The judicial sentencing of the communist trade unionist Sotiris Zarianopoulos, member of the Executive Secretariat of the All-workers’ Militant Front (PAME) and of Anna Anianadou, cadre of PAME in the sector of the mass media and journalist of the newspaper of the CC of the KKE, “Rizospastis”, to 6 months in prison for the symbolic intervention of PAME in the news programme of ET3 on the 17^th of December 2009, a day of a general strike, caused a “storm” of protests.  Of course, this decision was not a bolt out of the blue. The trial of the 35 trade unionists of PAME has been scheduled to take place in the next few days merely because they tried to protest at the office of the Minister of Labour and Social Security on 30/1/2013. The trial of cadres of the class-oriented seamen’s union is also pending, who four years ago were picketing to protect their strike in the port of Piraeus.

Now there is hardly any significant mobilization of sectors of workers or other popular strata, for the just demands they are defending and even their own survival, against which the mechanisms of the attorneys and the judiciary do not attack.

The criminalization of the long heroic struggle of the workers of Hellenic Steel, because they defended their work is a characteristic example.  24 strikers are in the dock as defendants. There have been repeated guilty verdicts at the expense of the trade-unionists and members of the unions of the ship-building zone of Perama. Hundreds of identical law suits have been made against these unions, with baseless and fabricated accusations made by the labour contractors. This is the group of contractors who called on the Nazi “Golden Dawn” to remove PAME from the zone. On 17/10/2013, the unprecedented guilty verdict against the President of the tourist-restaurant workers’ union and another worker by the three member magistrates court of Larisa to 1 year in prison and the deprival of political rights. On 23/10/2013 the guilty verdict of 10 farmers of Elassona by the 3 member magistrates court of Larisa to 7 months in prison, because they participated in farmers’ demonstrations in 2009. On 4/11 86 of the 92 accused farmers were condemned to 5 months in prison for the demonstrations of 2009. On 2/12 5 farmers were condemned to 4 months in prison by the permanent magistrates court of Kozani for mobilizations in January 2010.  In Thessaly, as well as in other areas of Greece, a new cycle of prosecutions has begun, with dozens of preliminary procedures and trial briefs underway, at the expense of leading farmers who participated in the mobilizations last winter. On 8/10/2013 6 school students from the 1^st Technical High School of Lamia were condemned with very procedures, on 16/10 10 school-students from the Technical High School of Igoumenitsa were arrested and sent to trial. In addition, the attorneys and police are invading schools all over the country, where school-students are struggling. Threats and summons are being made by the attorneys and police against parents’ associations.

These are examples of the attempts to repress the class struggles against the barbarity of capital, the state and its justice. They demonstrate what PAME says about the “democracy of the monopolies”: this is limited to the interior of the Parliament. It stops outside the doors of the factories and companies. The terror and dictatorship of the monopolies rules behind these doors.

The government is attempting to impose by force its barbaric anti-worker and anti-people political line, attempting to literally flatten the workers’ and people’s rights. The guilty verdicts of their courts do not have as their main target the cadres of PAME and the class-oriented trade unions, who of course are not bowed by these verdicts, as thousands of militants of the movement were not bowed in more difficult conditions and to whom all the gains of the workers are owed, the gains that are now being torn down.

Their main goal is to intimidate every worker, so they do not participate in their trade union, so that they do not organize, so that they do not protest, so that they do not go on strike, so that they do not struggle. And all this when a new tsunami of measures which may provoke workers’ uprisings. They want to prevent this.

The KKE and PAME stress that the workers, the poor popular strata, must reject and fight against the authoritarianism and the anti-people political line and raise their militancy in order to satisfy their own needs. They must not bow their heads. They have nothing to lose if they struggle. They will lose if they are afraid and tolerant. If the workers are determined, no government, no judiciary, no police, no employer and no state can resist these struggles.