Sabotage Claim Targets Surveillance Cameras at Athens Polytechnic and Exarcheia Perimeter
Source: Act For Freedom Now!
Executive Summary
A communique published by Act For Freedom Now! claims activists removed surveillance cameras installed in and around the Polytechnic complex in Athens, framing the action as resistance to “educational restructuring,” preventive repression, and neighborhood gentrification. The text presents the sabotage as both practical disruption and symbolic defiance timed around Polytechnic uprising symbolism. It also explicitly encourages others to replicate the tactic to make the campus “free from surveillance cameras.”
Analysis
The statement argues Greek state and university authorities are tightening control over campuses through disciplinary regimes, restricted access hours, police and private security presence, and expanded surveillance. It frames these measures as a counter-insurgency effort aimed at suppressing politicization and dissent within universities while aligning higher education with business interests. The communique layers this within broader grievances including corruption scandals, border and rail “state crimes,” workplace deaths blamed on employers, and alleged university collaboration with Israel.
Operationally, the claim is straightforward: activists climbed and brought down surveillance cameras at the Polytechnic’s Patission complex while the area was “bustling with life,” emphasizing confidence and visibility rather than clandestine action. It also claims the surveillance footprint extended into Exarcheia, citing camera placement on surrounding streets and portraying this as support for sustained neighborhood policing and for touristification and gentrification plans. The closing section is an overt call for repetition, welcoming similar actions and framing camera sabotage as an appropriate, scalable response to campus and neighborhood surveillance expansion.
