The “for a breath of freedom” was initially written in the autumn of 2014, during hunger strike of N. Romanos and was completed about a year later (early October 2015). It is evident that the struggle of Romanos, alongside with the prisoners’ hunger strike in the spring of ‘15 played a key role in how the story unfolded. One of the main influences (perhaps the most important one) for the comic was a brochure entitled “Mapping the specific conditions of detention” (from the collective discourse and action project “Perasma”, in Patras) on the special conditions of detention. Some of them are complete isolation, white cells with 24-hour light and electronic monitoring, taken to courtyard alone, censorship and the overall restriction of communication with the outside world, the psychological pressure, violence, vaginal checks and depreciation / rape of detainees’ body.
The conditions described in the comic (and based on a summary of the brochure) do not exactly describe the current greek reality -especially after the prisoners’ struggle during last spring. But outline the nightmarish direction that gets the increasing criminalization and control of our lives. The initial emotional shock reading the brochure was succeeded by rage and the pursuit for denunciation -but even more for resistance, support and solidarity with the struggles of prisoners.
Other sources and influences were the books “Political prisoner and Special Conditions of Imprisonment” by the Trans-Siberian editions, the ” LES PRISONS DE LA MISERE ” of WACQUANT JD LOIC, the “Run, People, Run” of GONZALLES XOSE-TARRIO, the brochure ” La société punitive” by M. Foucault, the film “Tacit Death: A smothered cry from the cells of isolation,” the comics by Joe Sacco but also the Don Quixote.
UPDATE 2016: The comic was published by the publication project Asymmetric Threat.
