Kostas Gournas is one of the six anarchists arrested recently in Athens, accused by the police of participating in the urban guerrilla group Revolutionary Struggle. Kostas wrote the following brief open letter to the minister of public order, Michalis Chrysochoidis on Friday 16.4, when he was still being held at the 12th floor of the police headquarters in Athens. While there Kostas was evidently tortured (police-released photographs testify this). Kostas has since been transferred to the prison of Trikala in the north of the country where, together with another one of the six arrested anarchists (Vaggelis Stathopoulos) he is being held under “special conditions” – that is, with limited access to toilet and water and with many obstacles in his communication with relatives and lawyers.

I would like to personally thank the Minister of Public Order Mr. Michalis Chrisochoidis for the special treatment he reserved for me, with the beatings, threats toward my wife and kids and my pre-trial detention in the Prison of Trikala, which will deny me the elementary right of every prisoner, to communicate with their family. Honestly, I could not believe he would slip down to this level. However, because I have learned since my 20 years of age to overcome whatever hurdles, I shall remain upright. You will not achieve my physical nor my political extermination.

Kostas Gournas

April 16, 2010
12th floor, Police HQ, Athens

The threats and torturing of those held in relation to the so-called “Revolutionary Struggle Case” will not result into the extermination of any of us. They seem to have failed to understand that one of us will make not even a single step back. We are, and we shall remain on their side. Our solidarity can not be “exterminated”.

Comrades and relatives of Kostas Gournas