From the Greek Streets » katerina goulioni

Complaint by prisoner Katerina Goulioni to the Greek Ombudsman (shortly before her death in the hands of the state)

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:47:26 +0000

The following letter has been circulating in the greek net after Katerina’s death. Katerina wrote the complaint on February 20. Just under a month later, Katerina died under “suspicious circumstances” while on prison transfer (blog posts on Katerina are here)

Complaint to the Greek Ombudsman by prisoner Katerina Goulioni

Eleonas Thivon, 20-02-09

I am 41 years old today, addicted to heroin from the age of 17. All these years I have been sick and addicted to a substance without which I would not be able to stand, to work, to live. The worst nightmare however, some nightmare many consider a somehow given follow-up to the addiction, is one I had never imagined I would live in the way I live and am threatened to live daily. This “given follow-up to the addiction” is my imprisonment which means my captivity, being taken hostage by prison guards who control and intervene even on my genitals and most private parts of my body.

Whenever I enter a prison, either because I go there for the first time or after returning from court or the hospital, I am subject to the following attack, which they call “body search”:

The guard forces me to take off all my clothes, to open up my legs and to cough while she examines my anus. Often she takes the opportunity to examine my naked body; she looks at me thoroughly, she treats me offensively, ironically, as if I’m the worst scum on earth.

Then, they give me other clothes, from their storage, which are mismatching and humiliating. They take my bra because it is “banned” in isolation as I might, supposedly… kill myself with it. They give me shoes a few sizes bigger than mine so that I walk like a clown and they take me to the pharmacy. There, they make me sit on a gynaecological chair and the guard puts her finger in my vagina. I am then forced to urinate in the presence of the guard, for the drug test.

Once, on the paper placed on the gynaecological chair where they put me I saw hair by the previous prisoner. The sterilisation of their equipment is something they only occasionally remember. To some they place rusty dilators while forcing their fingers in such way that the prisoner is in pain. The sarcastic jokes do not miss from their repertoire..

Recently I refused a vaginal examination from the gynaecologist as I think that regardless of knowledge, specialisation and education level, having anyone force their fingers into you is at least “improper”, I’d say. I asked for a sonar scan only to be threatened I would be tied up overnight – this threat was mouthed by the prison guard assigned the role of a …nurse in the Prison of Thiva, Stella Gavana, in the presence of her superior Sotoria Sampani. She told me that since I am a prisoner I must accept the vaginal examination – and those who are not prisoners are “different”. In short she told me and still tell me that since I am a prisoner they can do whatever they want with me and I should not react.

They took me to sub-commander of the prison Aglaia Kafritsa, who told me that since I refuse the vaginal examination, any drugs found in the prison she will charge on me and that she will hold me in solitary for many days to come. When I asked her for a sonar scan and told her I can no longer stand this raping of my vagina she told me she did not have the capacity to do that. I replied that I am not obliged to pay for their own incapacity and they took me to solitary – where they would take me, that is, whether they had given me a vaginal examination or not.

In solitary they put me in a cell where I had to ring a bell for a guard to come take me to a toilet shared between all the prisoners and watched by a camera.

While defecating you are being watched by the prison guard from the camera and only once she sees your excrement can you ask for her permission to flush the toilet.

Not only am I forced to defecate in front of a prison guard, I am also forced to defecate 8 times before I am removed from solitary – although this, too, depends on their mood.

Most prisoners take laxatives in order to achieve these 8 defecations and often either the prison guard doesn’t come to open their door or there is another prisoner in the toilet and so thei literally defacate on themselves. The guards will threatingly tell them, “this is Thiva, you will only ring the bell when you really need it”, which “real need” is assessed by the prison guard. Or they will grudgingly tell them, “you want to go to the toilet again?”, and similar in an unbelievably inhuman and sadist behaviour.

It has happened to me that the guard would not open the door and so I was forced to urinate in a plastic bottle and to latter have problems with my bowel because of holding on defacating. In the end I reached the point of kicking the cell’s door so that it would open; the guard treated me subhumanly and in a provocative manner because I called her “chicken”; she wrote a false report (ms Harikleia Daniilidou is the guard in question) together with guard Ioannis Galanis, who was on duty on the day. I stood against the disciplinary committee and their subordiante attorney Georgios Prassas punished me with the detention in isolation for five days with the additional and illegal removal of my right to coffee, cigaretes and phone calls.

This disciplinary punishment is only written off my records after two years, meaning that apart from the torturing I was put through, I will not be able to bailed out sooner and so my sick parents and my 21-year old daughter will wait for long before they can see me and I can support them.

All of these events took place in the female prison of Koridalos (Athens) but all of these guards still work in Thiva, together with head prison guard Panagiotis Korakis, who here in the isolation unit of Thiva told me that despite my 8 defacations he has the right to hold me in isolation for six days according to “prison rules”. The prison rules mention nothing of sort – to the contrary they state that a 3-day stay in isolation can only take place after an order by an attorney general and is only extended if illegal substances are found in the body of the prisoner which are impossible to remove…

You cannot take a bath in isolation (which they call “special detention area”, as if changing a name ends the horror) because whenever there happens to be hot water, the guard is not there and where she is she might take you out of the cell, insisting that water is hot even when it isn’t.

Whenever you take a bath they watch you. And so we might stay without taking a bath for seven days ,if not longer. You are only allowed to order coffee, water etc from the prison cafe, which runs for the prison guards and in which prisoners also work. Last time I was held in isolation I paid 20 euros to the cafe. With this amount I could have lasted around 20 days by buying my own coffee and sugar and yet I was forced to spend it within 5 days. Yet here the managing of our money depends on the mood of the prison guards.

So when our torturers decide to take us out of isolation we have to go through the same torture of body search and vaginal raid. They can put you through the same torture at any time in the main prison unit, where I am staying, whenever there is a suspicion of use of illegal substances. They enter our unit, they wake us up, they put us through this examination, they take us out of unit and mess up all our stuff, throwing it to the floor. We then lose our stuff because they throw it or take it with them and need to put everything back to place in order to be allowed to sleep…

I used to be a human with lust for knowledge, with a sustainable business, with lust for creation.

Today, all this pain, abuse, the raping of my body and my soul make me dream that I cill all those who get paid to torture weak people.

Crunching my teeth I wisper “to your doggedness, you swinnes, I still hold” hoping the day will come when they will stop putting their dirty, twisted hands on defenseless people. I know the world cannot change, yet it can REFORM – as long as we don’t stay indifferent.

I shall never overcome

all that I have been put through in prison.

Goulioni Katerina

#47, 01.39: Prisoner revolt in Chania (Crete) and Thiva

admin — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 02:00:58 +0000

UPDATE, 12.48 The prisoners in the prison of Thiva (mainland Greece, approx. 100km NW of Athens –trans.) have also revolted. This is a “drug detox” prison and it is also where Katerina Goulioni was held before her death. Prisoners in Thiva revolted after hearing that, even after Katerina’s death, people from outside were not allowed to visit and bring them news. Innitial reports state that one of the prison’s wings is already on fire; most prisoners have been transferred to other wings yet 10 refuse to leave and are in danger. People in solidarity are already travelling to the prison from Thiva, Athens and Thessaloniki.

At around 1pm on Saturday 21.03, prisoners occupied the prison of Chania in Crete. An impromptu solidarity demo from the city of Chania to the prison was organised and a few hours later (5pm) a local radio station was briefly occupied, in order for messages of solidarity to broadcast. Another solidarity demonstration has been called for 1pm Sunday.

There are 157 prisoners in a prison with an official capacity of 70; 108 beds in total (so two and even three people share one bed), one toilet per 57 people, no hot water. The prisoners demand that most of them get transferred elsewhere so that the prison can be de-congested.

What follows is a rough translation of the prisoners’ own declaration as issued a few hours ago.

Us, the prisoners of the juridical prison of Chania, today on the 21st of March 2009 and in reaction to the horrific living conditions, refused to enter our cells demanding the immediate de-congestion of the prison. We consider, as solution to this problem, the immediate transfer of the majority of us to other prisons in the country. We ask, in other words, what should be a given. What no-one should be denied even for a single moment. Humane living conditions… Dignity!

How could we not act, when 157 of us are piled up in a prison (an ex-Turkish command building) holding 70, when 57 of us are forced to live in a room designed for 20, when we use a toilet, by booking an appointment from the day before, when we join-up beds so that three of us can sleep on them, when we have no hot water and shiver, when we shout and nobody listens, when the state hides away from a society an untold truth!

For yet another time the state becomes an accessory before the fact of a revolt deemed unavoidable!

The threats issued for the repression of the revolt and our juridical condemnation, of all who participate in it, as insurgents, criminals, do not scare us. The state will always find us against it! Its terrorism shall not pass!

We voted unanimously and by shouting that:

We continue our struggle until we get a hearing with a representative of the ministry of Justice, in order for our demands above to be met.

Prisoners of the Juridical Prison of Chania

#46, 14.05: Prisoner Katerina Goulioni dies in police custody under mysterious circumstances; new government law against hoodies

admin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:11:47 +0000

According to various newssite reports,prisoner Katerina Goulioni, prisoner and militant prisoners’ rights activist, has died in police custody this morning.

UPDATE, 15.48 Latest comments from IMC Athens reveal that Katerina was on the same boat to Crete with fascist prisoner “Periandros”. Periandros attacked anarchist prisoner Yannis Dimitrakis outside the boat (Yannis is in the hospital but is now ok in his health), only to be later attacked back by other prisoners in his own cell.

Katerina, who was held at the prison of Thiva in mainland Greece, was under transfer to Crete. In the boat from Pireaus to Crete, the guards forced her to sit alone, 15 seats behind the other prisoners, hands tied behind the back. At 6am this morning Katerina was found dead; according to testimonies by other prisoners, she was badly hit on the face.

The coroner refuses to give out any information before the official report, which is not expected before next week. Prisoners at the prison of Thiva already refuse their meals.

Katerina was one of the most active prisoners in defence of prisoners’ rights and was often put in isolation.

(This is breaking news, more will hopefully follow)

Meanwhile, the conservative government’s justice minister has announced a new law, echoing the often-repeated demand of LAOS, the extreme-right parliamentary party. According to the new law, those arrested and convicted of crimes while concealing their identity will be facing longer charges – ranging between 2 and 10 years more. This is not a german-style banning of hoodies all together (which has also been suggested by LAOS) and is virtually inneforcible.