We, the people of the movement against the destructive extractions in Halkidiki, turn once again to you, our fellow citizens, fellow fighters, fellow people.
A crime is taking place in Greece these days. With the pretext of the financial crisis, the environment, human rights, human dignity, democracy, freedom of speech and the quality of life are all being sacrificed on the altar of business interests, political ambitions and a neoliberal capitalism, which shows its most inhuman face in Greece.
In Halkidiki, we have been witnessing for a long time the policy of “national salvation at any cost”. At the cost of human lives, of human rights and of the natural environment.
Large scale extracting activities have been planned in our land, which are threatening to destroy a forest of incredible beauty and ecological value. They are threatening to contaminate the aquifer, the air, the ground and the sea. They are threatening our productive activities. They sentence and mortgage the future of our children.
The social movement of protest and resistance to those destructive plans has suffered terrible state repression, police violence, prosecutions, imprisonments, defamation, muzzling and criminalization. And yet we hold on. We continue to fiercely claim our right to live and to dream.
Our strength is the love for our land, our natural and cultural space. Our strength is our unity in a common struggle for life. Our strength is solidarity.
On the 9th of November we will meet in Thessaloniki for a rally of protest, struggle and solidarity.
We call on you to stand by our side, on the same day, and to meet at your own gathering places in a joint action of solidarity.
Only united and in solidarity we can fight for a dignified present and a better future.
STRUGGLE COMMITTEES OF HALKIDIKI AND THESSALONIKI
People and nature come before foreign profits. No mining in Chalkidiki.