. As anarchists we are aware that the more rights are granted the stronger the State becomes and as a consequence our submission grows. Not because it will cease to be such with a subtle, more democratic oppression, but quite the opposite it becomes more natural and firm in its being invisible.

Therefore we are totally opposed to the category of citizens, and we try tirelessly and obstinately to be free individuals, not at all ready to beg for more links to be added to our chains. The struggle for civil rights is not ours. It is therefore likely that through the exacerbation of the mechanisms of control, power wants to strike the anarchists and threaten them with the consequences that will fall on those who take a stand against it. Nothing new. On many occasions power has ‘had recourse’ towards anarchists to experiment with legal adjustments and changes in order to become stronger.

The undeniable increase, in both quantity and intensity, of street fighting in Barcelona in the last year could be another reason for our friends’ arrests. The fact that demonstrations are no longer feared is a clear and remarkable fact, which also implies the refusal to practice the civil values of the citizens’ behaviour. For an instant youths take back control of their lives and break off with established rules, and this is the instant that power tries to prevent it from spreading and extending with its classic strategy; repression and prison for those who claim Total Liberation explicitly and publicly.

F.I.E.S. in prison and in the street

Besides the causes deriving from the general context of control, in particular with the creation of the Law on Citizen Security and the exacerbation of the penal code, we see the tactics of repression used by various nation-states against anarchist milieux, tactics that translate into massive arrests based on vague accusations of terrorism. Marini, Cervantes, Caso Bombas, Ardire and the latest Operation Pandora are all examples of strategy rather than persecution for specific deeds, a strategy that strikes anarchist places and tries to control anarchism in general.

Particular security measures in prison as well as surveillance and phone tapping outside. Control is constant and aims at spreading to more varied milieux with the use of more refined technology. Power is not interested in establishing if those arrested are responsible for the actions (which are also quite enigmatic in this case) they are accused of, this is not in power’s interest, as proved by the lack of clarity in the accusations. Power is trying to exercise direct control so as to come to a situation of inaction and paralysis.

While repressive blows justify investigations and therefore control of a large part of the anarchist movement and also some leftist sectors, the application of penal law defined by the Nazi enemy and ideologist Carl Schmitt and consequent imprisonment is reserved only to some: those who make their claims without ambiguity and clash with power, who insist on unconditional autonomy and freedom without falling into the trap of citizenism or national independence, who use all their creativity and will to build networks of support and solidarity with their fellow prisoners. This is a constant factor in all the attacks by power in different countries and I think that the question of our comrades and friends is no exception.

Francisco Solar Dominguez
CP Villabona-Asturias,
FIES unit

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[Translated from Spanish to Italian by RadioAzione, translated from Italian via Actforfree.]