On the 27/2 activists in Athens occupied the offices of the greek branch of Amnesty International in a symbolic action to promote the struggle and the just demands of the prisoners of the Korydallos Prison Hospital. Here follows the leaflet which was distributed during the action:
THE DEATH PENALTY IS STILL HERE
On February 17th, 2014, 179 detainees at the Prison Hospital in Korydallos, fully aware of the inhuman fate held in store for them by the punitive “correctional” devices of the State, began a fight against death itself and decided to abstain from their food and medical treatment.
The legislative interventions of the Ministry of Justice and the other “humanitarians” highlighted these past few days have only come after the publicity given to the grim conditions prevailing at the said purgatory, yet are nothing but eye-wash for the prisoners, who leave the eventuality of scaling out their mobilizations open.
Besides, prisoners’ fight is a struggle for survival and a one-way road, considering that complaints sketch out an obscure Medieval-inspired stage set. Two hundred and nine (209) patients at the prison hospital ward are cramped to suffocation in filthy “warehouses” fit for 60 people. All are suffering from severe, particularly contagious and painful diseases and 131 are HIV-positive. The number of cases of scabies, TB etc remains to be determined.
Medical care provided consists in just two (!) permanent physicians, while the relevant appeal for the obligatory public prosecutor’s supervision as required by law has crushed into the indifference of the people responsible, who in fact claim that they “have a family” and are thus unable to enter the premises.
For us, it is a fact that the debasement of human life and dignity, mental and physical torture and the state of exception experienced by the prisoners are an inherent trait of all authoritative structures, whether they are called a detention centre, a penitentiary institution or a prison hospital. Given the oppression of authority and the widespread repression heralded by today’s totalitarianism, we will stand side by side with the struggles inside and outside prisons’ walls.
- SOLIDARITY TO THE STRUGGLE OF PRISONERS OF “AG. PAVLOS” HOSPITAL IN KORYDALLOS
- DECONGESTION – THREE-YEAR SUSPENSION OF PENALTIES NOW
- WE ARE FIGHTING TODAY FOR A PRISON-FREE SOCIETY TOMORROW