Italy: Updates on the anarchists arrested for the “Prometeo” operation (25/06/2019)

(received 25/6/29)

After the arrests of 21 May 2019 for the repressive operation “Prometeo” (“Prometheus”), Robert and Beppe were imprisoned in the Opera prison in Milan until June 21st, while Natascia was imprisoned in France.

In the maximum security prison of Opera, Robert and Beppe spent an entire month in isolation in section 41bis, as there is no AS2 section [“High Surveillance 2”], with only an hour a day of “socializing” by being able to see each other, and the rest of the day with the barrier closed. This “illegal” regime was reported to the judge, PM and guarantor of the detainees, especially since the isolation had not been requested by the judge, but nothing changed for a month.

Saturday, May 25th, a warm greeting of solidarity under the prison was heard and welcomed.

Talks have been authorized for those who have requested it; letters and books have been received and sent even if slowly, they have received money and packages with clothes and food with some arbitrary prohibition on the passage of certain things by the guards (apparently cooked white rice and books with photos of mountain landscapes have been incomprehensibly incriminated). In particular, Beppe received several ill-treatment by the guards, including homophobic insults, missed access to the showers for 3 days, he was not given food for at least twice and after the colloquy he was left alone for at least two hours in a small room before being returned to the cell.

Around June 13th Natascia was extradited to Italy, to the Rebibbia prison. The comrades sent money and parcels of first necessity; she had a cellmate, and after protesting she managed to get at least the door of the cell open. The first interrogation was subsequently carried out, she was able to hold talks with the lawyer of his choice after the unfortunate episode of the lawyer in France, he asked for news of the imprisoned comrades on hunger strike, a press review on the Prometeo operation and some books. A few days later Natasha also joined the hunger strike [started by Anna and Silvia on 29 May in the prison of L’Aquila]. Around June 21, she was transferred to L’Aquila.

On 19 June there was a review [it is a judicial hearing] for Robert and Beppe and two days later, on Friday 21st, they had an interview with the lawyer. As early as the following day, Beppe was transferred to Alessandria, and on Monday was confirmed the transfer of Robert to the prison of Terni. On June 24, the official response of the review arrived, confirming the precautionary measures in prison.

They still have all the censorship of the post regarding the “political contents”.

We reiterate our solidarity, and we invite all to continue to express it, even by sending telegrams, letters, books, which help to keep the spirit of our prisoners high.

Freedom for Robert, Natascia and Beppe!
Not a step back, no remorse.

The new addresses to write to are:

Natascia Savio
C. C. de L’Aquila
via Amiternina 3
Località Costarelle di Preturo
67100 L’Aquila
Italia [Italy]

Robert Firozpoor
C. C. di Terni
via delle Campore 32
05100 Terni
Italia [Italy]

Giuseppe Bruna
C. C. di Alessandria “San Michele”
strada statale per Casale 50/A
15121 Alessandria
Italia [Italy]

Italy, “Prometeo” operation: Natascia was transferred to the prison of L’Aquila and started a hunger strike

(Received 23/6/29)

The anarchist comrade Natascia Savio, arrested on May 21, 2019, for the “Prometeto” (“Prometheus”) operation (together with Giuseppe and Robert), was transferred from the Rebibbia women’s prison in Rome to the prison of L’Aquila, precisely in the same section (AS2, “High Surveillance 2”) where are imprisoned Anna Beniamino and Silvia Ruggeri, on a hunger strike since May 29th.

Also in June she was transferred from the prison of Gradignan, near Bordeaux (in France), to Rome Rebibbia, where she was imprisoned for a few days and where she began a hunger strike in solidarity with Anna and Silvia. On 20 June it became known that she was transferred to L’Aquila, so the comrade is actually imprisoned under the same conditions and restrictions imposed on Anna and Silvia.

Solidarity with Anna, Silvia, Alfredo, Marco and Natascia on hunger strike!

Here the address of Natascia:

Natascia Savio
C. C. de L’Aquila
via Amiternina 3
Località Costarelle di Preturo
67100 L’Aquila
Italia [Italy]

 

In solidarity

Italia, operazione “Panico”: Ghespe trasferito agli arresti domiciliari
Italy, “Panico” operation: Anarchist comrades Giovanni Ghezzi and Pierloreto Fallanca (Paska) under house arrest
https://insuscettibilediravvedimento.noblogs.org/post/2019/06/15/it-en-fr-italia-operazione-panico-giovanni-e-paska-sono-stati-trasferiti-agli-arresti-domiciliari/

Arrests and searches following a repressive operation against the anarchists in Trentino (Italy)

(Received 22/02/19)

Arrests and searches following a repressive operation against the anarchists in Trentino (Italy)

During the night and the morning of Tuesday, February 19, 2019, seven anarchists were arrested in various places in Trentino (Italy): Agnese, Giulio, Nico, Poza, Rupert, Sasha, Stecco. One person (Sasha) was placed under house arrest while all the others were imprisoned in various prisons. The main accusations are “subversive association for the purpose of terrorism and subversion of the democratic order” (article 270bis of the penal code) and “terrorist attack” (article 280 of the penal code), with reference to some direct actions that took place in Trentino during the last few years. Other offenses of which they are accused are: “interruption of public service”, “damage”, “sabotage of telematic devices”, “fire” and “transport of exploding material”. At the same time 50 searches were carried out, with about 150 policemen and carabinieri mobilized in the repressive operation (which was given the name “operation Renata”, apparently a name taken from the nickname given to a car used by some comrades). The investigations were conducted by Digos (state police) and ROS (carabinieri). On the same day of the arrests, a press conference took place in Rome, organized by anti-terrorism. It is clear the attempt to hit the anarchist presence in Trentino, pigeonholing and describing the relations between anarchist comrades within a phantom “subversive association” (with leaders, gregari, cashiers, responsible, “covi”, etc.), an accusation trying to distribute as many years as possible in prison.

It is probable that soon the comrades will be transferred to other prisons (therefore the addresses will change). Below are the latest updated addresses.

Revolutionary solidarity with the imprisoned anarchists!

Giulio:
Giulio Berdusco
Casa Circondariale di Udine
Via Paluzza 77
33028 Tolmezzo (UD)
Italia [Italy]

Rupert:
Roberto Bottamedi
Casa Circondariale di Brescia Canton Mombello
Via Spalto S. Marco 20
25100 Brescia (BS)
Italia [Italy]

Nico:
Nicola Briganti
Casa Circondariale di Verona Montorio
Via S. Michele 15
37131 Verona (VR)
Italia [Italy]

Stecco:
Luca Dolce
Casa Circondariale di Udine
Via Paluzza 77
33028 Tolmezzo (UD)
Italia [Italy]

Poza:
Andrea Parolari
Casa Circondariale di Vicenza
Via Basilio Dalla Scola 150
36100 Vicenza (VI)
Italia [Italy]

Agnese:
Agnese Trentin
Casa di Reclusione Verziano
Via Flero 157
25125 Brescia (BS)
Italia [Italy]

***

Greece: ‘Insurrection Cannot Be Negotiated’ by Imprisoned Conspiracy of Cells of Fire FAI-IRF Member Panagiotis Argyrou

(Received 12/11/17)

Insurrection Cannot Be Negotiated

Time is the illness of reality. In prison, time seems to poison the atmosphere. The air thickens as though it is flooded with lead filings and each and every day our lungs are infested with this oxygen so toxic that it weighs on us again and again, more so with each passing day.

You feel so burdened that at some point you begin to think that every step you take, removes a day from your life; each step and a day less, each step and a day less…

During these almost 6 years and a half of my imprisonment, I always felt like I was killing so many days while moving endlessly back and forth in courtrooms. I have seen the despicable ritual of trials taking place in the name of Democracy too many times repeatedly and every single time I walked away with packs of decades of sentences on my back.

However, it is not only the harsh sentences imposed on me by all this bureaucratic barbarity which has been grinding lives in the millstone of justice that bothers me the most, but also the arrogant and self-righteous style of the judges that execute our freedom while maintaining the illusion of representing something special.

We now, therefore, are in the process of a new round of trials, where the judicial decisions of the proceedings at first instance are being reviewed on whether they were correct or not. Personally, I didn’t attend this process to beg for mitigating or commutation. I did it to confront the propaganda of authority, a propaganda that is trying to legitimize morally and politically our convictions. For sovereignty, it is quite important and wise not only to eliminate its enemies by holding them hostage for years but also to deconstruct their personalities so that their motives and their actions appear selfish, dark, dirty and anything other than actions that aim at the very core of sovereignty: power.

For Democracy, we are just some common law criminals. Although they call us terrorists, vote for special laws for our prosecution, create special troops in order to pursue us, although we are tried in special courts by special judges selected specifically for these occasions, although they keep us, occasionally, captives in special solitary confinement or make sure to impose on us every possible or improbable scenario of exemption to several acquired rights of the prisoners, they above all consider us common law criminals. At this point we are seeing the following exceptionally uncommon. Even though our actions theoretically fall under the common criminal offence, the entire political system feels the need to condemn it politically on a continuous basis with expressions of outrage. The same goes for a whole mob of journalists, academics of all kinds, figures of the left-progressive artistic stage and generally various high profile and acknowledged personalities of society.

All of them tend to affirm repeatedly how very detestable the culture of violence is and how “Democracy has no deadlocks”. There has never been such a fuss, of course, about any other common law offences and we will surely not see any surprises in the future.

Still, at these judicial proceedings, prosecutors often feel the need to add some political positions to their, usually, rambling discourses, apart from all the legal statements.

Frequently, in courtrooms of that kind we have heard prosecutors rushing to comment politically on what terrorism means, what political crime means and for which reasons, in Democracy, protesting must have limits.

More royal than the king, prosecutors present themselves with the Royal Purple clothing of Democracy preaching its moral, political and cultural superiority, only to conclude finally in the classical ancient well known verdict that there is no greater evil than anarchy.

They may not repeat, of course, the words that Sophocles put in Creon’s mouth in his famous work “Antigone”, but the meaning always remains the same. Prosecutors with their judgements, representing authority’s universe of values, do not content themselves with the adoption of the usual convictions but also seek to crush the practical opposition to Democracy’s authority and the violent contest of its laws and institutions. So these special courts officially refuse to admit that in reality we are prisoners of war, while at the same time are anxiously striving to defend Democracy’s “highest” values, as the latest bulwarks of system’s moral legality. And that, if anything, could only constitute even an indirect admission that these trials are in reality trials of values.

In the real world, the material world, perceivable through our senses, the ideas that are lacking of related actions are hollow, empty, deprived of substance and meaning. If today I am a hostage of authority tried again and again, either at first or second instance, it is because I have let the idea of anarchy find its way inside me and have chosen to live fighting in various ways against authority.

In love with the value of absolute freedom, believing strongly deep down that any kind of power – even if presented under different guises each time – is nothing but a noose around the neck of people that tightens and strangles their freedom, I have hated laws, rules and the morality of your world.

I disdained every authority, loathed any sense of discipline and loved the idea of rebellion as a continuous practical opposition to power. Being charmed by the beauty of absolute freedom as a value was not just a caprice of my adolescence, neither a juvenile paroxysm created by some easy adrenaline-based excitement and it certainly wasn’t a result of some random passage along the corridors of a library of anarchist writers.

At a time when social protest and any social struggles were considered at best old-fashioned, dated, a remnant of an old graphic era that had to be placed in an honorary mausoleum or an enhancement field for unionism advocates of the rights (both of workers and students) who brought any political clientele and a despicable cheap politicking together, the only social dynamic that stood up in combative terms was the world of anarchy and the wider anti-authoritarianism. I made the decision to become part of this dynamic, however the social conditions of this era have greatly shaped my general worldview as well.

In the mid-2000s, when I began to take part in the various events of the anarchist movement, the socially shaped reality radiated an absolute gloom. The political hegemony of the system had actually built two strong pillars on society:

I) On the one hand, the systematic corruption and bribery of the lowest social strata, applied as a central policy by the Social Democratic administration of power from 1980 onward, created a whole chaotic universe of “class-based inconsistent views”, which brought a radical restructuring of the social classes of that time.

That volatile social mobility developed, out of the blue, new categories of upstarts while the formerly detestable (even for the former political left) class of the petit bourgeois rose to inconceivable dimensions, as within fifteen years the civil servants, small and medium sized rentiers, property and agricultural land owners, entrepreneurs (the so-called “small bosses”) and self-employed increased by thousands.

The shortage of cheap labor (i.e. slaves that have nothing to lose but their chains) created by this informal social democratic social reform was later covered by the open border policy which has been conducted from 1990 onwards with huge migratory flows overwhelming the entire Greek territory. The holes that appeared in the productive sector were covered by the willing and cheap labour of thousands of immigrants, who built with their sweat and sometimes with their blood, under the most terrible exploitative conditions (mainly undeclared work), the small miracle of the Greek society, while at the same time the vast majority of society enjoyed blithely the days of abundance, frequently sharpening its racist instincts.

This strategy of the Greek social democracy was apparently aiming at the ceasing of the social rage that was breaking out till 1980 and the regular maintaining of the social contract without any radical agitations. Although these social democratic strategies were not new – on the contrary they have been extensively developed in the past, even by prominent figures of the communist pantheon such as Marx and Lenin (who talked about the capability of social democracy to corrupt broad parts of the working class, creating a “labour aristocracy” with indistinct borders in relation to the working class itself, which constitutes the social pillar of the bourgeoisie or the social basis of opportunism) – there was no substantial political bulwark against this advance of social corruption, since only some revolutionary urban guerrilla organizations stood against all this, and so did anarchy along with some parts of the younger generation who formed a lighthouse of insurrection and resistance to all this decay.

And besides, that is the reason why they received a relentless state repression.

Of course even though the Greek state was, from the very beginning of its establishment, nothing but a pathetic country of dependence tied with the noose of external indebtedness around its neck to the geopolitical interests of other powers or, even so, a state lacking of any advanced industrial development with no exploitation in other third countries, still the Greek social democracy managed to accomplish in absolute terms the formation of one of the most disgusting and cruel “labour aristocracies” that perhaps has ever existed.

On the one hand, they made use of the European subsidies and financial allocations and also of the unaccountability led by the financial sector while stepping on the backs and the bodies of “slaves-immigrants” on the other hand, the Greek “social opportunism basis” was expanded so much that the differences between class interests were brought into line.

It was under these circumstances that the common identity of the “modern Greek” was born in the social field.

The values of corruption, stinginess and absolute social cannibalism reigned, as wherever you looked around you could see the confirmation of the existential proverb of Kazantzakis: “man is beast (….) If you harm him, he respects you and trembles in fear of you. If you treat him nice, he will rip your eyes out.”

II) On the other hand, we now have the brutal imposition of the predominant ideology used as a cultural nutrition. The premiere of the private television channels began to write a whole new article in the history of the political life of this country, as various business groups behind every channel stood shoulder to shoulder with one group of authority or another each time. That of course was one part. The other part was that, at the same time, an unprecedented cultural brain washing slowly began to establish the dictatorship of mass culture. The western civilization and life style were extremely promoted as a one-way street, while simultaneously an incredible oversupply of multinational firms’ products filled the storefronts and shelves of abundance with a bunch of merchandise, both basic necessities and goods entirely constructed on a consumer cultural basis that soon became an ideology (I consume therefore I exist).

The effect of advertising on the common emotive and subconscious did not just bring an artificially increased money circulation, but it also reinforced decisively the imposing of aesthetic standards, stereotypical societal roles as well as a general perception of lifestyle, way of thinking and entertainment. And that was also reflected in the urban construction. Coffee bars, fast foods, shopping centres like Village, Mall etc. growing like mushrooms along with the unrestrained industry of night-time entertainment caused the urban transformation of many areas, which became overnight trading zones or zones of alternative, folk, upscale or trendy type of entertainment.

Of course, the modernization of public and semi-public transport during this whole process of urban regeneration was not innocent either.

Furthermore, the interactive effect of spectacle on the collective imaginary began to deform further and further the social majority’s conscience, through a disgusting civilization that produced lifestyle, a glamorous star system and various reality and talent shows.

So this monstrous way of thinking, that distorted every real value (solidarity, mutual assistance, etc.), came into being, while people’s perception regarding the form of social relations was dramatically altered.

Therefore, every relationship that could involve pure selflessness (such as friendship, love, companionship) was distorted, and as a result the most widespread perception of all kinds of relationships became that if they are not purely instrumental, they are no good.

This way of understanding things as well as life itself and people’s relationships became dominant in such an absolute way that even the appearance of a deviation from this norm (conscious or subconscious) collided on a powerful social racism and a multitude of social prejudices, expressed sometimes in the form of a collective devaluation, disdain, mockery, etc. others in the form of an open hostility, hatred and cannibalism of every personality that differs.

So, aware of the social gloom of my time, a gloom that shaped a widespread, collective identity of cannibalism, a collective cannibalistic “we”, hostile towards anything different, anything that doubts, questions, anything that revolts and attacks the existing, I realized that simply the choice of wanting to be an anarchist was nothing less but an antisocial choice as it rejects the dominant trend.

Therefore, I stood against a society, which I understood not as an undivided sum of people, like many that attack scarecrows of our positions would think, but as a breeding machine of all the prevailing ideologies, views, relationships, values. Against a society-laundry of democracy’s ruling tyranny, of its laws and institutions, against this relentless, collective “We” that crushes and butchers every diversity, in every possible way, I chose to defend an “I”, an insurgent “I”, an anarchist “I”, an “I” willing to stand up for values, even if this alone would be enough to turn everyone against it. An I that appreciates more the value of a beautiful forest than an endless concrete jungle where human ants are moving continuously living to work, working to consume, consuming to exist and existing to work. I know that when I refer to the twosome “we-I”, I surprise many and irritate their argumentativeness. Let them bear in mind that Fascism as well as Nazism, on their path towards dominion, attracted the collective We. On the other hand, the anarchist radical federalism has never regarded that We is above the I, but that there is an equal harmonious co-existence between them.

So, in my own mind very soon I reached the view that defending and fighting for a value, for an ideal, for a dream or just for whatever it is that you consider ethical and fair, cannot be a subject of negotiations that depends on how many you have on your side or how attractive this way of life is to the majority of society.

Defending the things that you consider highest of value may as well be a personal choice which doesn’t lose its worth at all, on the contrary it makes it so much more beautiful, even though harder.

You don’t need the social content or the popular support to openly stand up for the position that “the world is turning”, since the moral superiority of such an attitude to life is rated on moral terms and not on sloppy ones. From this point of view, defending freely that “the World is turning”, even when the entire society wants to see you burn at the stake, what else can it be than a choice against society, therefore antisocial?

So, what was of value to me, what I thought was worthwhile to defend and fight for was exactly the value of anarchy, the value of total freedom. I, too, have spent innumerable moments daydreaming about a free world, where completely free people conclude among themselves entirely free relationships, but when I woke up from this daydreaming and faced the social reality, I would leach into a cynical political realism about how nothing of all this is achievable without the entire destruction of society, the womb of all these conditions forming the dire straits that crush our existence.

Considering that I now live in a hostile environment where everyone around me is willing to turn themselves against people like me just because we are different, I have adopted this cynical political realism also as a view of things, and this very realism is what I, personally, call nihilism.

So, as an anarchist I adopted logics and methods of personal and collective insurrection by choosing to establish a relationship of rupture with the existing and its political structure and also with the society that reproduces it, since its legalization in society’s conscience is more than given.

I understood and experienced my affiliation and involvement to the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire as my embarkation to a pirate ship that had no intention of ending up in a secure and safe port, but planned to cross the unexplored and uncharted waters of wild freedom and anarchist attack by plundering the modern colonization of our lives, which I consider a beautiful and moving experience that I’ll never regret.

The Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, at least in the way I experienced it, offered me the possibility to turn the desires for denial, attack and destruction into collective action, although at the same time it was something much more.

More important that the dozens of attacks on targets of the sovereignty and the system (which I will avoid mentioning once again) was the fact that I experienced the opportunity of coming together with other companionships in order to clash head-on with the Dictatorship of the mass culture and dominant ideology that had taken roots deep inside society like a cancer with multiple metastases.

Avoiding the traps of a lame populism which was incapable of calling a spade a spade because of the need to appeal on society and on ears already hostile and prejudiced towards us, we made all together the decision to proceed with a critical outline of society, of the dynamics that have unfolded and the social parts that have been swirling on the inside.

This critical position had no intention to propose a general and blind holocaust but a skeptical and disputable approach regarding various social behaviors that after all have been described by prominent communist personalities, famous existentialist philosophers, anarchist individualists and nihilists of other times, neo-Marxists of different schools, situationist theorists as well as a large number of politically minded writers and poets of the social ethography trend.

I may have regretted a lot of things in my life but the choice to serve a strategy is not and will never be one of those things.

Now, as far as my presence in the notorious house at Chalandri is concerned, the one thing I can say for sure is that it does not fall within the rest of the broader, friendly and family relations that other people happened to have, resulting in them being charged with entirely arbitrary accusations.

In that respect, I can do no other than take full responsibility concerning the presence of the explosive device inside that house, since it was something completely known to me.

I am really sorry that such an operational mistake of an explosive device being kept even for a few hours in a house completely legal where dozens of irrelevant people come and go, in which I obviously was involved personally, caused the set up of an entire industry of prosecutions of people that had nothing to do with the CCF.  However, the moral burden of this construction of dozens of indictments will lie forever on the anti-terrorist unit and also on the political authority and the constitutions of justice that made sure that the Machiavellianism and the collateral prosecutions rationality that we witnessed all those years since 2008 were covered up.

Now you, as part of this abscess, from which side will you judge my own attitude to life? In what way can the fact that I chose to arm my desires and adopt the insurrectional violence against all forms of tyranny be morally judged by personalities like you, acting in the name of the world of authority?  However, the use of brutal force provided by your position is not enough for you, you are not settled with adjusting the time of my stay in the cells of your democracy but you want to wash out morally and politically the gravestone that you try to put on my freedom, you want all this to happen in the name of some supposed higher values and moral advantages. But there are none, not even as a sample. It would be sufficient for any person that hasn’t sold out entirely their dignity to watch this procedure in order to detest immediately you and your supposed higher ideals. It would be sufficient for such a person to embrace the idea of burning to the core or even blowing a courtroom apart, even though it was something inconceivable before, only by watching this procedure, that visibly washes out and covers up shocking contradictions of the chosen prosecution authorities.

This conflict in not only between us and this courtroom, as it can’t be isolated from the overall human history. In this conflict the reconstruction of the ancient conflict between Power and Insurrection, between Discipline and Disobedience is inherent. It is true that I have chosen the way of violence and that I committed violent acts. I have clothed my disobedience and my insurrection in fire and gunpowder and I have directed it to everything that Power symbolizes and serves.

When they say “violence is the same no matter where it comes from” I spit disgusted.

Because the arrogance of Power that seeks the monopolization of violence is hidden in that phrase.

Because how can someone compare the violence of insurrection, no matter how cruel and merciless it may be, to the violence of authority? How can those two be put under common denominator, how do they dare to equate those two forms of violence? How can the violence of the insurgent slaves of Rome be equal with the violence of the Roman Empire? How can the violence of the insurgent slave against the lash of the slave trader be the equal? How can the violence of the tyrannicide be compared to the violence of the tyrant? How can all the courts of the world, burnt down, be compared to human freedom rotting, buried somewhere in a concrete grave?

Therefore you have no moral advantage, no higher value on which you can wash your hands of the decapitations of freedom that you are signing for. I, on the other hand, have the moral vindication that rose against authority on my side. And this is quite enough. And it is rather beautiful in itself, so that I don’t regret the consequences of such a choice. And yes it is true that the consequences are severe. The deprivation of freedom, the disablement of the senses, the loss of all those you took for granted and that you appreciate only when they disappear are a burden, which weighs more and more while time in jail passes. So much that with each step you feel like killing a day of your life…

Still, the beauty of choosing to fight back against authority weighs more. And that’s the reason why I don’t regret this choice, for I was never willing to bargain over it.

I never ever calculated my values in accordance with realism or the attainable. The value of anarchy, the value of total freedom is one of the most beautiful things to fight for.

And every time I asked myself if I would make the same choice against all odds, the answer would always be “Yes”. I would make the same choice, even if it would be like a punch in the knife from the very beginning. I would make it, even if I was the only living person in the world that believed in it, even if everything seemed to be in vain and aimless, even if I knew that it would all be buried in the dark and that no one would ever find out that such a desperate fight existed, even then I would make the same choice. Because, quite simply, the value of insurrection cannot be negotiated.

Panagiotis Argyrou, member of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire – FAI/IRF

Translated by Nihil Admirari

For a dangerous June – call for a month of mobilization in solidarity with italian anarchist prisoners

(Received 9/5/17)

For a Dangerous June

A text that sums up the ideas expressed during the meetings ‘With our heads held high’

State repression is the most important part of the system of dominion and one of its most disgraceful expressions; it doesn’t surprise us that those who are struck most are historically those who don’t let themselves be recuperated by the system of power, i.e. anarchist, revolutionary and rebel individualities.
The latter respond to the physical, psychological, moral, social and economic repression unleashed by all the components of democratic power and to the brutal indiscriminate violence of its armed hands and the judiciary. This they do with direct action aimed at those responsible for repression, with the creative and liberating destruction of the places of dominion and the sabotage of its infrastructures, so as to put an end, or at least hamper, the causes of exploitation and oppression by human beings on other human beings, the earth and animals.
In the view of total liberation, to passively watch the reproduction of dominion means to be accomplices, so there are those who continue to hold their heads high and rebel.
As a consequence power puts all its strategies into action, and the trials and proceedings against comrades for actions, episodes of conflictuality and writings still continue. Next month there will be the cassation trial concerning so-called operation Shadow, where a number of comrades are accused, among other things, of instigation to commit a crime following the publication of the paper KNO3. [1]
These judicial proceedings are an expression of the war that the authorities are waging on the bond between thought and action, which is the foundation of anarchism’s dangerousness. Beyond individual and specific struggles, this police operation aims at striking the cardinal concepts of antiauthoritarian ideas and methods such as direct action, refusal of delegating and solidarity.

Starting from these reflexions, during the meetings that developed after the arrests of operation Scripta Manent, rather than dwell on the strategies of repression, we felt it necessary to not reduce solidarity to the technical support of those who are in prison, but to widen the spectrum of our analysis.
In this respect, we discussed how solidarity is a fundamental element of our anarchist acting and relations of complicity aimed at the destruction of dominion. This form of solidarity goes beyond repression’s attacks, and is capable of not letting itself be suffocated by the specificity of the trajectories of struggle when we recognize ourselves in a common tension of attack. In particular, active solidarity is an essential instrument to respond to state violence and not take its blows passively but maintain a stance of attack, so as not to develop attitudes of victimization, which is what repression wants. Thinking in terms of offensive, of permanent and internationalist conflictuality beyond each one’s path, the risk of isolation can be reduced and one of the enemy’s most important goals can be made ineffective.
To express solidarity with specific contexts and projects doesn’t mean to have to conform to the discourses and practices of those who have been struck, nor does it mean to necessarily follow in the wake of a given struggle or practice: if we recognize ourselves in a common horizon we can act in solidarity according to our own individual tension.
The creation of solidarity relations on a local and international level is a strategic objective which we should give ourselves in order to face the strengthening of repression’s means and will against anarchist, revolutionary and rebel individualities
We think it necessary to address our proposals, projectuality and objectives towards the destruction of the system, which organizes social relations of dominion by flattening dissent through recuperation, and wherever this is not possible, by eliminating it through repression.
In this respect, we recognize the importance of multiform actions and practices within anarchism. Precisely because the more differences that exist in a context, the stronger the possibility of not getting stuck on pre-arranged dogmatic positions, provided that any specific struggle and attack is part of the wider view of tension towards subversion.
To recognize the value of this diversity also means to lay the foundations for opposing all centralizing and dominating tendencies within anarchism.
This is only possible through an attitude of constant self-criticism and critique between the different approaches, an attitude that goes towards qualitatively significant growth of both analysis of what surrounds us and the various possible ways to organize the destruction of what oppresses us.
By refusing to classify or make it possible for others to classify our different tensions into identity categories, we think that any attack on authority interacts with social mechanisms and relations and at the same time acts against society itself.
From a strategic point of view the existence of multiform practices is useful to nourish the complexity of the forms of organization and attack, and enhances the discussion on means and ends within the different anarchist projectualities of action. To understand how to give value to this diversity without diluting its contents in the view of a common project of total destruction of the system of dominion, is an absolute necessity.
It is important to consider different proposals and projectualities not as being antithetical and static but as being instruments, resources and possibilities at anarchists’ disposal, provided that they have certain characteristics that we believe are fundamental, such as permanent conflictuality, attack, independence from institutional hierarchically organized political structures, and informality as an instrument of organization.
By permanent conflicutality we mean a tension towards the irretrievability of our practices and discourses, the refusal to submit our action to opportunistic evaluations. This doesn’t exclude the possibility of developing a strategy referring to modalities and objectives, but this cannot be a justification for wait-and-see attitudes or the watering down of our own contents for the sake of a quantitative widening.
From this point of view we reiterate the refusal of any collaboration with power or that lends itself to recuperation. By the latter we intend power’s strategy of absorbing experiences and behaviour that is potentially dangerous to itself and of directing them towards its goals.
In democracies the mechanism of recuperation is complementary to the harshest face of repression and has the goal of perpetuating the system of exploitation and oppression: the attempt at inclusion and integration of some forms of dissent is meant to increase participation in the political game, thus creating divisions in order to more easily attack those who don’t want to be in the spectacle of society.
Anarchist action for the destruction of society and dominion responds both to the tension that refuses authority, and therefore doesn’t negotiate with the latter but wants to overthrow it with violence, and a wider strategy that starts off from the awareness that we will never live free by creating islands inside mass society.
It is therefore out beyond question that the struggle, in order not to be reformist, has to contemplate direct attack as a practice.
Following operation Scripta Manent Alfredo, Nicola, Danilo, Valentina, Anna, Marco and Sandrone are currently being held in high security units, subjected to restrictions and censorship of communication with the outside.
Other anarchists find themselves in prison in Italy and in the rest of the world, others here and elsewhere are undergoing various restrictive measures, such as house arrest and compulsory residence orders.
We call for mobilization in the month of June in solidarity with anarchist, revolutionary and rebel individualities struck by repression, as an occasion for coordination between initiatives and practices.

Rome, 30th April 2017

Anarchists

[1] Operation Shadow is a procedure based on article 270bis, which Perugia prosecutors started in 2008. The crime of association was dropped in the first grade trial, and in the 2015’s appeal trial it resulted in a sentence of 3 years against two comrades, a third comrade being investigated for article 302 with the aggravating circumstance of terrorism following articles published in KNO3, and sentences against other comrades for attempted sabotage on a railway line and car theft.

A letter from anarchist comrade Anna Beniamino about Operation Scripta Manent and more… (Italy)

SCRIPTA MANENT

The prosecution in Turin have decided to put an entire anarchist tendency on trial: anti-organisation Anarchism. This isn’t a sensationalist and defensive overstatement, it’s what Turin’s investigating judge, Anna Ricci, enacted with the arrest warrants issued in July 2016, and enforced in September, probably to avoid disrupting the summer holidays of some pubic official.

The inquisitors’ choice is clear from the ridiculous framework that appeared in the arrest warrant papers, a product of the deleterious encounter between the mind of some cop and the rushed reading of a wikipedia summary.

The framework gives shape to a repressive-Manichean vision of a ‘social anarchy’, a good and harmless one, and an (anti-social and anti-classist) ‘individual anarchy’, violent and palatable to repression, whose method is the ‘anti-organization model’.

By making the necessary distinctions, this framework aims to define a specific camp, to create a cage, so that from a generic ‘insurrectionism’, (a sub-product of the anti-organization model), always violent and liable to punishment to varying degrees, sub-species can be pulled out to form different strands of the investigation1 for Italian cops: ‘classic insurrectionism’, ‘social insurrectionism’, ‘eco insurrectionism’ and the ‘informal anarchist federation’.

That different tensions and tendencies exist within Anarchism is a fact, but it’s also true that this type of rigid categorisation is an inherent feature of the mindset and requirements of the inquisitors, who are set on delineating a specific area in order to make their manoeuvres as best they can: it is within this space that the following operation lies.

Historically, solidarity with revolutionary prisoners has been a focal point of interest for anarchists and a way to come together and build a rebellious sensibility: revolutionary solidarity not solidarity with revolutionaries.

Devised by Turin’s Digos and prosecutors back in 2012, in the wake of 20 years of recurring and failed repressive attempts, operation Scripta Manent led to the arrest of 5 anarchists: A.M., V.S., D.C., M.B., A.B., all already under investigation and/or arrested following various anarchist publications on action and repression, specifically, Pagine in Rivolta 2, the Croce Nera Anarchica bulletin3, KNO3 4. In addition, there were the arrest warrants for A.C. and N.G., two comrades in prison since 2012 following an attack on the managing director of Ansaldo Nucleare, Adinolfi, which was claimed in court in October 2013 as the Olga Nucleus (FAI/FRI). For years, they’d been known as the editors of Pagine in Rivolta and Alfredo had already been prosecuted for KNO3.

Four other anarchists have been put under investigation, all of whom were imprisoned during the Ardire operation 5, part of which converges into these current legal proceedings, along with 4 more whose arrests the judge refused to validate in the July warrant and led to the prosecutor’s unsuccessful appeal attempt in October 2016. In addition, 32 raids were carried out across Italy, during which a comrade and editor of CNA was arrested and is still being held in prison under the AS2 regime6.

-The investigation is still underway-

The operation is being led by prosecutor Roberto Sparagna, new to so-called anti-terrorism proceedings but well-known for having run trials for so-called organised crime. It is unknown whether this operation was down to him or the input of Turin cops: the latter seems much more likely, as the bulk of the investigation was conducted and archived by the Digos over the years and because of little picturesque background events like the “greetings from Dr. Petronzi” (Turin’s ex-Digos chief), which Sparagna made sure to extend to the arrested during one of his interrogation attempts.

It matters little whether the prosecutor is essentially a puppet/ventriloquist or whether he’s driven by his own will; the declared intent is to repress and silence an anarchist component that has always supported, and continues to support, direct action, solidarity with revolutionary prisoners, the multiform practices of anarchist destructive action and permanent rebellion against political conformism and compliance inside and outside the milieus of the movement.

Everyone is charged with article 270bis, some since 2003, others since 2008 7 relating to FAI/FRI to various degrees, as both ‘promoters/organisers’, as well as ‘participants’.

A.C. and N.G. are also charged with article 280bis for a string of attacks8 carried out from 2005 to 2007 on the basis of what is defined as a ‘serious investigative framework’ even if, in actual fact, the same comrades had already been investigated by the same cops, with the same ‘evidence’ both shortly after the same events and in 20129, using the usual armoury of phone tapping, eavesdropping, video recording, tailing, DNA sampling, etc. and the cases had been archived.

Launched on the back of the 2012 arrests, this investigation is an attempt to apply an associative charge to the case of Adinolfi’s wounding and to investigate a whole political area of comrades who expressed solidarity with those arrested and with their action: the cops used article 270bis and their so-called ‘crimes of intent’, in order to sift through what had already passed through the hands of various Italian prosecutors, putting everything together under their jurisdiction by reviving and rehashing a series of case files that had previously been archived.

This attempt to bring everything together is also mentioned in the judicial order itself and had seeped into the media quite extensively in recent years, as well as in August 2016, with newspaper articles that described ‘anti-terrorism summits’ held between the different prosecutors and made grand claims of ‘bad masters’ and ‘violent infiltrators’ in contexts that in themselves, were democratically acceptable.

This time, having followed a temporal and logical format that inverts the classic action/repression sequence, repression is retroactively looking for unsolved actions and political positions consolidated over the course of 20 years, as a restraint and a warning against the current “excessive” shows of solidarity. These are clearly aimed at repressing unwelcome solidarity and the spread of an anarchist feeling that openly talks about prisoners and actions, publishes and supports them.

The cops’ ambitions aimed even higher, as evident in the raids, failed arrests and most of all, in the accusatory framework that spans 20 years of anarchist actions and publications.

The excursus begins with the Marini trial10 in 1996 and ends with the current Croce Nera Anarchica, tracing an optimal line that starts from critiques of how the Marini Trial was handled, passes through the various articles and claims presented in Pagine in Rivolta, KNO3 and CNA, and ends with writings containing discussions and calls to be present at the Adinolfi trial (WITH OUR HEADS HELD HIGH and HERE AND NOW) and finally, with today’s CNA.

This is why it is not an overstatement to claim that this legal proceeding is one that is being extended to an anarchist feeling, even if it is trying to hone in on the circle: cornerstones of anti-authoritarian thought and method such as direct action and the rejection of representation, affinity and informality, revolutionary solidarity and mutual aid, become, in the words and paper rubbish of inquisitors, the dangerous raw material that must be repressed as soon as it appears.

It is neither simply a ‘crime of opinion’ that’s being put on trial, nor the censorship of the democratic freedom of expression: this is the war that authority is waging against the bond between thought and action that lies at the basis of anarchism.

By trying to strike publications, blogs or any other means of communication anarchists decide to use, repression only reaffirms the validity of these means: to be a thorn in the side of subjugation and silence.

Anna
Prison of Latina

1 Turin’s prosecutors have produced several judicial proceedings based on this framework in the last two years, which resulted both in the attempts to put 3 eco anarchists who had been previously sentenced in Switzerland for attempted sabotage to IBM, on trial yet again for article 270bis and to investigate and charge anarchists engaged in a solidarity fund for prisoners, with raids and warrants, using the same article 270bis.

2 Pagine in Rivolta was published under the subtitle ‘revolutionary anarchist periodical’ from 1997 to 2002, with 14 issues that had a variable circulation that reached one thousand copies. It had articles of analysis and critique of the anarchist movement, chronologies of direct actions, claims, prisoners’ lists and news on repression.

3 [The first of the Black Cross series in the Italian language was the historical version published from 1969 to 1973 in support of Spanish anti-Francoists, with the additional involvement of Pino Pinelli and Stuart Christie’s Anarchist Black Cross.] The CNA bulletin targeted by repression is the one published from 2001 to 2005, and today’s CNA published since 2014 with a blog and a journal. The editors of Croce Nera Anarchica of 2001/2005 were the targets of the 2005 ‘Operation Croce Nera’, a 270bis operation, which led to the arrests of seven comrades that led to no avail, 3 of whom are among those investigated within Scripta Manent.

4 KNO3 came out in 2008 as a single issue that was subtitled ‘revolutionary anarchist paper’. In 2008 it was the object of a 270bis investigation, ‘Operation Shadow’, led by Perugia’s prosecutor Emanuela Comodi, in collaboration with the ROS carabinieri forces, in which the associative crime was dropped during the first degree trial; in 2015 the appeal trial resulted in a sentence against A.C. and A.B., whilst a third comrade was put under investigation for article 302 with the aggravating circumstance of terrorism linked to articles published in KNO3; other comrades were sentenced for the sabotage of a railway track and for car theft.

5 ‘Operation Ardire’ began in Perugia with prosecutor Comodi, in collaboration with ROS carabinieri forces and led to seven arrests in June 2012. It was based on article 270bis and referred to a series of attacks claimed by FAI/FRI between 2009 and 2012. The jurisdiction of the case passed from Perugia to Milan after a high court ruling in the appeal court, and for some of the accused, S.F., E.D.B.,G.P.S. and G.L.T., it was passed from Milan to Turin and brought into Scripta Manent. All those imprisoned were released in 2013 after serving the maximum term.

6 D.C. was arrested during one of the raids within Scripta Manent after electric material for common use (9-volt batteries and bulbs) was found in his home. Prosecutor Francesca Polino from Rome opened a separated proceeding against him, whilst keeping him in the high security AS2 regime.

7 From 2003, because this is the year identified as the beginning of FAI following the attack on the interior minister at the time, Prodi and because of the text that claimed responsibility for it. For some of the accused, it’s 2008, because they’d already been put under investigation for the same attack, without having been formally charged.

8 This refers to: the explosive device against the RIS carabinieri forces in Parma in October 2005, an action claimed by Coop. Artigiana Fuoco e Affini (occasionally spectacular)/FAI; the explosive/incendiary parcel sent to the then mayor of Bologna Sergio Cofferati in November 2005, also claimed by Coop. Artigiana Fuoco e Affini/FAI; the double explosive attack on the carabinieri training centre in Fossano (CN) in June 2006 claimed by FAI/RAT; the explosive/incendiary parcels sent to the then mayor of Turin Chiamparino, the director of Torino Cronaca Beppe Fossati and placed on the premises of Coema Edilitia, a company involved in the construction of the CIE in Turin in July 2006, all claimed by RAT/FAI; the 3 explosive devices set off in sequence in the Turin neighbourhood of Crocetta in March 2007 and claimed by RAT/FAI.

9 In the summer of 2012, during the investigation and subsequent arrest of A.C. and N.G., prosecutors in various Italian jurisdictions reopened a series of archived case files relating to the attacks that the FAI had claimed over the previous 10 years.

10 In 1995, about thirty anarchists were arrested and put on trial by Rome’s prosecutor Antonio Marini in collaboration with ROS carabinieri forces for article 270bis, in addition to a series of specific offences. The associative charge referring to the so-called ORAI organisation was dropped in 2004 and a sentence for subversive propaganda and other specific offences were confirmed.

translated via actforfree


Croce Nera Anarchica a-periodical, Issue no.3, pages 2-4

Prison of Ferrara [Italy]: Anarchist comrade Alfredo Cospito on hunger strike (03/05/2017)

Today anarchist prisoner Alfredo Cospito begins a ten-days hunger strike against the censorship imposed to him by prosecutor Sparagna [/in charge of op. “Scripta Manent”/], which blocks almost the whole incoming and outgoing correspondence.
Alfredo asks all comrades outside to send books, magazines, letters and printed materials in general, in protest and in support of his strike.

(Via : Croce Nera Anarchica autistici.org)

Ferrara Prison [Italy]: Update on censorship / Anarchist comrade Nicola Gai in isolation (31/03/2017)

We learn from the correspondence with anarchist comrades in the AS2 [high security] of Ferrara prison,
that with the renewal of censorship [March 6th] for another three months, the grip on their correspondence
started again, and many letters are seized.

In addition, they tell us that comrade Nicola Gai could be in isolation. We are waiting to get all the facts,
as soon as the prison visits will be done.

(Via : autistici.org)

Chile: New solidarity poster for imprisoned anarchist comrades Juan, Nataly & Enrique, on trial since March 24

NEITHER GUILTY NOR INNOCENT
ENEMIES OF POWER

On September 18, 2014, Nataly Casanova and Juan Flores were arrested in a police and media raid, accused under the Anti-terrorist Law of placing explosives in various parts of Santiago.

A few months later, Enrique Guzmán, who regularly visited them in prison, was arrested and accused of the same charges. Presented from the outset as internal enemies that must be destroyed, they have remained in pre-trial detention ever since.

On March 24 the trial begins against the comrades to defend the monopoly of violence by the state, attack anarchist ideas and punish solidarity with the threat of long sentences and perpetual imprisonment.

Trials are instances of self-affirmation and of great relevance for the authorities and for the theatre of democracy that are broadcast via their propaganda organs, seeking to break down our comrades and hand down exemplary punishments in order to intimidate anyone who dares to rebel in the face of Dominion. It is up to us to transform these instances into an arena of combat and defence for the accused comrades.

If they punish solidarity, we will respond with greater force. Action without limits against the State and all Authority.

FOR A WORLD WITHOUT PRISONS
NATALY, JUAN AND ENRIQUE TO THE STREET

(via Publicacion Refractario, translated by Insurrection News)

Chile: Free at Last! Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar onto the Streets!

SANTIAGO – Chilean Anarchists, Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar, arrived this morning at Santiago’s International Airport, after having been expelled from Spanish custody and deported back to their home country.

Mónica and Francisco had been charged under Spanish Anti-terrorism legislation for the alleged bombing of the Basilica del Pilar Church in Zaragoza, on Oct 2nd, 2013, and were arrested a month after the incident. Spanish prosecution initially sought a 44 year sentence for the accused, but instead received a 12 year sentence in 2014. The Defense took Mónica and Francisco’s case to the Spanish Supreme Court, where the sentence was further reduced to 4 and a half years this past December, having dropped one of the initial charges. At the time, the Spanish Supreme Court recognized that the intent of the bombing was to cause structural damage to a religious symbol  and thus were charged for loses and damages.

As a final recourse, the Defense submitted a claim under Spanish Penal Law No. 89, which states that foreigners can be deported to their country of origin after having spent a year in prison. The claim was accepted by the court, resulting in the expulsion of Mónica and Francisco back to Chile where they will be completely released from custody, pending any possible infractions with the Chilean justice system. Since they have none, they are able to walk free upon arrival passing through Chilean customs. Neither Mónica or Francisco ever recognized their involvement in the bombing, and in fact alleged the charges were part of broader state political persecution as Anarchists.

Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar first came to Spain after their charges in the Chilean Anarchist Bombs Case were withdrawn by the Santiago court in 2012. The case was heavily publicized by the mass media throughout Chile when it first came to light in 2010, publicly broadcasting the arrest of the 12 accused who were depicted as terrorists. But the case quickly fell apart after insufficient and flimsy evidence was presented by State Prosecution in courts, resulting in the absolution of the Anarchists, as well as a governmental crisis of legitimacy. The Santiago Court ordered the State Prosecution to award $460 million Chilean pesos (approximately $700,000 USD) to the former Anarchist accused for losses and damages of having gone through the legal system, which was later upheld by the Chilean Supreme Court. Francisco Solar was awarded $100 million pesos, while Mónica Caballero was awarded $80 million pesos, which they then used to start a new life together as a couple in Spain.

Today, Mónica and Francisco will be able to walk free on the streets of Santiago and begin a new life together with their friends, family and comrades. We salute them in their brave dignified efforts throughout all these years of repression and persecution in resisting the confines of State prisons around the world.

In love and rage,

Viva la Anarquia!

The Women’s Coordinating Committee for a Free Wallmapu [Toronto]

(Via insurrectionnewsworldwide)