“Operation City”, a crackdown on the mobilization against 41bis prison regime in Italy and in solidarity with anarchist comrade Alfredo Cospito
From October 2022 to April 2023, a strong solidarity movement accompanied the hunger strike of Alfredo Cospito, an anarchist prisoner in 41-bis, the most afflictive prison regime in the Italian penitentiary system, a regime of extreme harshness and isolation, a tomb where one spends 22 hours in a cell, with hardly any possibility to communicate with the outside world (censorship on all communications and with only a one-hour visit per month with a family member or a ten-minute phone call, also a month).
Initiatives, demonstrations, direct actions have marked in Italy, and in many other parts of the globe, the steps of a heterogeneous movement that has grown to give strength to Alfredo’s protest. A protest which not only called for the transfer of Alfredo himself from the 41bis regime but also demanded the abolition of this legalized torture together with that of ostensive life imprisonment i.e., life sentences without the possibility of access to parole or benefits, with which the Italian State as of today condemns almost 1300 prisoners to die in prison.
A government that is strongly characterizing its policy on the tightening and embitterment of laws and sentences, obviously had no problem ignoring, and sometimes mystifying, that struggle that highlighted the State’s torturer’s true face and it certainly would not have given in, if Alfredo, after 6 months of struggle, had not interrupted his hunger strike. But the objectives of protest and mobilization remain on the table of causes worth fighting for. Obviously that same government, which probably would have left our comrade to die of hunger, did not delay in presenting the bill with investigations and trials in various territories and cities where the solidarity mobilizations of those months spread like wildfire.
In the city of Turin, this government counter-offensive is manifesting itself mainly through the so-called “Operation City”, an investigation which has provided a good number of preventive measures (such as house arrests, obligation to sign on in police stations on a daily basis, ban from accessing certain cities, obligation to not leave your town of residency, etc…) and has led to several trials for which hearings are being celebrated at the present moment. The contested crimes refer to different moments of the mobilization, but most of the comrades on trial are accused in relation to the events that occurred during the international demonstration that took place in Turin on the 4th of March 2023, when Alfredo had been carrying out a hunger strike for almost five months with an inevitable worsening of his physical conditions. The events that occurred during the demo are classified under the charge of “complicity in devastation and looting”. “Devastation and looting” is the most serious crime that can be contested in the field of public order under Italian State law, which provides for high sentences (from 8 to 15 years); “complicity” on the other hand, does not require that the defendant has carried out a “criminal action” in itself but it is his mere presence at the demo which constitutes a crime of “complicity” with any criminal action that happened during the demo. The call into question of the count of “complicity” reveals the political purpose for which it is used: to scare and dissuade people from demonstrating because the punishment could affect anyone who decides to take to the streets. For this reason, the juridical concept of “complicity” must be fought with the aim of not giving up space to the criminalization and demobilization of street conflict, an inevitable element in any path of real criticism of political and economic orders.
As far as we are concerned, the practices implemented during that demonstration are nothing other than the response to the violence that the State wanted to exercise against its enemies for yet another time, at a moment when its intention to psychologically and physically annihilate our comrade Alfredo Cospito was clear. In the same way, we believe the self-defence of demonstrations is essential to protect the safety of the demo itself and make the identification of demonstrators more difficult. These are practices that belong to the heritage of every movement that wants to position itself in opposition to the State – practices that are increasingly pilloried, criminalized and stripped of their political meaning to reduce their presence in public demonstrations merely to a problem of “public order”.
Our considerations regarding the international demonstration of March 4th 2023 are few but immutable: the importance of having been there in that specific and crucial moment of the mobilization, the expression of anger towards an announced death sentence, the affection and gratitude towards a comrade who put his life on the line to fight against a world of exploitation and authoritarian abuse. At the moment, the trials involve over 60 people; thus, the legal expenses are high and all contributions are welcome. For any contribution, please write to: operazionecity@anche.no
Today, as always, on Alfredo’s side, against the 41-bis regime and life sentence without parole, against all prisons and all governments! The only response to repression is to keep on fighting!
Some accused comrades