Two Members of Cyprus IndyMedia Assaulted

Two members of Cyprus IndyMedia’s editorial collective were physically attacked on the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 4th, after participating in the demonstration held in downtown Lefkosia / Nicosia in support of the popular uprising in Egypt. The attack took place on Metochiou street, as they were leaving from the Egyptian Embassy.

The names of our two members are Solon Antartis and Petros Evdokas, both well-known community activists who are also often seen as the "public face" of IndyMedia in Cyprus.

The three attackers, fascist thugs posing as anarchists, followed our two members for several hundred meters before closing in and assaulting our members from behind with containers of yoghurt. Solon was hit on the right ear, which affected his hearing until late in the night, while Petros was harmed less. Both were shocked with this preplanned and cowardly attack.

They had heard the footsteps behind them and turned just in time to see the culprits in the act. The perpetrators ran away immediately, and our members did not return the violence, nor give chase.

The main perpetrator is known commonly in the community as Marios “the Tall Guy” (Μάριος ο Ψηλός) pictured here in the photos. He is the one with the fashionable hat and red shirt above; the one with the cigarette in his mouth in the middle photo; and the pretty face in the photo below, taken from his facebook profile.

The other two attackers are not personally known to us. However they have been identified by our members and by witnesses as a man and a woman both dressed up as "fashionable" anarchists.

The attack follows a speech in November 2010, in which Gregory Ioannou (Γρηγόρης Ιωάννου), a known agent of the stalinist Governing Party (AKEL), during a public speech identified Cyprus IndyMedia as a member of the opposition and put out a call for the formation of an extra-judicial, para-state power to crush us. The call came in response to Cyprus IndyMedia's to publishing articles that exposing the role of the Governing Party and other agents of the establishment in manipulating the Left, as well as our continuing critique of the President of the Republic of Cyprus for his continued co-operation with global Imperialist powers and militarist regimes in our region aimed at setting up a racist Bizonal Apartheid State on the island.

The two other organizations targeted along with Cyprus IndyMedia are the Socialist opposition group Efylakas (Εμπροσθοφύλακας), and the editorial group that publishes an assemblage of political opposition news, satire and political analysis on a website named Christofias Watch. Christofias Watch, which like all three groups includes Socialists among its members and supporters, was already targeted by an illegal Police raid at dawn ordered by the regime - celebrated on the front page of the Governing Party's newspaper! - resulting in the harassment of a newborn baby and the mother, and the illegal detainment of lawyer Xenis Xenofontos (Ξενής Ξενοφώντος) along with illegal seizure of the couple's computers that were held by the illegitimate authorities for months. Due to tremendous public pressure from every walk of life, both within mainstream society and the alternative-radical community, the computers were returned, no charges filed, and the regime issued a mumbled indirect apology.

But the danger remains.
The speech in which Gregory Ioannou issued his fatwa against us on behalf of the Governing Party is published here:
http://nekatomata.blogspot.com/2010/12/2009-2010.html

The call to crush Cyprus IndyMedia, along with the other other organizations who were also identified as targets of the regime, attempted to present us as "ultra right wingers", "nationalists" and "fascists". Long term activists of the Left are familiar with this tactic used by stalinists and other authoritarian leftists: anyone they disagree with is labelled a "right-winger" in order to justify social ostracism and violence against them.

Following that speech, a rash of false and venomous accusations were launched against Cyprus IndyMedia by a number of groups and individuals who are connected politically and personally with the Governing Party's Bizonal Apartheid campaign - many of these false accusations were published on global and local forums and circulated among supporters of the regime, in an effort to create a climate in which it would appear that members of our groups are "fair targets".

As a group, we collectively itemized and answered every single one of those false accusations, and have collected the documentation showing how these individuals and organizations receive funding from the US State Department and are connected to various other foreign powers. Here:
http://cyprus.indymedia.org
and:
http://cyprusindymedia.blogspot.com/2011/01/cyprus-indymedia-collective-responds-to.html
and:
http://cyprusindymedia.blogspot.com/2011/01/another-collective-response-by-cyprus.html

There was even a number of Statements of Support issued by allies, groups and individuals who know us for a long time, who were incensed by the wave of totally baseless accusations:
Statements of Support for Cyprus IndyMedia
http://cyprusindymedia.blogspot.com/2011/01/statements-of-support-for-cyprus.html

But reason and factual reality are not enough to deter criminal intent, especially when it is infused with political dogma and authoritarian ideology and behaviour. The physical and moral perpetrators of these attacks apparently became more determined to silence us:
And now we witness an escalation from rhetoric and a campaign of lies to physical violence.

We are worried and concerned that if pre-meditated political violence is not curtailed now, in its early stages, our country will be slowly plunged into generalized strife and conflict, perhaps leading to a civil war again. Memories and intimate knowledge of the pain, sorrow and destruction from our previous civil war is still too fresh, still too easily triggered to come to the surface. We hope that this knowledge and memory will act as a deterrent to an escalation of political violence, instead of a trigger to unleash wanton brutality on our communities. Again.

Cyprus IndyMedia Collective
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A Curious Footnote

In a strange twist of historical fate and irony, the father of Petros Evdokas, one of our members who were assaulted on Friday, Takis Evdokas MD, was himself attacked by a horde of thugs armed with yoghurt in February 1968 while giving a political speech in the center of the city. He was the only person willing to participate in the elections to oppose the despotic regime of Archbishop Makarios, authoritarian head of State and head of the Church who ruled the country from 1960 to 1977. The speaker was assaulted in front of thousands of supporters by a group of thugs who were under the command of the Minister of Interior, Polykarpos Georkatzis. People today still speak of that event, as it was a turning point in the political awareness of our population.

It was in front of that Minister's house that the two Cyprus IndyMedia members were assaulted on Friday.

It’s unlikely that the thugs were thinking of this historical connection, as it is well-known that in their circles the study of history (or the study of anything) is targeted with scorn. But we do not discount the power of the Collective Subconscious. "Let's yoghut Evdokas" is still a slogan in the back of some people's minds.

Given that the main political party on whose power the Makarios regime was built on is AKEL, which is still at the pinnacle of the establishment's power today, is the actual agency from where the command was issued to suppress Cyprus IndyMedia and other voices of the opposition, and is still the motor behind the abuse of political power in our country, always maintaining a majority of seats in Parliament, tight control of the Labour Unions and a firm hand on the State, we might say that even after so many decades, after so many changes and after so much progress, some things still do not change.

There is no way that the symbolic coincidences of this assault were planned, but still, they are at least meaningful, if not downright astounding.

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