One does not have to search far to find examples of how the police and the state apparatus is used during moments of resistance to exploitation and oppression. Around the world we see how time after time, workers protests are quelled by police, how movements of the oppressed are put down by force. The role of the state in maintaining the power of the elites has long been clear.
Over the last few years, we have had to face the real repression of the state many times, often exaggerated in its reaction. The state has tried to make comrades into terrorists, for example in the case of comrades from ASI several years ago or in the ridiculous case of the arrest of a comrade from the CNT-AIT at the beginning of 2016 for taking part in a politically satirical puppet show. In Poland, the state-run Post Office also tried, unsuccessfully, to charge a comrade from ZSP with “calling for a bloody revolution”, which could have also resulted in serious charges.
The police and the state continue to repress and we continue to react. Comrades around the world face harassment and violence which we condemn, regardless of the level of its severity. In Spain, the libertarian social movements are under attack and in Russia, the very freedom to protest is severely constrained by the state. In Serbia, ASI has recently been taking direct action by organizing with tenants, to prevent evictions and the police have been monitoring activists and bringing charges against them. In Australia, the police have been carrying out brutal actions against refugees on Manus island. During a recent demonstration in Melbourne, in support of the refugees, when right-wing thugs attacked, instead of reacting, the police bludgeoned our comrade from ASF. When these bloody images shocked the world, in some media the police pretended that they had pacified a right-wing attacker, when in fact they stood idly by in relation to the attacks on the peaceful demonstration.
The state also continues to enable the repression of workers who take action against the bosses. Such is the situation of a worker from ZSP who called out his employee, a large supermarket chain, for various forms of abuse. The supermarket brought a bogus criminal case against the comrade and tried to initiate others against several workers and a couple of other members of ZSP. Where this hasn’t worked, it constantly uses the police as an instrument of harassment.
The International Workers Association, which was created to fight both capitalism and the state, condemns all these instances of repression, as well as the general tendencies towards repression of resistance. We call on comrades all over the world to react wherever and whenever the police or the state has committed an aggression and to keep vigilant. An injury to one is an injury to all!
IWA Secretariat
December 2, 2017