UPDATE: The 4th of April and the release of Libre Flot

Last Monday, the 4th of April, we saw enthusiastic responses to the call of action in solidarity with Libre Flot. There were actions across Europe including demonstrations in front of French embassies and consulates; letter writing events and other forms of support were also seen in other parts of the world, as far as Russia and the United States. It is exhilarating to see the amount of international support generated organically in such short amount of time and without coordination.

Copenhagen, Denmark:
https://www.facebook.com/100066679933862/posts/314812434084752/

Albi, France:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLLOvL7-0Is

Marseille, France:
https://twitter.com/tkns_mars/status/1511461218279641088

Munich, Germany:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb8PvXIsmCB/

Athens, Greece:
https://twitter.com/laf_portal/status/1511015657001086978

ΣΗΜΕΡΑ ! Ημέρα αλληλεγγύης στον διεθνιστή απεργό πείνας Florian-Libre Flot που κατηγορείται ότι συμμετείχε σε "εγκληματική οργάνωση" διότι πολέμησε κατά του Ισλαμικού κράτους με το YPG.
Συγκέντρωση 19:00 στη Γαλλική Πρεσβεία στην Αθήνα #antireport #riseup4rojava #FreeOcalanNow pic.twitter.com/hD7ytMiZlK

— Riseup4RojavaGreece (@Riseup4G) April 4, 2022

Thessaloniki, Greece:
https://libertasalonica.wordpress.com/2022/04/04/victoire-a-la-greve-de-la-faim-du-militant-social-et-revolutionnaire-international-libre-flot/

Krakow, Poland:
https://www.facebook.com/323270878171872/posts/1333983450433938/

Lisbon, Portugal
https://sansnom.noblogs.org/archives/11510

Bern & Geneva, Switzerland:
https://barrikade.info/article/5100

Bristol, UK:
https://kurdistansolidarity.net/2022/04/04/some-are-heroes-while-others-are-terrorists/

Kyiv, Ukraine:
https://solidaritytodecember8.wordpress.com/2022/04/04/kiev-solidarity-to-libre-flot/

More locations:
https://expansive.info/Libre-Flot-amour-et-solidarite-internationale-3230

In the evening of the 4th, Libre Flot decided to end the hunger strike amidst deteriorating health. Later on Thursday, the 7th of April, Libre Flot was released by order of the judge based on medical reason, and was transferred to a civilian hospital to receive recovery treatment.

However, it needs to be stressed that this is not the end to his struggle, nor the international support for him should ceased. Libre Flot is obligated to report to the police regularly and is required to wear an electronic bracelet. More over, it is the prerogative of the judge to throw him back into jail should his health improves.

Libre Flot’s statement on the end of his hunger strike:

While these almost 16 months of solitary confinement have left me with much more consequences both physical but above all mental and psychological than 10 months of war in Syria.

Even as I survived the liberation of Raqqa, facing Daesh troops defending tooth and nail the capital of their caliphate,

I remain flabbergasted not only by the censorship that is made around my situation, but especially in front of the silence vis-à-vis my legitimate and reasonable request on the part of the French government, the PNAT (National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office), the investigating judge Jean-Marc Herbaut, thus demonstrating their choice to let me die!

Yet on this birthday, after 36 days of hunger strike when my state of health becomes more hazardous than ever, I make the choice of life as a rebirth, a new life that this spring accompanies and turns its back on a potential fatal outcome. This April 4, 2022 at 6 p.m., I decided to refuel.

But nothing ends now, I remain locked up, buried alive and more than ever, I hope for your support and call for solidarity.

I reiterate that I ask only to be treated like all co-accused, namely to be released the time to be able to demonstrate the slanderous side of this shameful terrorist accusation that does not hold water.

Greetings and respect,

Libre Flot.

Libre Flot’s message regarding his release:

Today, 7 April 2022, I have been released, under electronic bracelet, for medical reasons…

I have been transferred to a hospital, free, to benefit from all the care necessary as a result of this long period of inanition. I will be able to focus on rebuilding my body, my intellect and my psyche.

This is great news for me, although the road ahead to shatter the charade of the terrorist accusation, known as the 8.12 affair, is probably still long.

But I have not forgotten you and I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart all the people, collectives and organizations that supported me and spread the word.

I have no words to express my gratitude!

Thank you again,

BERXWEDAN JIYAN E!

Libre Flot

Translated from: https://soutien812.blackblogs.org/2022/04/07/libre-flot-a-mis-fin-a-sa-greve-et-est-libere-pour-raison-medicale/

What happened last week was a small yet significant step of international solidarity as well as prison struggle. Nonetheless, there is no time to be complacent. Many more remain locked up across the world. We call for the continuous support for Libre Flot and all prisoners until everyone is free.

KIEV: Solidarity to Libre Flot

The Anarchist/Anti-authoritarian comrades of Operation Solidarity Kyiv are managing the culminating point of a vast international logistical network that provides military, medical and other supplies, particularly to anti-authoritarian units and individuals who are fighting in the resistance to the Russian Invasion. 
Today, on the 4th of April, despite operating under a very busy schedule with high stakes, within a war zone, they took the time to manifest their solidarity with Libre Flot!

Some are Heroes, While Others are Terrorists

Statement for the International Day of Action in Solidarity with Libre Flot

On the 24^th of February, the Russian military launched their war of conquest against Ukraine. This brutal war shocked many around the world. In response, thousands of foreigners flocked to Ukraine to participate in its defense. They are welcomed in Ukraine with open arms, regardless of their political background. Many around the world also celebrate them as heroes – particularly in the West, and even by some governments.

In the same season seven years ago, Kurdish-led forces liberated the area of Kobani in Northern Syria from Islamic State militants who inflicted unimaginable cruelty on the population. But it would take another four years until the Kurdish and Arab Syrian Democratic Forces captured their last stronghold on the east bank of the Euphrates in Deir ez-Zor. Like in present day Ukraine, many foreigners from China to Brazil traveled to Syria and Iraq and fought side by side with local forces to defeat this terrorist group. One of them was Libre Flot.

Libre Flot went to Syria due to his love for life, humanity, and freedom. He is a true internationalist, that he saw the suffering afar as his own suffering, the fight against tyranny in a foreign land as his own fight. Yet upon his return, he did not receive a hero welcome, but was followed by police and had his phone wiretapped. He was arrested on the 8^th of December 2020, and based on fabricated claims and flimsy evidence, he was put into pre-trial detention and solitary confinement for 15 months, under the pretense of him being the leader of a terrorist organization.

While the French media and some politicians are singing praises of the volunteers fighting in Ukraine; and while the French military is still continuing their so-called anti-terrorism operation in Mail, Chad and other countries, Libre Flot – a person whose only crime was fighting against actual terrorists in a foreign land in defense of its people, was locked away in the Bois-d’Arcy prison until less than two weeks ago.

Libre Flot is persisting on his hunger strike in a hospital as we speak. He has already lost 16kg but remains strong in his spirit and is determined to fight for his freedom. Today, the 4^th of April, is a symbolic day. Not only it is Libre Flot’s birthday; it is also the birthday of Abdullah Öcalan, who has been serving a life sentence in Turkey since 1999. Today, we are here not only to show our support for Libre Flot, but also to demonstrate our solidarity with all political prisoners across the world.

On this day, thirty-seven days since the start of his hunger strike, we demand an immediate end to this grotesque display of injustice. We demand the release of Libre Flot at once. We condemn this corrupted justice system that had taken away Libre Flot and many others freedom based on the presumptions of guilt. We condemn this logic of anti-terrorism that has been employed by the French state and many other states to silence political activists and dissidents. We condemn the French state’s hypocrisy, which shamelessly violates their own motto “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” and prosecutes those who actually fight for it.

Solidarity with Libre Flot!

Solidarity with all political prisoners!

No one is free until we are all free!

From an international group of people
in solidarity with Libre Flot

4.4.2022

Call to Action: International Day Of Solidarity April 4th, 2022

On Dec 8, 2020 a group of seven people were arrested by the French state for alleged terrorist association. All but one of them have been released with no specific charges beyond ‘criminal conspiracy,’ a charge that can be used to enhance sentences and strip away rights. Libre Flot was transferred to solitary confinement days after his arrest and is the only one of those arrested still behind bars.

Throughout his incarceration, the French state has attempted to say that Flot’s actions of joining the liberatory struggle against the Islamic State is the same as those who traveled to Syria to join ISIS.

As of Feb 27, Flot began a hunger strike in protest of the 14-plus months of pretrial detention, the allegation that seven people who did not even know one another committed a conspiracy, and the attempts of the French state to assert that those who fought the Islamic State are no different than the ISIS members they opposed.

On the 24th of March, after having lost a lot of weight and presenting health problems, Libre Flot was hospitalized. 

The 4th of April will be his 36th day of hunger strike. 

The 4th of April is also his birthday. 

On this day, we call for an international day of solidarity. We call upon all comrades and every decent human being with a sense of justice to protest outside French embassies, consulates or institutes, or to find any other way to voice their objection to this blatant injustice.

DESTROY ALL PRISONS. FREEDOM FOR INCARCERATED COMRADES.

25th day on hunger strike // Libre Flot is hospitalized.

Even when his spirit is up, he stated that his strength was going down these days. He has difficulties to stand still, to move, etc.. Libre Flot was waiting for this hospitalization to be able to leave isolation for a while and have access directly to doctors and proper medical care if necessary.

Last Saturday (19th March), it took 9 hours just to wait for a simple medical form for his transfer to the hospital, on top of that surrounded by heavily armed cops.

Libre Flot still appeals for his liberation – which is still denied to him regardless of the numerous times he launched this procedure.

Multiply the support actions everywhere.

DESTROY PRISON. END OF ISOLATION QUARTERS.

Petition for the release of Libre Flot: https://www.mesopinions.com/petition/droits-homme/soutien-greve-faim-liberte-florian/173967

Reflection on Situation in Ukraine

Current realities in Ukraine and the individual commitment of some people strangely resonate with voluntary efforts to combat DAESH. I’m not talking to far-right militants for whom ideology is based on the hatred of others, but to you, internationalists volunteers, who leave to fight for the self-defense of Ukraine and for the love of life.

To you who are today criminalized by mainstream medias and politics, you should know this: if you are political militants today, you are tomorrow’s terrorists in the eyes of the state. When you return, like me who joined the YPG and fought DAESH barbarians, this experience will be the sword of Damocles the government and DGSI (French intelligence services) will hang over your head.

You’ll be, for sure, watched and surveilled, your entire life rewritten, redrawn, reinterpreted. Simple jokes will become elements of your case when these institutions will need to use you for their political agenda.

I have been on hunger strike since the 27th of February, demanding that the state stops treating me as a terrorist despite the indifference of mainstream media and politics that function under a tombstone-like lead screen. I’ll end on these words from Ukrainian anarchists : “Freedom for the peoples. Death to empires!”

Libre Flot

UPDATE: 19th of March

Hello all. I would like to sincerely and simply thank all the collectives who organized this march against state violence for offering me and those close to me this space to speak and make my current situation known. Give them my profound respect for their initiatives, their struggles. These are struggles in which I can only imagine the dedication and risk involved, their length and difficulty. My participation was too small in these struggles, but I have listened and read many interventions of the different collectives and participants, generally families of the victims. I was always impressed by the strength and determination that shine from them, their tight analysis and their example.

This 19th of March 2022, beside the white torture the state has put me through for more than 15 months I don’t forget I’m still alive, I have access to medical care and a lot of other privileges that the people we honor the memory of today did not have.  I want to pay tribute to all the victims of the French state, to give my honest and humble support to their relatives, for truth and justice. Solidarity. Solzv u rez.

Libre flo.

UPDATE: 17 DAYS ON HUNGER STRIKE

Below is the transcript of a recent message from Libre Flot:

After 17 days on hunger strike the institutions–well knowing what is happening–stay totally uninterested. While those close to me are more and more concerned about the health consequences and sequelae that this hunger strike will let for the rest of my life, what can I answer them? That anyway the consequences of this imprisonment already exists, that I already suffer in my body, that my spirit is already its own shadow, that the scars on my psyche require long care and that if I stay it will only get worse.

Here I’m witnessing the lost of reason of my neighbors, I hear them changing while months are passing. I hear some of them going insane. And what about me? Is my situation healthier, wrapped in my silence in a pantomime of student life that is no longer deceiving myself learning a foreign language while my memory is dislocating, thinking that I’m evolving spending a week on a half hour lesson that I know already. So degradation for degradation, what follows, follows. Let it be my choice, to utter this cry for life, to launch this cry for help. Take me out of this tomb. Silav u rez. Thank for your support.

ATHENS: Banner in Solidarity with Political Prisoners

ATHENS, GREECE: Banner in solidarity with imprisoned comrades Libre Flot, D. Chatzivasiliadis, and 11 political prisoners in Turkey.
Full post here

UPDATE: 6TH DAY OF HUNGER STRIKE

It’s been six days since our comrades started the hunger strike. He did so at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine knowing very well that this information would drown in the news about the war. That all efforts would be focused on supporting the resistance in Ukraine and the people fleeing from there. It’s amazing what support for Ukraine has gathered, even thought it also came with shortcomings and contradiction; racist sentiment and nationalist visions for the future to name but two of them. Our comrade would in the same way support people fight for freedom. He is in isolation, the method the state use to deprive us of connection and communication with others. He needs us in the same way we need each other, we can never win alone. A person with their body can resist the repression of the state, but without the access we have on the outside his voice will not be heard.

Here are a few thing you can do to support

    1. Make support actions and actions against the French embassy where you live

    2. Send emails to the embassy 

    3. Write articles about this and spread everywhere or spread info about the blog

Our everyday struggles are supporting our imprisoned comrade as well and though we don’t believe in the French state justice system, it is good to make sure they are aware that that we know what is going on.

The email could contain something like this:

To whom it may concern,

Six days ago a person who is imprisoned and isolated at Bois D’Arcy started a hunger strike. I’m sure by now you are very much aware of this. You may think that because of the invasion of Ukraine nobody will pay attention to a person starving to death inside of the walls of your prison complex. That nobody talks or shares with the world what is happening. You are wrong. If you isolate someone on terrorist charges but can provide no proof and have no reason for keeping him further then “he has a charismatic personality” you will not be taken seriously in the eyes of the people. The death of this person will be blood on your hands. How will you explain this to his family. How will you justify this publicly afterwards? If you believe that taking these measures before the election will provide votes and show strength I can tell you now that the mothers of killed Russian soldier invading Ukraine do not see the strength of Putin. They see their own children sacrificed as a pawn in the political games of nation states. I’m writing this to share this perspective. You are already aware of these things. The question that is being discussed at this moment is probably how unnoticed his death would be. If you can respond to the pressure of this person who gives his life for freedom. Consider this. Letting him go home most likely doesn’t mean that the investigation will cease, there is at this point not a vision of a change of society. So, if the interrogations so far gave nothing, and everyone else in this case are already released, there is nothing to gain to keep him on principles until he dies, but everything to loose. 

Regards,