After a 31-day hunger strike, Nikos Romanos sounded a triumphant note on Wednesday, saying the amendment passed in parliament, allowing him to attend university while wearing an electronic bracelet, was the ‘result of the political pressure we applied.”
“After 31 days of a tough and unyielding struggle, I am ending my hunger strike having achieved an important victory,” he said, adding that ‘the people that struggled and active anarchy are undeniably, the moral, political and practical winners,” he said.
Romanos had gone on hunger strike on November 10, when authorities refused to grant him education furlough to attend a technical college, after passing entrance exams last summer. Before ending his hunger strike, he also stopped taking liquids on Wednesday morning.
A self-styled anarchist, Romanos insists on calling himself a political prisoner even though he was convicted of armed robbery.
“The multi-faced revolutionary struggle and we, as political prisoners, are coming out of this battle stronger,” he said
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He ended his letter with the cry: ‘Long live Anarchy’
Romanos is serving a 15-year prison term, along with five others sentenced between 15 and 16 years for an armed robbery in February 2013, in the town of Velvento in northern Greece.
However, they were cleared of initial suspicions they were members of the urban guerilla group Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire.
Greek Justice Minister Haralambos Athanasiou submitted an amendment on Wednesday that allows prisoners to attend university courses while wearing a monitoring bracelet. The only precondition is that the prisoners complete a third of their first semester via distance learning.
The amendment follows a Supreme Court prosecutor’s rejection on Tuesday of an appeal by Romanos against an earlier court decision that refused him education leave.