On Thursday, July 27, women prisoners occupied Korydallos prison. We publish a statement of the women prisoners.

Submitted to Enough is Enough, translated by Black Cat

Statement Women Prisoners in Korydallos Prison Greece, July 27, 2017

Today, on Thursday the women prisoners in Korydallos occupied the prison in order to keep it open throughout the night, as a response to the death of Vasiliki Stathopoulou, a woman who was imprisoned here. Vasiliki was a cancer patient. She was in prison for over two months and all the while her health was in a terrible condition, the authorities and the doctors kept saying she was just faking it and nothing was wrong with her. She was eventually hospitalized after she collapsed. She died yesterday, on the 26th of July and we were informed of her death today.

We decided collectively to respond to the death of our fellow prisoner and the fact that she was not taken seriously during the previous period, so we attempted to keep the prison open throughout the night. At 22:30 the chief prison-guard Nikolopoulos came in, with ten men from the men’s prison and forcibly locked the women in wards, apart from those who were at the front of the building. In many cases, those who resisted were pushed violently. Next, none of the women were allowed to go out.

Our reaction to the death of our fellow prisoner is a minimum reaction against everything she went through and aims to show that women prisoners facing serious heath conditions -which are many- do not have access to healthcare and are not treated with respect.

The Ministry of Justice, the D.A. and the authorities in prison, repressed our mobilization through the use of violence. This repressive operation in the women’s prison constitutes a political success of the Syriza-Independent Greeks administration.