Dimitris Koufontinas, political prisoner and member of the former revolutionary Organization “17th November”, is from 08/01 on hunger strike. After a quick aggravation of his health condition he denied the hydration serum thus proceeding to a thirst strike as well. He is now in the ICU of Lamia Hospital (city in Central Greece) and will probably die soon. He was brought to his current situation due to the voting of an unconstitutional law, specifically tailored to him, which says, that prisoners, who were convicted of “terrorism” do not have the right to be kept in a prison camp and must return to the prison they were kept before. His only demand is the actual compliance with this law, since he was transferred illegally and secretly to a third prison. The government of “New Democracy” refuses to comply with its own law and does not even acknowledge the rights of prisoners. Besides, laws abolishing such rights constitute a blatant power abuse and remind strongly of a dictatorship. The entire state mechanism shows an unprecedented intransigence, targets a single person and leads him to death. This selective treatment has one and only motivation. Personal and political revenge! Koufontinas took over the political responsibility for the murder of the brother-in-law of the current Prime Minister in 1989 by the “17th November” Organization. This vengeful rage takes the Form of so called “war against terrorism”, since “democracy cannot be blackmailed”. Every voice trying to also bring forth the humanitarian perspective of this matter -among others thousands of lawyers, doctors, journalists and academics- is ignored or suppressed as “sympathy for terrorism”. The situation is even worse for the members of the left and anarchist movements, who are in solidarity with Koufontinas, since every solidarity action is strongly criminalized and treated with scandalous repression and mass arrests. The case of Dimitris Koufontinas puts the Greek government’s respect towards the rule of law and human rights in question and is only the last from a sequence of government policies, that make the Greek state a power-hungry, oppressive and authoritarian regime. Therefore, we call to a solidarity demonstration, even here in Heidelberg, on Sunday 28/02 at 16.00 on the Markt square.
