darknights – Page 19

Berlin, Germany: Wild demo in memory of Kyriakos Xymitiris

Posted on 2025/02/12 by darknights

On October 31 our anarchist comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris was killed and our anarchist comrade Marianna M. was severely wounded in an explosion in an apartment in Athens. She was brought to the Evangelismos Hospital, where she was treated under constant police surveillance, and later transferred to the pre-detention prison in Korydallos. In the aftermath of what happened that day also our anarchist comrade Dimitra Z, our comrades Dimitris and Nikos R. and another person have been arrested and imprisoned in the same case.

Since then sorrow and rage have been present in our lives. Sadness for losing a comrade who committed to the fight to the end and by all means; anger because it is this capitalist, racist and patriarchal system that killed him. Kyriakos did not choose to close his eyes on the economic and political interests of a few who condemn us to a life of misery through the sale of houses to vulture funds, labor precariousness, feminicides, borders and wars. In the city of Berlin Kyriakos he has been committed for years in the defense of released spaces and against gentrification, in the internationalist struggle, in the abolition of prisons, as well as in all social and class struggles.

His passion and believes for a new world free of oppression leave a huge emptiness in those who were around them, as well as in the struggle itself. However, his imprint through words and actions encourages us to keep the thread of the insurrection alive, thus continuing the vision of the social revolution present in our hearts and minds. A revolutionary action that understands the armed struggle as a decisive medium in favor of those of the bottom in the balance of power, which tries and manages to return to the state part of the violence that every day imposes us.

We understand that through the defense of his memory we also stand next to all those who gave their lives or and were imprisoned to fight against injustice, inequality and exploitation.

For all this reason and collecting the call of February 7 and 8 of the Greek comrades from Athens, we want to face those who try to pervert this memory. As well as express our solidarity to the comrades imprisoned in the same case. For this reason we decided to have a short wild demo through Friedrichshain where we had shared together many collective moments of happiness and rage. Obstacles were put on the streets, graffiti in memory of Kyriakos were sprayed. Afterwards in Rigaer Street arriving forces of the occupiers were fought with stones.

This neighborhood of Berlin, as well as other metropols in the world, has faced a huge process of gentrification. In the last years where collective spaces where evicted to be transformed in yuppi restaurants and shops, people with low sources are getting displaced to the periphery, the airbnb are rising while the rents are becoming unbearable and the policies about how to use the public space are more repressive.

We, as Kyriakos did, can’t turn our eyes away of this process that destroys the city and the different communities living there. We, the ones that believe in a better world, want to go out of this precarity where the ones not conforming the norm are condemned. For this reason, as many other protest and answers are taking place in different cities, we want to stand against it and continue the path that we already walk with our friend and comrade Kyriakos. This path that cost his life. Him in our minds, his ideas in our hearts. Together taking back the streets of Berlin and Athens again. Revolutionaries hearts burn forever!

Freedom for our comrades Marianna M., Dimitra Z, Dimitris and Nikos R.!

Kyriakos Present!

Source: https://de.indymedia.org/node/491644

Russia: Radical resistance 11.01-29.01.2005

Posted on 2025/02/12 by darknights

Saratov

On 11 January, a 16-year-old teenager was detained in Saratov for preparing the murder of Saratov regional Duma deputy Alexander Yanklovich. According to the investigation, the suspect was going to kill the deputy on the instructions of ‘unidentified persons’. He came with a hammer to the deputy’s house, but did not find him at home. The teenager was allegedly going to ‘continue his actions after receiving information about the man’s whereabouts’, but was detained on 11 January.

Yanklovitch is the head of the Saratov Regional Duma’s Veterans Affairs Committee, a Hero of Russia and a veteran of combat operations in the North Caucasus. He also headed the Saratov regional public organisation Saratov Association of Heroes, which accepted donations for the needs of participants in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In September 2023, Yanklovitch left to fight in Ukraine as part of the Rosgvardiya, but a year later he cancelled his contract due to age.

tg-channel No future notes that the arrested teenager may turn out to be a bonhead from the Yubileyny neighbourhood. A local left-wing football fan identified him in a photo.

The servant of the people Alexander Yanklovych, who escaped death, naturally stated that the assassination attempt was supervised by the special services of Ukraine. He himself and his family were in the temple, that’s why he was saved, the MP claims.

If the detainee shared right-wing ideas as a child and really acted on someone’s orders (which we do not know), then the target of the attack was certainly chosen worthy. The enemies of the Russian people are not representatives of other peoples or migrants, but ‘native’ Russian authorities.

We wish the guy resilience and development of critical thinking.

Moscow

A UAZ Patriot military vehicle with Ministry of Defence plates was burnt down in New Moscow on 17 January. The car was burnt in a car park in the settlement of Desyonovskoye. UAZ ‘Patriot’ with military black and white numbers was standing in the car park near the house. At some point the car caught fire. There were no people in the car,’ eyewitnesses wrote.

Kazan

At about 16.00 Moscow time on 23 January an unknown person threw a Molotov cocktail into the foyer of the main entrance of the administrative building of the Kazan Gunpowder Plant (FKP ‘KGKPZ’) at 14 May 1 Street in Kazan, Tatarstan. This started a fire, which was extinguished by employees of the plant. The Interior Ministry said it had not found or identified the arsonist. The CCTV cameras show a lad of about fifteen years old with his face covered.

It is known that between 2023 and 2024 the plant has increased capacity to produce explosives for Russia’s military-industrial complex.

Source: a2day

Czech Republic: ‘I will not be intimidated’ – Lukáš Borl

Posted on 2025/02/12 by darknights

In the past, I have published an extensive analysis of how specific individuals and groups try to isolate me, attack my private life, they’re threatening my safety and sabotage the Anti-militarist activities I engage in. One of the examples given was a description of how a member of the Trhlina infoshop told a friend of mine that I was at risk of a strong reaction from militant anti-fascists. In other words, the person from Trhlina was threatening me. At that time it was not yet clear whether the threat would come true. Now it is clear. On Saturday, February 8, 2025, I was physically attacked by one such militant anti-fascist in Prague’s Club 007.

What happened?

The attacker waited until most of my friends had left the club, followed me into the toilets, where he punched me several times in the face. No, I’m not surprised he chose such an insidious method. I’ve seen so much scheming from his cronies that I expect nothing but meanness, unscrupulousness and hypocrisy from them now.

Before “Mr. Hero” physically attacked, he also tried to “explain” to me in a few words that I should not oppose the defense of Ukraine. He did not give me any chance to express my arguments as to why I do not support the defence of Ukraine or the defence of Russia, the defence of the Czech Republic or the defence of any other state. I am an anarchist, therefore I fight against all states. Against fascist states, as well as democratic, stalinist, monarchist…
Instead of defending Ukraine – that is, a particular state and its regime – I prefer to support and defend the working class living on Ukrainian territory, because on the one hand it is now being massacred by Putin’s invasion, on the other hand it is being subjected to persecution and repression by the Ukrainian government, as well as to severe exploitation by Ukrainian capitalists.

I think explaining something like that to the person who attacked me would be pointless anyway. I doubt he would understand the basic gist of it. It wasn’t the first time he’s shown me that he has a strong penchant for harsh macho posturing but lacks serious political analysis.

I can’t keep quiet

I think it’s important to talk openly about this incident in public. It is a concrete example of the hypocrisy of those who spread statements on the Internet in which they style themselves as innocent victims who are being harmed, while in reality they are inciting and supporting aggression against opponents from the anarchist milieu.

I won’t hide the fact that I was shaken by this incident. I really felt a lot of frustration, anger and a sense of helplessness. But I soon processed these strong emotions. Thanks, among other things, to the people who stood up for me, gave me the emotional support I needed and reassurance that I was not alone in this.

Even though I know there are legitimate reasons to use violence against some people, I don’t feel like retaliating right now. It’s just that, just as a cornered animal can bite hard to get out of danger, I suppose I might act the same way in a similar situation. I’m not a pacifist , and I know there are times when one’s bare hands are not enough to defend oneself. Anyone who attempts to attack me and/or my friends again in the future should be aware of this.

My black eye and the pain in my face will certainly fade with time, but my willingness to support anti-war activities will remain. I’m sure of it. Whoever attacked me may not realize it, which is why it’s important for him and his macho crew to read this: I will not be intimidated! What happened that night only makes me want to continue on the path I’ve set out on.

For those who also want to follow this path, I would like to recommend supporting the fundraising for deserters and war refugees organized by the Anti-Militarist Initiative (AMI).

I also recommend getting the publication Voices from Ukraine. In these publications, the anarchist collective Assemble from Kharkiv illustrates the positions of revolutionaries living in a place where war is raging.

Salem, Oregon, USA: Tesla Dealership Arson

Posted on 2025/02/12 by darknights

January 20, 2025

Salem Police are investigating an early morning fire at a Tesla dealership as arson, police said in a news release Monday.

Police officers and firefighters responded to reports of a car fire at the Tesla dealership at 2755 Mission St SE at 3:45 a.m., the release said.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Salem bomb squad were at the scene Monday afternoon.

The fire was limited to one vehicle and no one was injured.

A window on the west side of the building also was broken, police said.

Found on Mainsteam Media

Source: Unravel

Portland, Oregon, USA: Election Office Vandalism

Posted on 2025/02/12 by darknights

January 20, 2025

Portland police are still searching for multiple suspects seen vandalizing the Multnomah County Elections Office around 2 a.m. Monday.

A group of eight to 10 vandals smashed 33 windows and two doors at the elections office, located near Southeast 10th Avenue and Morrison Street. Crews worked until 9 a.m. to clean the glass and graffiti.

Surveillance footage provided by Multnomah County shows vandals dressed in mostly gray or black all wearing hoodies, throwing rocks and other heavy objects through the windows.

Portland Police Chief Bob Day says despite the incident occurring on Inauguration Day, there is no reason to believe the attacks are politically motivated.

“I think it’s important to remember that we have seen these types of attacks regardless of who’s in office,” he said. “It does not tend to be so much associated with the ruling party as much as it has to do with a ideological belief around government and establishment in general.”

Graffiti sprayed on the building contained anarchy symbols and anti-government rhetoric.

Day noted the attack was likely planned because of the amount of damage done in a quick amount of time.

When asked whether there was any potential for a correlation to an arson attack at a Tesla dealership in Salem that occurred just shortly after, Day said they are working with Salem police to investigate a potential link.

Found on Mainstream Media

Source: Unravel

Some notes on Insurrectionary Anarchism

Posted on 2025/02/08 - 2025/02/08 by darknights

Insurrectionary anarchism is not an ideological solution to all social problems, a commodity on the capitalist market of ideologies and opinions, but an on-going praxis aimed at putting an end to the domination of the state and the continuance of capitalism, which requires analysis and discussion to advance. We don’t look to some ideal society or offer an image of utopia for public consumption. Throughout history, most anarchists, except those who believed that society would evolve to the point that it would leave the state behind, have been insurrectionary anarchists. Most simply, this means that the state will not merely wither away, thus anarchists must attack, for waiting is defeat; what is needed is open mutiny and the spreading of subversion among the exploited and excluded. Here we spell out some implications that we and some other insurrectionary anarchists draw from this general problem: if the state will not disappear on its own, how then do we end its existence? It is, therefore, primarily a practice, and focuses on the organization of attack. These notes are in no way a closed or finished product; we hope they are a part of an ongoing discussion, and we most certainly welcome responses. Much of this comes straight from past issues of Insurrection and pamphlets from Elephant Editions.

1. The State Will Not Just Disappear; Attack

The State of capital will not “wither away,” as it seems many anarchists have come to believe — not only entrenched in abstract positions of ‘waiting,’ but some even openly condemning the acts of those for whom the creation of the new world depends on the destruction of the old. Attack is the refusal of mediation, pacification, sacrifice, accommodation, and compromise.
It is through acting and learning to act, not propaganda, that we will open the path to insurrection, although propaganda has a role in clarifying how to act. Waiting only teaches waiting; in acting one learns to act.
The force of an insurrection is social, not military. The measure for evaluating the importance of a generalized revolt is not the armed clash, but on the contrary the amplitude of the paralysis of the economy, of normality.

2. Self-Activity versus managed revolt: from insurrection to revolution

As anarchists, the revolution is our constant point of reference, no matter what we are doing or what problem we are concerned with. But the revolution is not a myth simply to be used as a point of reference. Precisely because it is a concrete event, it must be built daily through more modest attempts which do not have all the liberating characteristics of the social revolution in the true sense. These more modest attempts are insurrections. In them the uprising of the most exploited and excluded of society and the most politically sensitized minority opens the way to the possible involvement of increasingly wider strata of exploited on a flux of rebellion which could lead to revolution.
Struggles must be developed, both in the intermediate and long term. Clear strategies are necessary to allow different methods to be used in a coordinated and fruitful way.
Autonomous action: the self-management of struggle means that those that struggle are autonomous in their decisions and actions; this is the opposite of an organization of synthesis which always attempts to take control of struggle. Struggles that are synthesized within a single controlling organization are easily integrated into the power structure of present society. Self-organized struggles are by nature uncontrollable when they are spread across the social terrain. Continue reading “Some notes on Insurrectionary Anarchism” →

Transhumanism: the ideology of the techno-world

Posted on 2025/02/08 - 2025/02/08 by darknights

Transhumanism: the ideology of the techno-world
Silvia Guerini and Costantino Ragusa – Resistenze al nanomondo

A chapter from the book: Silvia Guerini and Costantino Ragusa, The ideology of the techno-world. Resisting the megamachine, acro-pólis, 2024.
We will soon publish an English translation of the entire book on our website: Resistenze al nanomondo, www.resistenzealnanomondo.org

“The goal of transhumanism is precisely to replace the natural with the planned”¹.
James Hughes

From the First Industrial Revolution, we have come to define technological developments since the 21st century as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Developments made possible by information technology that characterised the Third Industrial Revolution. In our view, defining the developments of the converging techno-sciences as a Fourth Industrial Revolution is somewhat reductive. First of all, this definition refers to a purely industrial process when the current transformations concern life itself. We do not have a transformation of a factory system that then has consequences for society as a whole, but we have from the very beginning a process that insinuates itself into society and into people’s existence. We are not confronted with developments that simply result from previous technical innovations, but we are confronted with a precise idea of the human being that can be realised thanks to the techno-sciences that can now extend into every dimension, penetrating right into bodies and life processes. Even advances in Artificial Intelligence, for example, do not stem from some new technological innovation, but from more powerful computers, more efficient algorithms and above all more available data.

Techno-sciences become a system, they become a horizon of meaning, they become the context of people’s existence, they become inevitable. They cannot be considered as technologies that fit into every sphere of society, leaving the possibility of using them or not, allowing a dimension of autonomy with respect to them. Once inserted, they become the environment itself, merging with it, shaping and transforming it according to their characteristics and according to the transhumanist ideology they carry. In doing so they become the new normal by shaping and transforming being-in-the-world, perceiving themselves in the world, being in the world and acting in the world. Ultimately transforming the human being.

It can be understood how in itself techno-sciences are not neutral: ‘what we consider the neutrality of technology is only our neutrality with respect to it’².

The endless debate around their neutrality and their positive or negative use could end around the simple consideration that the harmful consequences cannot be considered as side effects: as far as genetic engineering technologies and nanotechnology are concerned, these are always announced disasters that among other things serve to speed up and normalise other steps.

Just as the atomic scientists observing the results of their tests on the inhabitants of the Bikini atolls did not have before their eyes side effects, but the very manifestation of nuclear research, the researchers developing gene editing with CRISPR/Cas9 do not have before their eyes the disappearance of DNA fragments and transmissible genetic modifications as undesirable effects, but the very possibility of intervening in the evolution of living beings.

Just as a tunnel effect microscope is not a simple instrument, but presupposes a world in which matter is manipulated at the nanoscale, techno-sciences presuppose a world in which the living becomes mere matter to be engineered and redesigned, in which every phenomenon is controlled in order to direct its direction and evolution. Human beings included.

The issue is much more radical than a debate reduced and flattened to utilities, advantages, disadvantages, risks, dangers, the reflection should be taken a little further, out of their realm of quantity, out of their mechanism, out of calculations and predictions to arrive at the radical questioning of the conception that sees the living as a machine. In this conception, only what can be measured and analysed has value, and it is this that becomes the real. But what will come out of tables, diagrams, models, enclosures, laboratories, test tubes and slides will be a minced, simplified, impoverished, degraded real. Nothing compared to the love with which Alfred Russel Wallace observed the bird of paradise in the forest of New Guinea or with which Jean-Henry Fabre spied the comings and goings of a beetle in Provence. That kind of science has disappeared, precisely because a Fabre behind the flattery of the academic world and the great scientific institutions made Victor Hugo’s words his own: ”I hate the stench of death from laboratories”, referring to vivisection on animals practised as profusely in his time as still today.

If a living being is conceived as a machine, one cannot get to know it through simple observation in its environment, it becomes necessary to break it down into its parts. ”It is in this light that one can understand why scientists think it is possible to learn more about life by cutting a frog open in a laboratory than by sitting by a pond observing frogs and fish, mosquitoes and water lilies living together”³. Modern science with its quantitative and utilitarian approach already had in its assumptions the dissection and manipulation laboratory. Continue reading “Transhumanism: the ideology of the techno-world” →

Carhaix, France: In Finistère, a Socialist Party office was set on fire during the night

Posted on 2025/02/08 by darknights

In Finistère, a Socialist Party office was set on fire during the night
~~France Info/Ouest France~~, January 22, 2025

The alarm was sounded by a neighbor on the night of Tuesday January 21 to Wednesday January 22, 2025: a fire was discovered in front of the door of the Socialist Party (PS) office in Carhaix (Finistère), located at the beginning of rue de Callac.

The fire had been started by objects placed in front of the door. On Wednesday morning, traces of the fire were still visible. The fire department arrived quickly and managed to contain the blaze. “The damage was concentrated on the facade and the door,” explains Châteaulin company commander Yann Favennec.

A tag reading “PS social traitors” was also discovered on the wall next door. The fire occurred just a few days after the Socialist Party refused to vote the motion of no confidence against François Bayrou’s government. The motion failed to win enough MPs’ votes to pass the National Assembly.

Source: Sans Nom

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim by the Cells of Offensive Solidarity for the placement of an incendiary device at Kypseli’s ΕΦΚΑ (National Social Insurance Agency)

Posted on 2025/02/08 by darknights

We take responsibility for the placement of a low powered incendiary device in the early hours of 03/12 at the ΕΦΚΑ office in Kypseli, located on Kefallinias Street.

Although the device, fortunately for you, did not ignite, the message remains the same.

Rest assured that with the same operational ease, we can target any location of our choosing at any time, with a similar device.

The reason we selected this specific target, among the many offered by the metropolis, is that it is a key structure of the state mechanism, one that promotes destitution, subjugation, and consequently, the manipulation of the majority of society. The Social Insurance Agency (ΕΦΚΑ) operates under the supervision of the Ministry of Labour, which in capitalist terms means it acts as an executive organ of the ideological orientation promoted by the current government.

To clarify, ΕΦΚΑ is responsible for distributing pensions of a mere €426.17, withholding contributions from workers, freelancers, and farmers, and combating tax evasion. Taxes for farmers exceed 50%, and for freelancers, they surpass 75%. In summary, ΕΦΚΑ serves as the state’s tax collector, playing a pivotal role in financing its political agenda and legitimizing its existence. But when words fail, numbers speak.

Revenues for the years 2024 and 2025 (approximately) amounted to about €51 billion, while expenses for social security funds were around €50 million. This means only 0.1% of the revenue is returned to society.

ΕΦΚΑ is the hand that gives a pittance to the beggar’s outstretched hand—a currency whose value is dictated by the state and government, within the predefined trajectory imposed on the modern wage slave, who defines themselves based on how productive and disciplined they have been within the capitalist machine, perpetually chasing class advancement and social status validation. Moving beyond the confines of sterile class analysis, which solely blames the state and capital while ignoring the responsibility of those consciously trapped in a condemned life—a life determined by others from birth, bound by servitude, shackled, and surrounded by the glitter of capitalist showcases.

In opposition to the world of social consent and submission, complacency, inertia, and defeatism, against any logic of delegation and waiting, we choose the path of direct action, responding with attacks on the world of power, navigating through the flames of its total destruction. Every call for attack is a proposal for social disengagement, a rupture with all forms of authority, a call for the destruction of the existing order.

With armed hands and words, with a broken heart, and the name of a street etched in memory, we carried out this attack in memory of the armed revolutionary Kyriakos Ximitiris and in solidarity with the anarchist comrade Marianna M., who is held captive in the dungeons of bourgeois democracy. Walking the path of insubordination, dispute, and attack—a path stained with the blood of those who, unrepentant, chose frontal assault on the state and power—every step we take remains unwavering in its purpose.

For every comrade who bore the heavy cost of revolutionary prospects and insurgent action, we promise that with each passing day, as long as our feet tread this earth, we will cut off the heads of our oppressors and dismantle everything they have built with their filthy hands. Comrade, may you have good incursions in the valley of eternal silence.

Strength to imprisoned comrade K.K., accused of arson on a police service van in Mesolongi.

Solidarity to all those prosecuted in the Ambelokipi case.

Freedom for the revolutionary Nikos Maziotis, member of Revolutionary Struggle

IMAGINATION – OPTIMISM – RISK

Cells of Offensive Solidarity

Source: Issue 3 of anarcho-nihilist / insurrectionary newspaper “Blessed Is The Flame”

Via & translated by Act for freedom now!

Anna Beniamino: Pathophysiology of the prison monster: poisons and antidotes (October 2024)

Posted on 2025/02/07 - 2025/02/07 by darknights

Anna Beniamino: Pathophysiology of the prison monster: poisons and antidotes (October 2024)

Article translated and published in Spanish in “Tinta de Fuga,” periódico anárquico contra las prisiones y la sociedad carcelaria, no. 7, segundo semestre 2024.

PHYSIOPATHOLOGY OF THE PRISON MONSTER:
POISONS AND ANTIDOTES

Stories of mice and men

In pharmacology laboratories, antidepressants are tested with an experiment of exquisitely human cruelty: a mouse, drugged or “nature,” is submerged in a glass cylinder half-filled with water and the time of desperate swimming before immobility overtakes is calculated.
Usually the rodent without psychotropic support tries to climb along the cylinder and jump for 5 minutes before giving up; antidepressants lengthen desperate swimming attempts by a few minutes before resignation overtakes.
Stripped of the cynicism it conveys, the Porsolt or “desperate swimming” test is a useful allegory to illustrate the current situation in Italic jails and this summer’s trickle of suicides and riots in the overcrowded, dilapidated communal sections1, a charcoal of forced cohabitation in cramped spaces, in a word humiliating human dignity: drug-induced apathy and depression, the ubiquitous “therapy,” desperate attempts at reaction that often take self-harming forms, backyard hegemonies, desolidarization, childish brawls, where there is a constant pouring of suggestions and models from TV dramas, which is then the lobotomizing diversion that overcomes “therapy” in the pervasive echoing from cell to cell.
To the pathological infantilization of the individual, the prison works methodically, depriving him not only of freedom of movement, but also of that of minimal choice in the course of the day: the idiotic and incomprehensible regulations, the extreme bureaucratization of every minutia of daily survival. Depersonalizing mechanisms that deprive one’s humanity, the application of which essentially serves to establish the pressure of the repressive structure (and the individual’s capacity for resistance or adaptation), are handled aseptically, feeding a meat grinder where reactions can cover the entire range between anesthetized apathy and revolt as an assertion of subsistence in life rather than claim.
This Dantesque bedlam is overlaid and counterbalanced by the fragmentation and consequent isolation of differentiated sections and circuits. In most compas one finds oneself as well as in small numbers, divided from the rest of humanity in chains, locked between high-security sections and, even more isolated, in 41bis2 circuits.
High-security sections have an additional internal separation to avoid contact between those accused of “terrorism,” domestic and international (AS2) and those of “mafia-style criminal conspiracy” (AS3) and related offenses, to avert, in the eyes of the legislature, monstrous criminal chimeras due to cross-species interbreeding3. Or, more prosaically, even if only to prevent the spread of a basic knowledge of one’s rights as a prisoner, a subject on which political prisoners are normally better versed, as they come from more literate backgrounds on the subject and are more prone to the consequent dialectic.
In AS, with the rubber stamp of the “mafia” or “terrorism” formula, an opposite strategy is applied to the overcrowded common sections: separation between prisoners, removal from the place of residence to make contact with family members more difficult, reduced contact with the outside world (fewer interviews, 4 hours monthly, and fewer phone calls, 2 monthly of 10 minutes each), heavier sentences, with less if any possibility of alternative sentences under the aegis of 4bis o.p. 4.
Then there is 41bis, the bottom of the well, the bottleneck of the repressive funnel where it is easier to get in than to get out, in the highest degree5, with a further exacerbation of solitary confinement, intracarceral and extracarceral: a one-hour interview per month with partitioned glass and audio-video recording; almost total postal censorship; limitation of items allowed in the cell, including books and music CDs, the purchase of which is in any case made very difficult, if not impossible; one hour of air time per day in cramped, netted yards and with socializing with up to three other prisoners (in fixed groups selected by management).
This prologue, unpleasant, is to explain a minimum the difficulties and contradictions experienced, as antiauthoritarians, in facing and fighting prison these days in these shores.
The strategy of isolation, sterilization of human contacts and rescission of solidarity networks is obviously not an Italian prerogative but, as our Chilean comrades are well understanding, a practice that is spreading and being perfected there as well, as in the aggravation of Francisco’s conditions of isolation and the restructuring of the Alta Seguridad. Just as everywhere the restructuring of detention facilities combines punitive logics toward the individual refractor with those of a “Fordist” efficiency of preventive repression aimed at creating compartmentalized and incommunicative levels to more effectively and aseptically manage control, inside as well as outside. Continue reading “Anna Beniamino: Pathophysiology of the prison monster: poisons and antidotes (October 2024)” →