Social Control – Page 14

Italy: Techno-sharia, morality police and psychopolice

Posted on 2022/10/12 - 2022/10/12 by darknights

Adorno defined fascism in his time as “technically equipped barbarism.” While that definition stood out as one of the most precise, it nevertheless left the concept of barbarism in vagueness and ambivalence. Think, in the Marxist sphere, of the successful slogan “socialism or barbarism!”; loaded more and more with positivism and the ideology of a progressive advance toward classless society, Bordiga contrasted it with a resolute and outrageous “communism or civilization!” Not only does industrial and technological development not give birth to communism, it does not in itself “democratize” either customs or social relations.

More than a century ahead of those debates, the very young Leopardi had already centered the issue in one of the first thoughts of his Zibaldone: “Reason is a lamp: nature wants to be illuminated by reason not set on fire.” From this dazzling insight descends the reflection on the oppositional pair civilization-barbarie that runs throughout Leopardi’s work. Barbarie, for the poet-philosopher, is both that which precedes that light and the epoch of the overt and manifest fire, the triumph of a “geometrical reason” that is a “most false system of most true parts,” that is, “reasoned villainy,” the artificialization of lives and passions: in short, excess of civilization.

As the sequel showed, this was not merely a linguistic problem. The world still struggles, and more and more ruefully, with that ambivalence, although it changes its historical forms. Is not “technically equipped barbarism” Islam 4.0 under construction in Iran, a system that merges Sharia, social credit and facial recognition? We read, “Under the new hijab and chastity law enacted in Iran on Aug. 15, women who post their headscarfless photos on the Internet will suffer the temporary loss of certain social rights for a period of six months to a year. In addition, women deemed non-compliant will be barred from entering government offices, banks or traveling on public transportation. Government employees will be fired if their images on social media do not comply with what the Islamic laws dictate. Numerous women have been arrested for not complying with the dress code and forced to confess.” And again, “The Iranian government plans to use facial recognition technology on public transportation. The announcement comes directly from the secretary of Iran’s Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Mohammad Saleh Hashemi Golpayegani.” Continue reading “Italy: Techno-sharia, morality police and psychopolice” →

Greece: 41 BIS is torture – Strength and solidarity with the unrepentant anarchist of praxis Alfredo Cospito EN/GR

Posted on 2022/10/12 - 2022/10/12 by darknights

41 BIS is torture – Strength and solidarity with the unrepentant anarchist of praxis Alfredo Cospito

Anarchist prisoner Alfredo Cospito has been in Italian prisons since September 2012. He has claimed responsibility for the shooting in the legs of Ansaldo Nucleare CEO Roberto Adinolfi by the Olga Cell of the Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI-IRF).

From the very first moment of his detention, the Italian state has exercised all kinds of repressive experiments against the comrade. New prosecutions, new exhausting sentences, disciplinary sanctions, repressive operations against his political comrades. The comrade was sentenced to 9 years of imprisonment for the action against Adinolfi, while in prison he was sentenced to an additional 20 years of imprisonment (which is appreciable in total, an equivalent sentence in Greece would be 2 times life) after the prosecutions brought against him within the framework of the repressive operation Scripta Manet. In essence, the comrade was convicted as an instigator for all the actions of the FAI, since he was accused as its founder and leader, in a case that deserves special mention as it is a monument to arbitrary interpretations and vindictiveness.

The Italian state is a hybrid state when it comes to issues of anti-terrorist policy. It is a model state for its brutality and rigour in these matters, having been called upon to manage low-intensity civil war conditions during the period when armed revolutionary movements flourished in the 1960s and 1980s. The Greek state has followed the Italian example on many occasions, one need only recall the similarities between the ‘Marini case’ in Italy and the ‘Conspiracy of Cells of Fire case’ in Greece. Continue reading “Greece: 41 BIS is torture – Strength and solidarity with the unrepentant anarchist of praxis Alfredo Cospito EN/GR” →

Italy: The only viable path. Manifesto in solidarity with the anarchist Alfredo Cospito EN/IT

Posted on 2022/10/12 - 2022/10/12 by darknights

THE ONLY VIABLE PATH

Since May 5, our comrade Alfredo Cospito has been imprisoned under the 41 bis regime. This measure was ordered after months of censorship on correspondence and after the repressive operation Sibilla in November 2021, for which he received a warrant for his arrest in prison. Behind this repressive tightening of Alfredo’s prison condition is the state’s blatant desire to shut the mouth of a comrade who, during these years of imprisonment, has contributed much, through articles and interventions, to the anarchist debate.

The 41 bis is a hard prison regime, created to isolate, silence and annihilate the prisoner, trying to bring him to cooperation with Justice. Established in the late 1980s, it was initially applied in exceptional cases of riots or serious emergencies within prison institutions. In 1992, after the Capaci massacre, it was extended to Mafia convicts. Since 2002 it has also been applied to those convicted of terrorism and subversion, thus as an instrument of political repression. Also currently in this regime are some prisoners belonging to the communist BR-PCC organization. Originally established as a detention regime of a temporary nature, from emergency to emergency, this exceptionality has become the norm. This mechanism is now bread and butter for the majority of the population since the proclamation of the so-called pandemic. It is now evident: established an emergency measure, there is never a return.

Alfredo’s transfer to 41 bis, like the recent convictions of Juan, sentenced to 28 years for an explosive attack on a Lega headquarters, and Anna, convicted along with Alfredo for political massacre, are a real warning from the state: those who spread anarchist and revolutionary practices and ideas are buried alive. The anti-anarchist operations of recent years are also an example of the repressive tightening we are experiencing. In the face of this, we cannot be reduced to cashing in as best we can on the blows the state gives us, waiting for better times.

It is urgent that we lay the groundwork for a revolutionary, international solidarity that is concrete.

The only antibodies to confront the catastrophe to which the state and bosses are leading us day by day are propaganda and action that know how to go to the root, expressing the innermost meaning of our struggle: the destruction of the existent without any mediation.

OUT ALFREDO FROM 41 BIS. ALL FREE, ALL FREE
DEATH TO THE STATE, LONG LIVE ANARCHY!

anarchists

[Received by e-mail]

Continue reading “Italy: The only viable path. Manifesto in solidarity with the anarchist Alfredo Cospito EN/IT” →

France: A letter from Ivan, from Villepinte Prison

Posted on 2022/09/28 by darknights

Below is a text by anarchist Ivan Alocco, who was arrested on June 11 and is currently imprisoned in Villepinte Prison, France.
Break the isolation! For immediate revolutionary solidarity with Ivan and all imprisoned anarchists!

–

I am writing to share some thoughts and give some news.
I would like to begin with something that illustrates well the methods of the judicial system.
A few days after my arrest, the judge who instructed the investigation, Stéphanie Lahaye, sent two cops from SDAT [the Anti-Terrorism Sub-Directorate of the Judicial Police] (including the judicial police officer “RIO 1237232” – like machines, they have numbers instead of names) to interrogate my daughter and her mother. Obeying his orders, the procedures of state justice, they tried to pressure a 12-year-old girl. After making her wait in the courtyard of the local gendarmerie barracks during her mother’s interrogation, they allegedly wanted to interrogate her alone. Evidently, her mother refused to leave her.
An ordinary, mundane procedure, a necessary act to establish the truth, according to judges and cops. A way, in my opinion, of trying to spread fear. A warning to my loved ones and to everyone, because, in the inquisitive logic of Justice, people who stay or stand by an anarchist accused of direct action are suspect and must be bothered.

This is somewhat the same logic that was used against me. When the same judicial police officer, during interrogations while I was under arrest, asked me, she reproached me for bringing my support to imprisoned anarchists, in France and in other countries. Of writing to them and occasionally sending them some money. Of course, I often wrote to numerous imprisoned compas and did my best to express my solidarity with them. Because they are anarchists and also because I am convinced of the rightness and necessity of the actions some of them are accused of.
I think solidarity, by any means necessary, with compas affected by repression is fundamental. To avoid openly solidarizing with them, for fear that repression will spread, would be to enter the game of Justice, to accept its logic. A logic that would make us retreat further and further, until we abandon, or almost abandon, the imprisoned revolutionaries. Continue reading “France: A letter from Ivan, from Villepinte Prison” →

Belarusian anarchists given prison sentences from 5 to 17 years

Posted on 2022/09/18 by darknights

On 6 September Minsk City Court pronounced the verdict in the criminal case of the so-called “international criminal group”. There are 14 anarchists and libertarians, four of whom have left Belarus. The defendants were charged under 10 articles, including the articles on the establishment and participation in a criminal organization (paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 of Article 285 of the Criminal Code) and the establishment of an extremist formation (paragraphs 1 and 3 of Article 361-1 of the Criminal Code). The trial was held behind closed doors.

According to the investigation, from 2005 to 2020 unidentified persons together with anarchist Alexander Frantskevich and human rights activist Martha Rabkova united “a number of organized criminal groups”: “Revolutionary Action”, “National self-defense” and Revolucijna Dia (“Revolutionary Day”). Investigators allege that Frantskevich and Rabkova organized the arson of the Gomel District Tax Inspectorate in March 2017 using “Molotov cocktails.” Read more about the case and its defendants in Russian here.

The 10 convicts were sentenced to exactly the terms requested for them by the prosecution:
– Aleksandr Frantskevich – 17 years (strict regime)
– Akihiro Hanada-Gayevsky – 16 years (medium security)
– Marfa Rabkova: 15 years (minimum security)
– Alexei Golovko – 12 years (maximum security)
– Pavel Shpetny, Nikita Drants, Alexander Kozlyanko, Andrei Chepuk – 6 years for each (maximum security)
– Andrei Marach and Daniil Chul – 5 years each (reinforced regime)

It is also reported that the defendants were fined up to 700 basic units (about $8,900).

After the verdict was pronounced, the law enforcers detained relatives of the defendants and other political prisoners, diplomats who were not allowed into the courtroom, as well as random people who came to other trials.

Address for letters: SIZO-1, 2 Volodarskogo Street, Minsk, 220030 Belarus.

Currently, we work on the recovery of libertarian and anarchist movement in Russia, after a long period of stagnation and repressions and we need your help to improve our site. Join our campaign to raise money on Firefund!

Source: Avtonom

Italy: 25/09 in Genoa against Anti-Anarchist Repression EN/IT

Posted on 2022/09/18 - 2022/09/18 by darknights

Squeezed in the grip of health emergencies, wars, increasingly fierce domestic repression, energy crisis, economic recession, systematic erosion of individual freedoms, dismantling of acquired rights and widening social gaps, we are asked for an act of blind loyalty like that of the dog that, though clubbed, does not shy away from its master’s oppression, of resigned submission to the inevitability of these events: the chorus of politicians of all colors, of masters, of regime shouters re-propose to us the fatuous promise of the solution of the problems that grip the daily lives of most, of the common well-being, to be obtained, as it happens, through “tears and blood” sacrifices to which we should also, ironically, grant our consent in the electoral ballet. It seems to us that this spectacle is a painful rerun. The assent and social cohesion demanded of us are aimed more at feeding the interests of political apparatuses and the business dealings of the masters of the economy, these already closely coalesced at several levels for some time, who thrive on the backs bent by the chain of labor and necessity. To us anarchist comrades, libertarians, rebels, refractory to authority, the way forward seems clear: to resolutely oppose against this power that suffocates us and against the state, the men and women who represent it, against prisons and all places where anyone is imprisoned, against the political and economic institutions that speculate, plundering the planet’s natural resources and degrading our lives. We claim the necessity of the conflict against this state of affairs because we are aware that the oppression we experience is the result of processes that unfold historically in a well-defined way, that this system of exploitation will not exhaust itself, that it is up to us, here and now, to pursue the idea of freedom to which we aspire. And it is to this clash that we bring back, without victimhood, the meaning of repression when it targets us: repression and prisons will continue to exist as long as there is a state to bring down and that will do everything not to fall, exposing any illusion of democratic justice. This confrontation is burying in prison so many and so many of our most generous comrades, Anna, Alfredo, Juan, Monica, Francisco, Davide, Claudio, decades in jail, whole lives facing isolation, censorship, physical and psychological violence of rigid detention regimes. Yet they defend tooth and nail the idea they keep alive in their beleaguered hearts. We do not want to be outdone; their courage and determination inspire our paths out here. Since May 5, our comrade Alfredo Cospito has been locked up in the Bancali prison near Sassari in 41 bis, an extremely severe detention regime that involves almost total isolation, absence of sociability, and almost complete censorship of correspondence, the recording of the monthly 10-minute phone call and the interview reduced to one hour a month behind a partition screen without the possibility of any physical contact, constant body and cell searches, the very reduced availability of even everyday objects (clothes, books, paper and pen) and always subject to the arbitrariness of the jailers. Such a penalizing and fundamentally vindictive measure is clearly aimed at silencing the voice and ideas of a comrade who, over the years, has made a decisive contribution, with his theoretical critique and practice, to the anarchist debate; to annihilate him because he perseveres with determination and dignity in his path of struggle; to dampen, with the specter of exemplary punishment, the initiative of comrades outside in solidarity. In Genoa, three comrades who did not spare themselves in supporting Alfredo and the other imprisoned comrades are affected by special surveillance orders requested by the usual prosecutor Federico Stalker Manotti, in an attempt to isolate them and inhibit those close to them; a further request for surveillance has been issued for another comrade in Genoa, and a hearing against him will be held on September 28. These are the reasons why we have decided to take to the streets in Genoa next September 25, a date, that of the elections, which is symbolic of the farce of the social contract being renewed on the skin of all of us; if the machine of domination advances with all its apparatuses to engulf the lives of comrades, in our most disruptive desire for freedom, hatred of authority and active solidarity we can find adequate levers to crack the enemy’s front. We invite you to join us. When repression becomes tight and lashing, the response must be clear, determined and consistent. Let us break the isolation into which they would like to plunge our comrades. Let us deploy ideas, forces, strategies in response to the anti-anarchist campaign that the state has been waging for almost a decade now.

Solidarity is a weapon, let’s use it!!!

Out Alfredo from 41bis. Against all prisons

Continue reading “Italy: 25/09 in Genoa against Anti-Anarchist Repression EN/IT” →

Solidarity with Ivan! Freedom for everyone! Repression and vehicle arsons

Posted on 2022/09/07 - 2022/09/07 by darknights

For reading

For printing

This zine comes from an informal and anonymous collective formed in solidarity with Ivan. This collective does not claim to be a reference support committee or anything official. We welcome all autonomous initiatives in solidarity with Ivan and/or any other prisoner of the social war. Just as we welcome the reproduction and distribution of this zine.

Anarchists
July 2022

Summary:

Villepinte (Seine-Saint-Denis) France: Letter from prison from Ivan, “Solidarity means attack” (June 15, 2022)
Chronology of some vehicle arsons in France, between May 2021 and May 2022 (July 2022)
Bure (Meuse), France: Solidarity banner (June 2022)
Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), France: Solidarity arson of a camera (July 2022)
France: There are no isolated arsonists (July 2022)

Source & Translated from French by Act For Freedom Now!

France: “I know that there, somewhere, other comrades continue the struggle.” Letter from Ivan, anarchist comrade arrested in Paris

Posted on 2022/08/30 - 2022/08/30 by darknights

“I know that there, somewhere, other comrades continue the struggle.”

Letter from Ivan, anarchist comrade arrested on June 11 on the outskirts of Paris

15 VI 22

My name is Ivan, I am an anarchist.

I was arrested by the Sous-diréction anti-térrorisme [SDAT] of the French police on Saturday, June 11, around 3:30 a.m., near my home (suburbs of Paris), on my way home.

I am accused of six vehicle fires, in Paris and Montreuil, between January and June, often in solidarity with anarchist prisoners (the last one, an embassy car, was set on fire in the 17th arrondissement of Paris on the night of my arrest).

The cops followed me for months, listened to my phone calls, installed a camera in the entrance of the building where I live, intercepted my mail (especially letters from imprisoned anarchists) and looked at my bank account.

Another person (we know each other only by sight, but to him all my esteem) has been followed, listened to, etc., but has not been challenged. Courage friend!

The SDAT investigation began in late February 2022 on the orders of prosecutor Louise-Anne Belanger of the Bobigny prosecutor’s office. They also pulled from their drawers another archived investigation, which had been done by other cops, into some 50 arson attacks against vehicles, all in and around Paris, between 2017 and 2021. SDAT “merged” the two investigations, but the judge (Stéphanie Labarge [?], of the Bobigny court) retained only the last six attacks. For the others, I am an “assisted witness” [the equivalent of “person informed about the facts”].

In addition to “destruction by dangerous means,” there is also the charge of endangering the lives of others, refusal to give my DNA, refusal to have my photograph taken, refusal to give fingerprints, refusal to give passwords to computers and phones.

Right now, I am in pre-trial detention at Villepinte Prison. I am fit, I am fine, although I miss my loved ones very much.

Normal, it’s prison, and you have to put it on the line when you are an enemy of this society.

Here, the hardest time is when we come back from the walk. The door closes and we stay here until the next day. But I turn to the window and look out. I know that there, somewhere, other comrades continue the struggle.

As soon as I get more information on this story, I will write more (I don’t have much else to do!).

My thoughts go out to the anarchists in prison everywhere in the world: to Damien (in prison in Draguignan), to Alfredo, to Anna, to Juan, to Toby, to Giannis Michailidis on hunger strike… to all/all of you out there!

Solidarity is the attack!

Long live anarchy!

Ivan

Source: Il Rovescio

France: Some news on the situation of the anarchist Ivan

Posted on 2022/08/30 by darknights

August 16, 2022

Here is some news about the situation of Ivan, the anarchist comrade arrested on June 11 near Paris for arson and currently in pre-trial detention in the Villepinte prison.

He is well. After two weeks in a cell on his own between late July and early August, he is back in a cell with another detainee.

While Ivan was in detention, the SDAT (Sous-Direction Anti-Terroriste of the Central Direction of the french judicial police) interrogated his partner. A few weeks later, they also summoned his daughter (who is 12 years old) and mother for questioning. The cops wanted to question the girl, but the mother refused to leave her alone.

The comrade has not yet had access to the investigation files. The magistrate standing in for the judge in charge of the investigation explained the refusal by the fact that Ivan did not say anything during the interrogations. The lawyer will appeal against this decision.

Since July 19, the comrade no longer receives mail (there was only one exception). Maybe because the judge is on holiday? So do not be surprised if your letters remain, for the time being, unanswered. In any case, Ivan has always answered every letter he has received.

We continue to write to him and show our solidarity, through any means necessary.

Long live the fire, long live the attack!

The address of the comrade:

Ivan Alocco
n. d’écrou: 46355
M. A. de Villepinte
40, avenue Vauban
93420 – Villepinte
France

Besançon (Doubs), France: The medical and judicial powers are relentless against Anarchist comrade Boris

Posted on 2022/08/30 by darknights

PDF:

Besançon (Doubs): The medical and judicial powers are relentless against Boris

In April 2020, our comrade and friend Boris set fire to the antennas of four cell phone operators, as well as those of the cops and the gendarmes on the Mont Poupet (Jura). Identified by DNA present on a bottle cap, he was incarcerated in September 2020 in the prison of Nancy, then sentenced in April 2021 to four years in prison, two of which are unsuspended. In a public letter written from prison*, he defended his act by his desire to oppose the increasing digitalization of our lives through direct action, with all the control, environmental and social ravages it implies. In August 2021, he was seriously injured in a cell fire, and has since been in the hands of the medical authorities. On the judicial side, his imprisonment was lifted at the time of the appeal trial of the following September (postponed sine die), while an enquiry, still in progress, was entrusted to a judge in Nancy in order to determine the causes of the fire and to investigate the eagerness of the screws to let our companion suffocate in his cell.

Alternating between artificial coma and semi-consciousness for a few months, Boris could not make his own decisions. The doctors were not without mistakes in their diagnoses, but always with unwavering confidence. At the beginning of March 2022, Boris was transferred from the “Grands Brûlés” wing of the Metz hospital to the intensive care unit of the Besançon CHRU, which in April decided to get rid of him by sending him to another unit that was not well suited to his situation, without his opinion having any importance. This decision, which had serious consequences and meant the abandonment of active care, was essentially motivated by the fact that no favourable evolution of his state of health was observed, following miserable statistical criteria. Clearly, these criteria take absolutely no account of the particular individual to whom they are applied in an absolute and chilling manner, even if he expresses his fierce will to continue to live and fight to get better. Taking advantage of his current quadriplegia, and despite the fact that he is able to speak, lucid and combative, the doctors decided not to resuscitate him if a new serious infection occurred. It was only by protesting and writing letters that they had to take into account his will to survive and resume a minimum of active care. Continue reading “Besançon (Doubs), France: The medical and judicial powers are relentless against Anarchist comrade Boris” →