‘Until the demolition of every prison. Always with anarchy.’ Document of the Open Assembly of Anarchists for the initiative in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito in front of the Italian Embassy (Athens, Greece, Feb. 16, 2023)
We publish “Until the demolition of every prison. Always with anarchy,” the call for the Feb. 16 initiative in front of the Italian Embassy in Athens in solidarity with anarchist Alfredo Cospito on hunger strike to the bitter end. The enormous movement of international solidarity that has manifested itself in recent months is proof of how to the isolation and censorship of the state and its prisons we will always oppose the tenacity and consistency of our ideas and practices. This text and the initiative of the Open Assembly of Anarchists, reaffirming the perspective of international revolutionary solidarity, are a further contribution in this regard.
* * *
UNTIL THE DEMOLITION OF EVERY PRISON. ALWAYS WITH ANARCHY
Because for those who love life, reacting when it is turned into surviving is a necessary act.
– Anna Beniamino, “Declaration of beginning hunger strike,” Nov. 7, 2022
Alfredo Cospito, imprisoned anarchist convicted of the crime “massacre” in the “Scripta Manent” trial – a charge concerning the double explosive attack on the Carabinieri Cadet School in Fossano, claimed by Rivolta Anonima e Tremenda / Federazione Anarchica Informale (RAT/FAI) – has been on hunger strike against the 41 bis prison regime and hostile life imprisonment since Oct. 20, when he was imprisoned in the Bancali prison in Sassari, Sardinia. Since May 5, and after ten years in prison, the state has chosen to reinforce the isolation of the comrade (who until then had contributed significantly to the debate among anarchists with letters, articles and interventions) through the detention regime provided for in Article 41 bis of the Italian Prison Order (the carcere duro), a law-abomination that, in essence, requalifies imprisonment into a form of special isolation even on the intellectual and sensory level. It is a suffocating stranglehold that almost completely nullifies communication and contact with the outside world, a torture of psychosomatic annihilation against militants in order to force them to political “repentance.”
Moreover, the purpose of this regime is to create a barrier to revolutionary-antiauthoritarian dialogue between comrades inside and outside prisons. Systematic censorship and the attempt to annihilate the very existence of political prisoners reveal the teeth of democracy and the fear of authoritarian forces of those who carry and spread the seed of revolt and attack for the demolition of the world of the state and capital.
Alfredo Cospito, a continuer of anarchist discourse and practice, raises the shield of the hunger strike to repel the vindictiveness of the state apparatus. The Italian state, with its fascist practices-through the last elections and beyond-has a long history of confrontational tension with anarchists, its enemies who over the years have had trials and investigations for their actions and beliefs, even at the cost of death.
Also imprisoned in the same annihilation regime are three political prisoners, members of the Red Brigades for the Construction of the Combatant Communist Party (BR-PCC) arrested in 2003, Nadia Lioce, Marco Mezzasalma and Roberto Morandi, while Diana Blefari – also a member of the BR-PCC and a longtime prisoner in the solitary confinement of the 41 bis regime – committed suicide in 2009.
With the approval of the new Penal Code and with the even more recent approval of the new Penitentiary Code by the Greek state, “maximum security” prisons or wards now have as their purpose “increased supervision” of “unruly” prisoners, apart, of course, from political prisoners, convicted under the main counterrevolutionary legal instrument par excellence applied to guerrilla warfare, 187A; all seven years after the abolition of Type C prisons thanks to the struggle waged through hunger strikes by political prisoners at the time. This latest development in the state’s legal arsenal is nothing less than a tendency to absolutize prison conditions, also placing a regulation on social confinement with surveillance and control outside the confines of the prison and opening a serious possibility for the introduction of solitary confinement and torture models (similar to 41 bis) in Greek prisons as well. Prisoners in Korydallos and Domokos prisons are still engaged in resistance mobilizations against the new and further authoritarian Penitentiary Code.
It should be noted that in Turkey – also a neighboring country of Greece – F-type prisons, with their regime of torture and solitary confinement for combatants, have been in place since 2000. On Aug. 23, political prisoners were transferred from jails in Turkey and northern Kurdistan to Ereğli maximum security prison in Ikonio, far from their relatives. In Ikonio, the prisoners were placed in solitary confinement cells, with a ban on communication and interviews for one month.
The number of prisoners seized in solitary confinement cells increased to 40 in the following months. The 40 inmates of Ereğli Maximum Security Prison began an indefinite “rotating hunger strike” on Oct. 4 against the increasing violations and severe conditions of solitary confinement, while one of them, political prisoner Yakup Brukanlı from Rojhilat, set his body on fire on Oct. 28, defending his dignity against the harsh conditions of solitary confinement. Regarding the reasons for his act, Brukanlı writes in a letter, “When everyone plugged their ears and kept silent about this illegal arbitrary act, I came to the conclusion that self-immolation is the way to break this silence. Man is a living being with his own identity and social values. Without these, it is not possible to talk about society and human existence. This condition is related to the state of consciousness. […] In my opinion, every person who says ‘I am me’ should protect his or her identity, sociality and dignity from any kind of attack.” Similarly, prisoners in Dumlu Maximum Security Prison Number 1 have themselves started a “rotating hunger strike” since November 9 against torture practices, while Ramazan Kaya in Erzurum Type H Prison has started an indefinite hunger strike against violations.
Create solidarity networks with neighboring countries and strengthen internationalist solidarity in every direction. It is no coincidence that even in Greece the last two years have been marked by large hunger strikes undertaken by political prisoners. Solidarity constitutes the substratum of any effort to internationalize the struggles of the oppressed and, on this basis, the need for organic international revolutionary solidarity constitutes a project of our struggles in the here and now, for the destruction of the existing and the creation of free communities without authority.
Comrade Alfredo, formerly a total objector to military conscription, took responsibility for the kneecapping (which took place on May 7, 2012, in Genoa), with the Olga Nucleus of the Informal Anarchist Federation-International Revolutionary Front (FAI-FRI), of Roberto Adinolfi, an executive and CEO of the nuclear death company Ansaldo Nucleare.
The state intends to kill once again, to impose its power through coercion to repentance. Comrade Alfredo, through his lawyers, has been careful to sign since the beginning of his hunger strike a declaration in which he refuses “resuscitation” or force-feeding at all costs, since his hunger strike is until death or the revocation of the 41 bis annihilation regime.
Alfredo’s struggle against the solitary confinement and prisoner annihilation regime is a struggle of all of us.
Joining Alfredo Cospito on hunger strike have been anarchist prisoners Juan Sorroche in Terni prison, Ivan Alocco in Villepinte prison in France, and Anna Beniamino in Rebibbia prison in Rome.
Comrade Alfredo has passed 110 days of hunger strike, with a weight loss of at least 45 kilograms, permanent damage to vital organs and no longer taking nutritional supplements; he was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit (SAI) of the Opera prison in Milan, where there is a section for inmates subjected to the 41 bis annihilation regime, and from there, subsequently, to the San Paolo hospital, in one of the rooms reserved for inmates on 41 bis within the prison medicine ward. At the same time, protests and clashes in the streets of Italian cities are intensifying, highlighting the social dimension of the struggle against the murderous annihilation of the prison system, which seems to be spreading its restructuring on a global scale.
May our solidarity and collective self-defense against plans to imprison and plunder our lives be universal.
I do not know whether it will be internationalism that will save us from this fall into the void, whether as you say this will be the lever that will enable us to lift the world and subvert it. But one thing is certain: to oppose this new imperialism decisively the collapse of the system must be global. Positional wars lead to defeat as much as anarchists who wait for ripe moments to act have already lost at the outset.
– Alfredo Cospito, “Which International? Interview and Dialogue with Alfredo Cospito from Ferrara Prison. Part One,” published in “Vetriolo,” anarchist journal, No. 2, fall 2018 (currently available in Alfredo Cospito and many others, Which International?, second edition published during the hunger strike, November 2022, 205 pages).
Freedom for all prisoners and prisoners of the world!
SOLIDARITY WITH ANARCHIST ALFREDO COSPITO, REVOLUTIONARY ON HUNGER STRIKE SINCE OCTOBER 20 AGAINST 41 BIS – FIRE AT 41 BIS
Alfredo stay in our hearts! Always with anarchy!
Stand up and face it, because in times like these “courage is a virtue.”
– Voltairine de Cleyre, The Present Attitude, 1908
We are convening a demonstration in solidarity with comrade Alfredo Cospito at the Italian Embassy in Athens on Thursday, February 16 at 6:30 pm.
Open Assembly of Ⓐnarchists
E-mail: anoixti_syneleusi_anarhikwn@riseup.net
PDF of the document in Italian: Finché ogni prigione non sarà abbattuta. Sempre con l’anarchia
PDF of the document in English: Until the demolition of every prison. Always with anarchy
PDF of the document in Greek: Μέχρι το γκρέμισμα κάθε φυλακής. Πάντα με την αναρχία.
[Italian translation received by e-mail, revised, corrected and published at https://lanemesi.noblogs.org/post/2023/02/17/finche-ogni-prigione-non-sara-abbattuta-sempre-con-lanarchia-documento-dellassemblea-aperta-degli-anarchici-per-liniziativa-in-solidarieta-con-alfredo-cospito/ | Greek text published at https://athens.indymedia.org/event/90040/]
