Seen in a red sweater, Xiros appears in front of pictures of Che Guevara, Aris Velouchiotis (a leftist WWII resistance fighter) and figures from Greece’s War of Independence. In the video and written statement Xiros makes clear that he considers Greece to be under a new form of occupation and that he is willing to take up arms against the ‘blatantly fascist’ state.

Below is the written statement translated in full.


“Just because the well-known media crocodiles will start shedding tears over lost rights, and will, as always, demand blood in the arena, I have to say this: first of all, your democracy died a long time ago and the abomination that remains is so blatantly fascist that the edges of the swastika are visibly extending from it.

So don’t pretend that you are the honorers and the protectors when at the same time you kill the young for €1,40 and don’t even care [refers to the 2013 incident when a teenager fell off a bus and died, trying to escape the conductor because he had no ticket]. Not to us, media crooks, creditors’ mouthpieces, collaborators of the Fourth Reich. It is natural that my escape causes panic and terror to you and those you serve!

But not to society and the people. You are against us, you are lackeys of those who destroyed us and this is now common knowledge. You can’t fool us anymore. Nothing can save you, neither the Dachau you are planning, nor the armies of mercenaries. Whatever you do, soon enough the river of fury will swell and drown you!

And I warn you: don’t you dare cannibalize my family and my loved ones, don’t even think you can repeat the outrages of 2002, when you had us all captured. Now you will get the response you deserve!

For now I am dedicating to them a verse from Vassilis Papakonstantinou’s song “Karaiskakis” [about the famed general of the Greek War of Independence]: “When I return I’ll fuck you up.”

That I convinced my guardians to give me leave from prison, I consider a personal achievement and I will respond to them with the phrase that Tzavellas said when he convinced Ali Pasha to free him: “I am happy I fooled a sly one”. Of course, he paid for his act with the life of his child, who was a prisoner of Ali Pasha. [Tzavellas was also a fighter in the Greek War of Independence and Ali Pasha the Ottoman governor of the Western city of Ioannina]

If you were smart enough, you wouldn’t only have given us a few days of leave but our freedom, but of course, you’re not. Now, if at the eleventh hour, instead of yelling hysterically, creating harsher laws and tougher oppression – that demonstrate the level of your democracy – you’d better prepare for your shameful flight. Because your reign is over and you haven’t even realised it.

I could have rested on my laurels for my past actions and repeated the cliche of the times that, ‘someone should do something’. I didn’t. My choice to violate my leave, first and foremost destroys my path.

But what prospects can one have while watching society collapse, the country being destroyed and its people enslaved? How long will we continue to watch, in the year 2014, people dieing from open braziers and remain apathetic? I, in any case, will not!

Yet again I took the decision to fire the guerilla’s rifle against those who stole our lives and sold our dreams to make a profit. We don’t want your benefactions, keep them as tips for your lackeys. We want our rights and we will win them with a weapon in our hands. We don’t ask for favours from anyone and especially from the supplicants. And you would do well, if we meet again, which I don’t wish for (and neither should you) to kill me, because if you capture me again, I will escape once more to fight you to the end.

I will conclude this letter with an excerpt from the political statement that I made to the second instance court in place of a defense, in November 2006: “I am not in any way what you describe, yet I am surely I am what you fear”.

And I will repeat the same verse from Prometheus in Chains: “Beat, chain the body, slaves of Zeus, the mind – the soul remains free.”

Christodoulos Xiros, Free member of November 17.”

The video (in Greek) uploaded by Xiros: