In 3 February the trial was held without the defendants’ presence nor their lawyers in defense.
The four of the defendants, Argirou, Hadjimihelakis, Masouras and Karagiannidis, announced that on Thursday, 3 February 2011, they proceed from abstention from mess to hunger strike, to achieve their claims—the identities of the people who wish to be present in the courtroom not to be recorded nor retained, in order for the defendants to return in court represented by the lawyers of their original choice.
ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DEFENDANTS IN THE CASE OF THE R.O. CONSPIRACY CELLS OF FIRE
We announce that today Thursday 3/2/2011 we escalate our mobilization and from abstention from prison food we are going on hunger strike until the achievement of our aim which is to not record and withhold the information of those who want to watch our trial so that we can return finally to it with the lawyers of our initial choice. Our tenacious position in our demand is the armouring of our character. As we declared from the first moment we do not ask, we demand they do not register all those, comrades or relatives and friends, interested in being near us the moment we are tried. The recognition of their contribution in the essential significance of solidarity and support cannot but oblige us to rise to the occasion. Thus we deny make our trial, with our consent and our participation in the procedure, a landmark for the foundation of tomorrow's prosecutions of comrades-fighters and revolutionaries. We do not tolerate the attack that the movement of solidarity receives neither the attempted isolation of political prisoners in trials-court martials. Either the regime of terrorism and registering of those want to attend the trial in solidarity will end, or you will judge the chairs and the microphones.
Moreover our case is such that while some of us face the definite condemnation from the court since we have publicly and openly taken the responsibility for our participation in the organization, the rest however face the danger of a long sentence and hence the continuation of the hostage regime that they have imposed on us, in the frames of exactly what we stress: the penalization of the wider friendly-family and comrade relations.
We therefore place our bodies in the ordeal of hunger strike knowing that it is a hard and difficult struggle of endurance with not having a lot of space for movement and action, being locked up and limited behind walls.
Considering that the character of our trial is such that these measures are adopted in an attempt to terrorize the people in solidarity, we conclude that it is not a matter that concerns purely us but the all imminent trials of such character that will follow. We know that we are not alone in this struggle. We thank therefore in advance those who express their solidarity by all means to our case.
VICTORY IS THE STRUGGLE ITSELF
LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION
LONG LIVE ANARCHY
Panagiotis Argirou
Haris Hadjimihelakis
Panagiotis Masouras
Giorgos Karagiannidis
(translation from: actforfreedomnow!)