Paris: A second trial of the struggle against the deportation machine

Translated from Indymedia Nantes

On May 30 2017, judge Gendre released a committal order of her own, sending seven additional companions and comrades to court in connection to the struggle against the deportation machine in Paris.

In a first trial concerning the struggle against the deportation machine, on June 23, 2017 in Paris, four people who were subjects of one of the preliminary inquiries into this matter. After various reclassifications and withdrawals of the charges, three of them are accused of “tracing inscriptions on facades and street material” (meaning tags) in January 2011 and two of having “willfully damaged a banking ATM belonging to the Postal Bank” (by pasting a poster) in February 2010 during a group stroll.

In parallel to this, on May 30 2017, judge Gendre released a committal order of her own, sending seven additional companions and comrades [1] to court in connection to the struggle against the deportation machine in Paris. Although the date of the trial has not yet been decided (though it may be set in the next few weeks), we can already say a few things about it.

This second trial stems from a second preliminary inquiry that lead to five house searches in June 2010, then to the arrest of two additional people on October 28 and January 19 2011 (one of whom spent a week in pretrial prison). The charges ranged from “serious damage or destruction to property in a group” to refusing to give DNA and fingerprints [2], and also included “willfull group violence” relating to some unfriendly visits to the Air France office at Bastille square and to the SNCF (national train company) shop in Belleville, as well as to the redecoration of the poor windows of a Bouygues telecom store at the same time. These two actions took place on March 17 2010, a few hours after ten undocumented people were sentenced to years in prison for the fire that destroyed the Vincennes detention centre [3].  Read the rest of this entry »

Solidarity with the anarchists and anti-authoritarians charged with terrorism by the Belgian state

Translated from La Lime

This text from La Lime, a solidarity fund based in Brussels (whose name translates to The File, like filing through bars) was republished in early May 2017 in advance of a hearing for those charged in this case. An older version of the text circulated in April 2016 before the previous hearing.

If fighting for freedom is a crime, innocence is surely the worst of all

At the end of 2008, during the period of diffuse hostilities set off by the revolt in Greece after the police murder of Alexis, the Belgian Federal Prosecutor launched an investigation targeting anarchists and anti-authoritarians [1]. In 2010, on the basis of a list of actions attributed by the police to the “anarchist movement” and while the struggle against a new closed prison [2] in Steenokkerzeel pushed ahead, judge Isabelle Panou was assigned to the case, which was classified as anti-terrorism. In May and again in September 2013, upwards of ten searches were carried out as part of this investigation against various residences and the anarchist library Acrata, located in Brussels. It’s only at this moment that the existence of an anti-terrorism investigation became visible for the first time. This investigation is led by the anti-terrorism section of the federal police, with support from National Security, the General Intelligence Services, and military security at different times, as well as by the anti-terrorism services of other European countries. The investigation was completed in 2014 and today sees twelve anarchists and anti-authoritarians sent to court. Read the rest of this entry »