Yesterday morning (25/10), the Civil Police carried out in Porto Alegre (RS) and in the metropolitan region a dozen search and seizure warrants in autonomous spaces and houses of individuals that they identified as anarchists. The warrants are part of an investigation that has been going on for over a year. We understand that it is no coincidence that this police action is activated just two days before the 8th Anarchist Book Fair of Porto Alegre.
Due to this context of repression and persecution of anarchist groups and individuals we decided to cancel the Anarchist Book Fair of Porto Alegre this year. We disappear, below the radars, only to reappear at another point without ceasing to build spaces and moments of freedom. The map is not the territory, and for this the State and the Capital are myopic.
It is not surprising that the police are starting a campaign that blames for association because it has no evidence. It is the police’s role to incriminate and forge evidence. In headlines, anarchist books, banners and posters are the “evidence of crime.” This makes explicit that any expression that does not submit to the state will be criminalized and that there is no freedom in democracy and the capitalist system. This freedom, in fact, never existed under any government, except as a mere illusion to be dispelled as soon as it was not more in the interests of capital. This is what is happening now in several countries, with the growth of repression, fascism and xenophobia.
Because of all this, we understand that, for the time being, it is better to rearticulate from another point, far from the spotlight. It’s a decision that hurts us a lot to take. Even more so after the effort and affection we dedicated to organize this event, all the proposals for activities that came from near and far, the people who were already moving here and also to break this cycle, in what would be the eighth consecutive year of anarchist book fairs in the city.
We know that these attacks start from the worst among our opponents. They take different forms, but they are part of the same series that we can recognize in other spheres. In other cases, they use a moral discourse to censor, as in the Queer Museum exhibition, technical discourses to maintain inequalities, such as the deception that “the economy is going well” while poverty is only increasing. In this, they use de factoids and physical violence seeking to maintain control over the minds and bodies of the people they intend to dominate. As we try to blow up with bottle molotovs, we grow stronger.
Let us bring solidarity to all those who are suffering from criminalization. From Italy to Argentina, from the United States to Russia, our struggle is the same.
We do not surrender and we will not lose our ardent desire for freedom!
Anarchist News Agency – ANA
