Defend Prosfygika: The defiant community of squats next to Athens Police HQ takes to the streets

Описание: Athens, Greece (21 January 2023): Images from the dynamic protest in solidarity to the community of squatted Prosfygika that 2 months ago in a massive police operation was attacked by riot cops and police special forces.

It all started in the early hours of Tuesday 22 November 2022 in Athens, Greece. In a massive operation, police special forces and squads of riot policemen invade one of the buildings of the Community of Squatted Prosfygika (Προσφυγικά), break down the door of a flat and snatch two people. One of them is being accused of attacks against capitalist targets. The operation ends and the police withdraws from the building.

Ten hours later, at about 17:00, and for no apparent reason, a massive police attack is being unleashed against two of the buildings where many people have gathered in solidarity to the community of Squatted Prosfygika, an array of 8 buildings built in the 1930s to house refugees following the "Asia Minor Disaster".

Following the battle that ensued, scores of cops invaded the community and arrested 79 residents and people in solidarity, despite the fact that they initiated an attack with no other purpose than the attack itself, charging the arrestees with all sorts of misdemeanours for resisting their unprovoked attack. Amongst those arrested, there were even minors, a mother with her child, a pregnant woman, an accredited photo journalist and a lawyer. Many of the arrestees were badly beaten during the police invasion.

In the community of squatted Prosfygika, located next to a hospital mainly treating cancer patients, the High Court, Panathinaikos football stadium, schools and the greek police headquarters., there are currently more than five hundred people from every manifestation of the oppressed class: Refugees, immigrants, families with their children, the elderly, the sick, formerly homeless, political fighters, addicts, those dependent to the ELPIS hospital, and people of every nationality or religion. It is a multinational mosaic of the communities of the world’s most rebellious and plundered of peoples. People who have experienced capitalist war, displacement and torture, poverty and misery, persecution and hunger. These are the people that were attacked and arrested by the greek police on Tuesday 22 November.

In the words of the community "Our narrative about the neighborhood of Prosfygika speaks to the struggle for survival and dignity, for solidarity and companionship, for self-organization, equality and social struggle, for interracial and inter-religious coexistence in times of poverty and social cannibalism. A social and cultural workshop of self-esteem and community that continues to remain with those who built it, immigrants, refugees and opponents of capitalist barbarism. It talks about the smiles of dozens of children playing in the streets of the neighborhood, collective kitchens and self-organized production and self-education structures, social and political actions, care for the sick and the weak, maintenance work, with meager means, a place that concentrates memories of struggles of the working class over the past eighty years".

You can visit their webpage at https://sykaprosquat.noblogs.org and on Twitter at   / prosfygika  

🎥 Video footage: @emily_strange93
🖥️ Video edit: @thiasusmusic
🎼 Soundtrack: @thiasusmusic