STATEMENT ON THE PARASTATAL ATTACK OF ARAS IN THE PREMISES OF THE POLITECHNIC UNIVERSITY
On November 15, the first day of the three-day commemoration for the 52nd anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising against the junta in ’73, early in the morning, about 200 helmeted members of ARAS (Left Anticapitalist Group*) gathered in a military style formation in the courtyard of the Polytechnic University and launched a blind, fierce, bloody and murderous attack against anarchists.
After first cracking people’s skulls and breaking their arms outside, these thugs continued their attack inside the Tositsa building (one of the buildings of the Polytechnic University), hitting and smashing everything they could find in their way, where they trapped dozens of people, workers, students, anarchists. Among those who were attacked were members of the Anarchist Students’ Initiative of Athens and the Anarchist Political Organization – Federation of Collectives, who at that time were preparing the space on the ground floor of the building for the placement of political material and in view of the afternoon scheduled event.
Indicative elements of the brutality of the pogrom that ARAS unleashed were both their imposition through terror on the entire campus of the Polytechnic University and the uncontrolled exercise of excessive violence that could even lead to deaths. This is demonstrated by the entrapment of a crowd of people in an enclosed space, their chase on stairs and corridors, the uncontrollable and repeated blows on people’s skulls, hands and other vital organs, the forced stripping of a woman comrade, the threats and the actual danger of people falling from the windows of the building. This resulted in about 20 injured people with broken heads, hands, fingers, the opening of a case file by the police with charges regarding the alleged “clashes” and the prosecution against injured people who had been taken to Evangelismos Hospital and the inevitable and absolute provocation and undermining of all the events of the three days of commemoration of the 1973 Revolt.
The planning, organization and execution of this attack by the ruffians of ARAS did not only have the typical characteristics of parastatal action but also the target itself of such an attack. This operation of imposition with military-type characteristics aligns perfectly with the overall attack of state repression both in university premises, where it is manifested through disciplinary measures, expulsions, prosecutions, surveillance cameras and the targeting and attempt to expel radical, militant and anarchist political presence from the university asylum, as well as more broadly in the social and class struggles, and the ongoing ideological and repressive attack against the anarchists.
ARAS is beyond any doubt a foreign body for the student and more broadly for the social and class struggles, and this is how they must be treated. The organizations that collaborate with them should isolate them, otherwise they will be covering up their fifth columnist and murderous action.
In the face of the state’s failed long-term attempt to bury the real meanings and contents of the Polytechnic uprising of ’73, the current repressive plans of the rectorate authorities and the intensifying state terrorism, the self-organized, collective struggles of society and youth will not be suppressed. The anarchist movement does not retreat – does not submit. The struggle against all authority continues and will win.
BACK OFF RUFFIANS! – FORWARD, COMRADES!
DOWN WITH THE STATE, DOWN WITH AUTHORITY!
ORGANIZATION AND STRUGGLE FOR ANARCHY
NO PROSECUTION OF THE ARRESTED
Anarchist Political Organization – Federation of Collectives
16/11/2025
* the de facto youth of Popular Unity Party (LA.E.)
