"I do not regret anything…" : Political declaration of Christos Tsakalos for the third CCF trial (Greece)

On Thursday, November 5th, I’m asked to apologize to the first court conducted for 2.5 years now against the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire . It is the trial for the 250 attacks of the organization.

In a courtroom inside the prison, full of judges, cameras, cops, secret police, anti-terror police, a few relatives and even fewer friends and comrades, they judge the actions of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire.

But how to fit in a room of a few square meters our actions that tried to challenge the wise and obedient history of our time…

An action which interrupted the eternal sleep of quiet ’peaceful’ people for several nights, agitated through the explosion of the enslaved silences of the metropolis and with our proclamations denied the rules of a life where the bosses’ violence is always present and we are constantly absent…

Through our attacks, we wanted to smash the tyranny of a brutal reality. We intend to overturn the balance of terror of a mechanically routine life. We tried to cancel the compromise with the death of caused by the wage slavery, the technological control, the boredom and empty relationships.

We wanted to make war with the “peace” of the banks, the judges, the rich, the cops, the fascists, the journalists, the politicians, but also with the “peaceful” citizens who instead of crying out, and being enraged and act, they’re hiding in resignation and grow old along with their furniture … These “peaceful” and law-abiding citizens are the most responsible of all, because through their “quietness” they allow ugliness to rule our lives.

…

Whose justice is going to judge the right then? After having passed through all the ceremonial stages of justice, prosecutor-advocate-custody, new persecutions, new indictments, relatives’ custody, witnesses, now they ask me to apologize…

I’m not going to offer them this satisfaction. Not a single word to the enemy. I refuse to impersonate the role of the accused. I may have been handcuffed, with my years locked up and barbed wires up to the sky, controlled with cameras, but my desire to carry on the armed struggle burns inside me like the glowing iron…

The only way to blame myself would be to remain idle, obedient, disciplined like a domestic slave who enjoys a crippled freedom. I refuse, therefore, to apologize to the theology of your justice, that does not tolerate the blasphemy of an unenslaved life. Nor I am going to participate in a veiled dialogue between deaf pretexts answering any questions of the judges…

What I’m writing here is not for judicial use…

It is for the comrades, for the anarchists, for friends, for the disclaimers, the troublemakers, for the struggle’s memory…

I am charged, along with the other members of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire and other anarchists, in the case of “250 explosive and arson attacks” against the parliament, [political] parties’ offices, houses of ministers and prosecutors, bank mansions, journalistic organizations, prison facilities, multinational corporations, military buildings, churches, police stations, courts, security services, camera and security systems, the offices of Golden Dawn [neo-nazi political party], luxury car dealerships, government agencies, diplomats’ vehicles, etc.

From the first moment of my arrest I have claimed responsibility and I am honored to participate in the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire.

Claiming responsibility means I don’t give up on weapons…

Claiming responsibility means I do not regret anything …

Claiming responsibility means that fear has not won…

Claiming responsibility means that the struggle continues…



The claim of responsibility is a promise that the imprisoned guerrilla will return to the “crime scene”, that he or she will march again on the paths of illegal freedom.

At the same time it is a signal of complicity to the new comrades to carry on what the repression stopped. Because there will always be hands that will raise the gun from where it fell from the prisoner, there will always be free minds and generous hearts to carry on writing the history of the world from the inside out.

This refusal to surrender and its prospects, frighten the tyrants and the owners of fear.

After so many arrests, interrogations, years in prison, new charges, heavy sentences, they didn’t manage to elicit even a single sign of remorse. That’s why they nourished new lies and devious blackmails…

Following the disclosure of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire’s escape plan, they set up a new version of the witch-hunt, arrested mothers, wives and brothers, they have instituted new places of exile designated to a quarantine of one kilometer squared of ‘freedom’, they banned every communication to my brother and his companion and wanted to raise the walls of total isolation…

At the same time, they thickened the fog of repression sending a clear message to our comrades of solidarity: “Whoever communicates with prisoners of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, could as well be found in the adjacent cell.”

Cops and judges were anxious to earn a trophy through the dirty war they unleashed, a folding strategy, a hesitation, a minimum trail of ceasefire… in vain…

However much they made me bleed internally, eventually they steeled my will even more.

I will not talk about judicial irregularities, political contracts of expedience, police approaches and lack of evidence…

I grant you judges, the legal civilization and the price of thousands of voices that resound in prison for the thousands of years that they have been deprived of in the concrete tombs where you sentenced them to live like living-dead…

Besides, as you stack the files in your drawers, you stack human lives in prison cells with the composure of an accountant who settles his accounts. Your robes and jackets are dripping blood and the hypocrisy of your justice can not wash it away…

You blame me for 250 attacks against the empire that you serve, but for me your accusations are a medal of honor.

Of course, I am not going to tell where I was and what I took part in, as I do not intend to give any single evidence of guerrilla action of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire to the enemy.

If you want, however, you can consider that I was in all the attacks of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, as I would do in any attack that challenges the tyranny in this world… In clashes and barricades in Chile, at demonstrations and street battles in Mexico, at the fires in Brussels, amongst the antifascists in Germany, next to the comrades of the Informal Anarchist Federation in Italy, at the riots in the United Kingdom, at the liberated territories of Rojava, in the uprisings in the West Bank, in the dark nights that embrace the anarchist conspirators of the Act … Everywhere where there are Humans who not kneel, do not respect the odds, where the living dare …

The fact that history is written by the winners in luxurious villas, offices of corporations, parliaments, the news media, the courts, police mansions… does not mean that our own history does not exist… The history of the struggle, of rebellions, of revolutions, of revolts, of defiance, of solidarity, of guerrilla attacks, this is of the “few happy madmen” who scorned their time and marched against it to its overthrow.

The action of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire being on trial today, is a snapshot of this story… As small as a drop of history, but with its angles intense and sharp… Angles that will continue to leave deep scratches in this world of authority, as the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire will be organized again, reclaiming its experiences, victories and defeats, in a never ending fight.

And if at this moment, I am in prison, it doesn’t mean that the fight is not worth it or that it is leading nowhere…

And if today the kingdom of defeatism and resignation is ruling the hearts of the people… And if many people come and shake their fingers reproachfully saying “… and so what is it you managed to do with guns and bombs?”, it’s not necessary to answer.

The existence of a world that bombards with death from the sky, raises high walls with razors to stand in the way of the persecuted, forcing young children to search for food in the garbage, which leads to the everyday deaths of millions of people through the strangulation of the financial crisis, exchanges life with images on cold screens, rapes and pillages nature… it is the best argument why the anarchist urban guerrilla is the only expression of life that I would choose thousands of times again and again.

Concluding, I really wonder… what is more infuriating… your miserable laws or the misery of the people who accept them and obey…

The only thing that’s for sure is that this world and its false idols, were risen up with violence and only violence will break them down…

That’s why; against the tyranny of the reality you have imposed on people I choose forever the magic realism of anarchy and revolution that’s never ending…

Now, judges, you can sentence me.

I do not regret anything.





Christos Tsakalos

Conspiracy of Cells of Fire – FAI-IRF

Basement Annex

Korydallos prison

04/11/2015…

Tags: Athens, CCF Escape case, Christos Tsakalos, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire : Imprisoned Members Cell, Greece, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), International Revolutionary Front, Korydallos Prison, Letter, Trial

This entry was posted on Friday, December 25th, 2015 at 3:44 pm and is filed under Cognitive Liberty.