An anti-austerity protest outside the Finance Ministry in Athens in July. (Yorgos Karahali / Reuters)As Greeks continue to suffer under harsh austerity policies and a “Troika” friendly government, a statement of both refusal and solidarity is getting louder within struggling Greek communities. One group who portrays this sentiment is calling itself “We Won’t Pay,” an organization made up of thousands of guerrilla electricians who illegally reconnect services to Greeks who can no longer afford their utility bills.
The story, as reported by Russian news agency RT on Thursday, portrays a group, growing in both popularity and size, that combs communities in Greece to reconnect electricity for families for free, who have had their services previously shut off.
“We must violate or not respect a law which says thousands of people will have no electricity to cook, no electricity to see water, to see TV, no electricity, to switch on AC,” an economist from Varna Free University of Cyprus, Leonidas Vatikiotis, told RT in regards to the movement.
The group, who also disconnects power from road tolls, making them free for drivers, and occasionally does the same within the Athens metro system, says it now has 10,000 members, whose numbers continue to grow.
“The vast majority of the public is sunk into poverty, and a few families across the world have 99 percent of the wealth. That’s not something we want to bear, that’s something we want to overthrow here in Greece and across the world,” Ilias Papadopoulos from “We Won’t Pay” told RT.
Unemployment in Greece continues to rise with a record high of 27.6 percent reported on Thursday.
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Republished from: Common Dreams