Residents dismantle cell phone antennas at Gyzi (Athens, 19/10/2008)

This is a translation of a text sent by a resident and another person at http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=916758

Tody at the basket court of Kyprianou street in Poligonou forest was realised the Assembly of Gyzi residents were more than 150 residents from Gyzi, Polygono and near-by districts participated...

The residents realised the decision they took in the previous assembly and moved to the destruction-deactivation of the cell phone antenna on the roof of a appartment block on Kyprianou street. Chanting slogans that could be translated to "Cancer and Antenna go in couple", "What doesn't go out, goes down" and "If we don't resist in every neighborhood, our cities will turn into hi-tech prisons", the residents left in a demonstration and moved to another antenna they destroyed on the roof of an appartment block near Kyprianou street.

A march followed heading to Gyzi square, where the residents invaded two appartment blocks to check whether there where antennas and if the owners had any licence. The police was following but didn't cause any problems to the residents who seemed well determined not to spread in case the police tried to pull something.

It's been 20 years since Gyzi and Polygono residents had seen any mobilizations and no one expected something with such a temper.

A new popular assembly is arranged for next Sunday at the basket court on Kyprianou, while there will be interventions to propagate what was achieved today!

It was really a fest.



There is another report that more than 300 persons participated and destroyed in total 6 antennas.

Note: More than 3.500 antennas (mostly for "3rd generation" mobile phones) are placed in Attica (Athens prefecture) and 8.000 around Greece. Many of them camouflaged into boilers or chimneys, because of the special legal conditions (there is no valid current law on the issue), though the levels of their radiation (900 and 1.800 MHz) are 100 more than many european countries. Residents in many neighborhoods around Athens, gather around open popular assemblies to take collective and open-air direct action of hundreds of residents against the cell phone antennas.