13/2 A Year Later - Gathering of Os Dame at Kolokasi Park (Online Article)

This online article was published on 13/02/22 by the co-ordination group Os Dame (That's enough) on facebook, on the event calling for a gathering at Kolokasi park, a year after the violent repression of the first march.

13 February 2021. Permission via SMS is required to get out of the house. Demonstrations are prohibited. In Pournara, more than a thousand asylum seekers are confined. Police are gearing up. The cultural sector and amateur sports meet the negligence of the state, just like the rest of the workers affected by the pandemic. The state policy stinks of authoritarianism and corruption, with scandals being revealed one after the other.

13 February 2021. Kolokasi Park. Some hundreds of people responded to the call for protest organized by “Os Dame”, defying the ban and demanding their right to protest in the streets.

The government believes it found the opportunity to turn eyes away from its corrupted face, constructing a new internal enemy. The police attack with batons, pepper-sprays and water shots from “Aiantas”. Most of the people don’t go away. Arrests happen. Some are injured. Despite all these, people don’t disperse. They move towards Eleftherias Square, end up in Makariou. Police attack again. Chasing in the alleys, arrests. The last protestors stand against Aiantas. Water thrown in a straight direct shot. A.D. is seriously injured.

During the following weeks and months, a movement was expressed in the streets, but mostly in minds and hearts, challenging all those self-evident aspects of Cypriot reality. The self-evident police management of a health crisis. The self-evident partition. The self-evident racist state policy of concentration camps. The self-evident of gendered violence. The self-evident of “this is Cyprus”, of “this is how things are done”, of the assumption that we are too weak to change the situation. The political interconnection of the issues attempted by Os Dame was a revealing process for those who have open eyes and ears, and gave another dimension to the political scene. That is why it annoyed the government, that is why it was met by the furious reaction of the regime.

One year later, our demands have not yet been satisfied, our struggles and rage have not found justice. The report of AADIPA on police violence absolves them of responsibility. The injury of A.D. resulted in permanent impairment of her vision. The arrestees are facing trials for participation or invitation to a protest march during the time of the coronavirus. The state bought more equipment for repression, “Aiantas” is now around even student organized protests.

Our wages remain constantly low, while the prices of basic goods and needs like electricity and gas are skyrocketing. More than 2000 people are now detained in Pournara. Partition is consolidated, the plunder of our natural wealth continues undisturbed. And while the country is at the forefront of corruption, the media continue to launder the government, the police, the rapists, the politicians.

On Sunday 13 February 2022 we gather at Kolokasi Park at 15:00. We stand against repression, against authoritarianism and corruption. We continue, against the police brutality we faced last year and every other attempted repression of our struggles. We invite all those who protested, discussed, agreed, disagreed, critiqued, thought, spoke, or acted with us during last year’s wave of struggles, to join us in our park, our roads. The days to come are difficult and inwe must find again the end of the thread, the struggles and the social consciousness that awakened on 13/2/21.

NO DEFEATISM

AGAINST REPRESSION, AUTHORITARIANISM AND CORRUPTION

SO THAT WE DO NOT FIND OURSELVES IN FRONT OF AIANTAS

THE STRUGGLES CONTINUE