A Young Woman is in Jail for No Reason

She’s been convicted for “joining a terrorist organisation” without any substantial proof.

Irianna is a Greek 29-year-old woman, born and bred in a middle class suburb of Athens (Cholargos). She has worked as a teacher and is a PhD student at the University of Athens, as well as being a volunteer teacher of Greek for young refugees. She studied Greek Philology, major in Linguistics and she did her masters thesis in teaching Modern Greek as a second or foreign language. While a student she fell in love with Konstantinos, a naval engineering student from National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), who she knew him from her school time years.

In general, Irianna had a pretty normal life for an average 29-year-old Greek young woman. Until last Friday — when she ended up in jail serving thirteen years’ for “possession of illegal firearms with intent to distribute them for criminal activities” and for being part of the same terrorist group as her boyfriend had been accused and acquitted.

Her first encounter with the authorities in 2011 was when, during the middle of the night, a SWAT team raided the apartment that her boyfriend was renting — arresting both of them while they were asleep. While she was detained she willingly provided fingerprints and a DNA sample and cooperated all the way with the authorities. In less than 24 hours, she was let go.

Irianna’s boyfriend faced charges for being a member of a terrorist group called “Conspiracy of Fire Cells” (CFC), an anarchist group known for several “anti-establishment” actions. Some of them included letter bombs sent to the IMF offices in Paris, but after a long trial that took a huge psychological and financial toll on him and his family he was unanimously declared innocent with the judges and the prosecutor agreed on his innocence.