Statement from the detainees of the recent phase of Operation Pandora
November 2015 - Spain
On Wednesday October 28 nine of us were arrested in connection with a new anti-terrorist operation orchestrated by the Catalan Regional Police in collusion with court number 3 of the Spanish National Court . After the ransacking and looting of our homes and the Libertarian Ateneo de Sants ( an anarchist social center in Sants ) we were taken to different police stations on the outskirts of Barcelona . The next day we were delivered to the Civil Guard and transferred to Madrid . On Friday at noon we were brought before Judge Juan Pablo Gonzalez . The judge ordered two of us to be released with charges , 6 of us to be bailed upon payment of a bail surety and unconditional imprisonment for our comrade who is currently locked up in Soto del Real prison .
We the detainees who at present are back on the street wish to make a series of reflections and political positions :
The generic accusation against all 9 of us is “ belonging to a criminal organization with terrorist aims .” Specifically we are charged with being part of ‘ GAC-FAI-IRF ,’ which as we all know is a concept that has been constructed by the police . A set of acronyms which they have quite calculatedly mixed together – the coordination of anarchist collectives ( GAC ) along with the
‘ signature ’ used internationally by some groups to claim acts of sabotage ( FAI-IRF ).
The construction of this organizational framework gives the police all of the repressive resources that the anti-terrorism laws provide : closed courts , greater legal uncertainty , much tougher sentences for comrades convicted of carrying out certain actions , isolation , special prison regimes , the criminalization of personal friendships / partners and relatives , amplified media coverage and social stigmatization etc . It is enough to say that during the whole process of our detention – from the moment we saw our homes being invaded and looted right up until we were brought before the judge – we did not even know what we were being accused of .
With the invention of the acronym GAC-FAI-IRF the police forces have designed a network with which they can potentially catch everything that moves within anarchist and anti-authoritarian circles . In the context of this new organizational framework attending debates , taking part in assemblies , visiting imprisoned comrades or even simply having personal contact with a person suspected to be a member of the organization are sufficient reasons to be placed on a black list .
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