Social Control
Hot Summer in Italy
In 2005 there was a huge paramilitary 'anti-terror' operation against anarchists in Italy. Many social centres have been closed down; comrades have been attacked, arrested, held under house arrest, and detained in prison. Scores of people are under investigation, subjected to police impunity and frame-ups. We produce here a few reports, prisoner's letters and a brief chronology in collaboration with our Italian comrades; for the destruction of all prisons and bosses everywhere. Set fire to the institutions of power!
Solidarity with the Italian anarchists!
Destroy the EU PoliceState!
Concentation camps for immigrants where torture is the rule, arrests of anarchists all over the country, raids and police stormings during solidarity demonstrations: this is Italy today. While deportations and murders of immigrants have become everyday events, a great number of anarchists are investigated following the nth judicial frame-up and many of them are in jail.
It is the State's revenge towards those who have always struggled against the brutal system of deportation and in solidarity to prisoners and the exploited.
In such a scenario of repression, while the anarchist movement is being hit by the ferocious counter-attack of the State, fascist groups are holding their filthy heads high. Ignored and often backed by police, they are going around armed with knives and other weapons, stubbing comrades and launching assaults against squats.
Walls are there to be jumped over, chains to be smashed down: we want our comrades to be free, all prisons and borders to be smashed down.
Random anarchists
CHRONOLOGY
May 12. LECCE. Operation 'Nottetempo'. Police raid 16 houses of anarchists and arrest five of them on a series of charges including the one of 'conspiracy' or 'subversive association' (article 270bis of Italian penal code).
May 13. LECCE. Anarchists block the traffic, distribute leaflets and show up a banner: 'The struggle never stops'
May 14. LECCE. Demo in solidarity to the arrested anarchists, against prisons and detention camps (most charges are connected to the struggle against the detention camp for immigrants 'Regina Pacis', in San Foca, Lecce)
TURIN. Demo against the detention camps and in solidarity to the arrested comrades.
May 19. CAGLIARI. Operation 'Fraria'. Police raid 50 houses. 7 anarchists are put under house arrest on charges of 'conspiracy'.
May 21. LECCE. 400 anarchists from all over Italy demonstrate in solidarity to the arrested comrades.
May 22. LECCE. Meeting to discuss about prison and repression, detention camps and deportation. Gathering outside the prison.
- A mail explosive device is sent to chief police inspector Manara.
- Explosive devices are also sent to Turin metropolitan police and to the director of the detention camp for immigrants in Modena. It is said that the three devices have been sent from Milan.
May 26. BOLOGNA and ROME. Police raid about 100 houses and arrest 10 anarchists on charges of 'conspiracy'. The investigations are led by public prosecutors in Bologna and Rome.
- Croce Nera Anarchica (ABC) website is closed down, it will be back up a few days later.
May 29. CAGLIARI. Demo in solidarity to the arrested anarchists.
May 30. CAGLIARI. Another anarchist is put under house arrest for entering the chief police inspector's office. He is sentenced to 7 months.
June 1. FORLI'. Demo outside the prison in solidarity to all the arrested anarchists.
June 3. LECCE and CAGLIARI. Preliminary investigation judges (GIP) reject all the requests of release presented by the comrades' lawyers.
June 4. FLORENCE. At the end of a benefit gig in Vicolo Del Panico, police attack the comrades. Three of them are arrested.
- TERAMO. Demo outside the prison.
June 5. LECCE. Solidarity concert outside the prison.
- PESCARA. Demo outside the prison. Valentina is moved to Lecce, Danilo to Rome.
June 6. FLORENCE. The three anarchists arrested on June 4 are sentenced to a three-month suspended sentence and are given a three-year expulsion order from Florence.
June 7. BARCELONA (Spain). A few police vans are attacked in solidarity to Italian anarchists.
- ROME. Stefano Del Moro is moved to Velletri prison.
June 8. FORLI'. Gathering outside the prison.
June 9. MOLFETTA (BARI). Demo in Mazzini square in solidarity to all the prisoners and against detention camps.
- Benefit dinner at 'Le Macerie' squat.
June 11. Saverio and Salvatore are moved from Lecce prison to Melfi and Salerno respectively.
- Salvatore is put under isolation regime. Massimo is moved from Viterbo to Benevento.
- BOLOGNA. The anarchists investigated by Bologna public prosecutors are released, but Valentina and Danilo are still being held in jail following Rome public prosecutor investigation in Rome.
- MOLFETTA (Bari). Benefit concert at 'Le Macerie' squat.
June 12 ROME. Demo outside 'Regina Coeli' prison, where Danilo is being held.
June 13. FOGGIA. Benefit at 'Agit-prop Jacob'.
June 14. CAGLIARI. Demo in solidarity to all prisoners.
June 15. ATHENS (Greece). The Italian Institute of Culture is squatted in solidarity to the arrested anarchists.
- BOLOGNA. Benefit festival against repression and judicial frame-ups.
June 18. GENOVA. Benefit at 'Ferrer' library.
June 19. LECCE. Demo outside the prison.
June 21. MILAN. Benefit concert at Circolo Z. Point.
June 24. BARI. Demo in solidarity to prisoners and against detention camps.
June 25. BARCELONA (Spain). During a demo in solidarity to Italian anarchists, police attack and arrests 7 people.
- FORLI'. Concert outside the prison.
June 26. WARSAW (Poland). Demo outside the Italian embassy.
June 27. BARCELONA (Spain). 4 of the 7 comrades arrested on the 25th are released.
- ATHENS (Greece). A Benetton shop is attacked in solidarity to Italian and Spanish anarchists.
June 29. ATHENS (Greece). Explosive devices are put on a few FIAT cars in solidarity to Italian anarchists.
July 7. ALESSANDRIA. Benefit at 'Forte Guercio' squat.
July 3. Danilo is moved to Pesaro.
July 5. BARCELONA (Spain). Demo in solidarity to Italian and Spanish prisoners, against FIES regime.
- SANTS (Spain). A FIAT car shop is attacked in solidarity to Italian anarchists.
- FLORENCE. Demo in solidarity with Albertino, the only anarchist still held in prison following the demo on June 25 in Barcelona, and with Francesco Di Gioia, another anarchist prisoner in Spain. Francesco, who was in hiding in Spain after being convicted in 2004, is now in isolation and he is being inflicted a very hard treatment.
July 7. LECCE. Meeting to discuss about immigration and detention camps.
July 8. ATHENS (Greece). Demo outside the Italian embassy.
- ROME. Benefit at ZK squat.
- CREMA. Meeting to discuss about immigration and detention camps.
July 9. GENOA. Benefit concert at 'Pinelli' squat.
July 7. ATHENS (Greece). Demo outside the Spanish embassy.
- BARI. Demo against detention camps.
July 11. TARANTO. Demo outside the prison in solidarity to Flavio.
July 12. MONTBRISON (France). Benefit dinner and concert for Italian anarchists.
- BARCELONA. Italian Cultural Institute attacked with explosive device.
July 15. TRENTO. Demo outside the court.
- ROME. Benefit concert for Massimo.
- EL PRAT (Spain). A FIAT car shop is attacked with an explosive device.
- Danilo is moved to Prato.
July 16. PESARO, CAGLIARI, VELLETRI, SAVONA, TARANTO. Demo outside the prisons.
- MILAN. Demo in Piazza cadorna against 'Alitalia co.', responsible for the deportation of immigrants.
- Demo outside 'San Vittore' prison
- BARCELONA (Spain). 500 anarchists gather in solidarity with prisoners.
- RAGUSA. Demo outside Via Colajanni detention camp.
July 19 CAGLIARI. Demo outside 'Buoncammino' prison. Three of the 7 comrades arrested on May 19 are released
July 20. TURIN. 'Fenix squat' is closed down by police. 17 comrades are investigated, 7 of them are arrested. The charges are related to the demo on 18th June organized in solidarity to 'Barocchio squat' after the fascist assault against it. During that demo police had attacked and arrested two comrades.
July 26. TARANTO. Demo outside the prison. Flavio is moved to Cagliari.
July 30. PRATO. Demo outside the prison where Danilo is being held.
OPERATION 'NOTTETEMPO' IN LECCE
The arrested Lecce anarchists are all accused of sabotaging bank machines in support of immigrants held at an immigration centre that is funded by the bank. They are also accused of targeting the multinational company Benetton in support of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. Plus they are accused of targeting Esso petrol stations to appose the War on Iraq.
On June 11, one of the defendants, Salvatore, was moved to Salerno prison and put in isolation where he has been ever since. Just as no real evidence exists to justify any of the recent arrests, so the treatment Salvatore is being inflicted is totally arbitrary.
Here are a few extracts of a letter he wrote from Salerno prison:
June 11 2005
...From today at 14.30 I find myself in Salerno prison. Yesterday they informed me that I'd be transferred and only this morning in the meat wagon I understood where I was being taken. They woke me at 5.30, at 6.00 I came down and at 7.00 was on the van along with some other prisoners including Saverio (another defendant).
..Unfortunately once we were in the van we asked the cops and they told us that Saverio was going to Melfi, but I was going to Salerno...This prison is not one of those new ones but is old and has been restructured, 'embellished'. What struck me immediately (could be wrong) is the severity of the guards: you must keep in a certain position, always walk close to the wall and they informed me that when the count takes place (8, 16, 20 hours) I must stand up, near the bed. After the formalities in the 'matricula', they put me in the isolation cell and there are no other prisoners near me, so I can’t find out anything at the moment...
June 12 2005
...This morning I came down for exercise: they put me alone in a tiny yard 7x8 metre behind my cell, for an hour. Coming outside I was able to see that it's an old prison, the structure is completely different from Lecce. Unfortunately I cannot even ask the prisoner who brings the food anything because, contrary to what happens in Lecce, here two screws follow him. I have no idea where the other prisoners go for exercise, from where I was I couldn't hear any voice; the air (that's a manner of speaking) where I was taken had seven metre high walls but, unlike Lecce, doesn't have a metal net over it. I have no idea what kind of prison this is, although when I arrived it didn't seem all that small, at least from the little I could see from the van.
June 13 2005
...Things are pretty bad here, this morning around 8.00 about 15 guards turned up, they did a body search in the cell, after which they made me go and they searched the cell and when I got back all my few belongings were all over the place. I asked for a shower and they sent me: two disgusting showers that have never been cleaned and with cold water. At nine I went out into the usual yard, which they also searched, and I've just come back. Think, they prevent me from taking a book out with me, and it's boring staying there alone doing nothing.
...It's an incredible situation, I don't know what they think anarchists are, or why they are doing all this. You know, what we say about prison, that it is a means of physical and psychological annihilation, now I think I really know what that means; I really think that's the case.
about 13.30 a well-dressed man came up to my cell and asked me to come over...he introduced himself as the prison director. I asked him why on earth I was in this situation of isolation, and he told me that these are orders from the Ministry, that I must be kept in a single cell, he doesn't know for how long. He was also surprised that they keep me outside my own territory and that in his opinion the isolation shouldn't last all that long and that anyway there's nothing I can do about it.
I have the impression that the prisoner who brings the meals has told them in the kitchen that I'm vegetarian and asked them to give me something without meat or fish, because today there was a portion of beans only for me. If that is the case I'm really pleased because it means that they can't destroy solidarity between prisoners. And anyway isn't that what we've always said, that solidarity is at the root of the struggles of the exploited?
STATEMENT FROM MASSIMO SENT FROM 'REGINA COELI' PRISON
June 7 2005
First of all I refuse the appellation 'anarchist-insurrectionalist', an expression used and abused by judges and journalists, and the one of 'leader'! Luckily I'm only the leader of myself.
I have nothing to say as regards the accusation, which is a theorem created to accuse me not on the basis of real evidence but of suspicion; in fact no evidence exists, only their conjectures. It is sufficient to read the acts to see what a miserable colander they are, leaking like a sieve.
This investigation is a prosecution of ideas, so it is political.
I therefore consider myself as a political prisoner, as I'm anarchist.
All these precautionary arrests, following which other investigated people have been locked up for almost one year, are intended to justify the millions of euros spent for police operations, to let judges and police officers climb the career ladder and most importantly to give media resonance to (Italian) home secretary Pisanu. The latter, who wants to take public attention away from precariousness, work deaths, poverty, repression and beating in the detention cmps, he's repeating his mistakes. Maybe he forgot that I was completely cleared from the charges related to the events occurred on October 4.
I write on my behalf, associations don't belong to me.
LONG LIVE THE ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN CLASS STRUGGLE!
HONOUR AND DIGNITY TO ALL THE CAPTURED COMRADES!
Massimo Leonardi
'OPERATION FRARIA' IN CAGLIARI
May 19: public prosecutor Paolo De Angelis orders house arrests for 7 anarchists of 'Circolo Fraria' (Cagliari, Sardinia). Once again it is article 270bis that comes into play: the arrested comrades, in fact, besides being accused of carrying out a series of minor explosive attacks, are also charged with 'conspiracy'. As one of the comrades from Cagliari says; Power needs to stop the movement which has been struggling for years against the militarization of Sardinia, the multi-nationals responsible for bringing about ecological disasters in the island, the waste of its natural resources in the name of the tourist trade, etc. Power, in fact, aims at destroying the most effective and radical part of this movement, so as to make it as tameable as possible. Added to this, public prosecutor De Angelis and most of his colleagues are longing to climb the latter of success. Hence the exaggerated attention given by the media to these police operations: the home secretary Pisanu and his servants the judges, through TV screen and the press, boast about having demolished a dangerous structure threatening all "respectable people's" lives.
On the contrary, it is exactly LIFE that anarchists want to take back, the life which Power has stolen from all of us, including the "respectable people".
To quote the comrade from Cagliari again, "The real terrorist is the State".
FLORENCE JUNE 4
On June 4 anarchists of Vicolo Del Panico (Florence) organize a benefit gig outside their squat in support of the arrested comrades. At the end of the event, the 'celere' (anti-riot cops) attack. Most of the anarchists find shelter inside the squat, but three of them are captured, beaten and taken to the police station. They are held for two days and go on trial on June 6. Finally they are sentenced to a two-month suspended sentence.
Here are a few extracts of the leaflet distributed outside the court.
'We had taken back an open space in the street as an answer to the threat to evict our squat and to raise money following the recent wave of repression against anarchists. At the end of the concert, around 1.00am, when the music had stopped and we were clearing our stuff out, brave vice-police chief Giancarlo Benedetti and anti-riot cops turned out. The diktat is as sharp as provocative: we must leave in 10 minutes. Tension increases rapidly and after five minutes the cops attack. Most of us take refuge inside the squat. Unfortunately three people are captured, beaten and dragged along the ground. After being held for two days in the police station, they go on trial today. They are accused of resisting and wounding the police, according a typical cop style: first they attack, then they arrest and denounce. They create the "guilty" in order to appear "innocent"'.
'This police operation is part of a policy of zero tolerance towards any demonstration of life which doesn't create any profit. Those who stormed Vicolo Del Panico are the same ones who attack the so-called 'unauthorized' sellers in San Lorenzo market every day, who patrol constantly squares and meeting places, who take the town away from its inhabitants to make a funfair for tourists so that shoppers and building speculators get richer'.
'As it was clear from the beginning, police arrived at Vicolo Del Panico with the precise intent to storm. In fact they marshalled in military parade when the concert was over. It was an ostentation of power as well as a clear intimidation, meaning that the town doesn't belong to us and that repression can strike whoever cracks this suffocating atmosphere of social peace. This latest episode of repression is part of the anarchist hunt so dear to home secretary Pisanu: from Lecce to Bologna, from Cagliari to Rome, the State has kidnapped 22 comrades in a month.
Our solidarity and complicity to them
BARCELONA JUNE 25
It was an Italian style afternoon the one which took place in Barcelona, when 300 people gathered in the town for a demo in solidarity with the comrades hit by repression in Italy. The appointment was in Urquinaona square. Searching and identification points had been settled all over the area, a number of people had been stopped before reaching the square, spray cans and banners had been seized. A Mexican comrade had been taken to the police station for a 'check' and released when the demo was over. The tension was high, the provocative attitude of the cops in uniform and civilian dress suggested that something bad was about to happen. Nevertheless, demonstrators were well determined to go on: slogans were written on the walls with the few spray cans saved from the searching, communiques were read along the way and banners were hang in front of the Italian Institute of Culture and the embassy. As the demo arrived at Passeig De Gracia, a big 'avenida' full of people doing shopping, the cops got out of their vans and formed two suffocating lines on both sides of the demo. Their intention to provoke and attack was obvious. The comrades were compelled to walk side by side with the cops; once they arrived at Gran de Gracia and their 'patience' rounded off, the anarchists tried to halt the cops' advance. Soon the first attack started and demonstrators split up. Those who ran towards Gracia area found themselves surrounded by cops in civilian dress. A Greek comrade holding a megaphone was the first to be captured. Meantime a group of hooded demonstrators started fighting against the 'secretas' (plainclothes secret police), managing to keep them back. Banks and post offices were attacked.
At the end of the evening, 7 comrades in total had been arrested: three Greek, two Spanish, a Chilean and an Italian. All of them would be released after a few days, whereas Albertino (from Pisa, Italy) was held in jail for over a month.
'Once again our solidarity and complicity towards prisoners have been attacked in order to be destroyed. We don't intend to surrender to this attack nor are we thinking to keep quiet following this Italian style display of power thrown over our comrades. It seems that politicians, judges and cops do not want us to choose our way. Well, this won't stop us. Maybe they don't know, but our decision to go on had already been made. If freedom has a price, their 'peace' has a price too.
SOLIDARITY TO ALBERTINO AND THE COMRADES IN SPAIN!
SOLIDARITY TO THE PRISONERS OF F.I.E.S. REGIME!
SOLIDARITY TO THE COMRADES CAPTURED IN ITALY!
FREEDOM FOR ALL THE PRISONERS!