Alfredo Cospito is in prison in Sardinia under the prison regime “41-bis” and is kept in strict isolation. He defends himself against the prison conditions with a hunger strike, stakes his life for the protest against the inhuman prison conditions.
No visits (with the exception of relatives), books are not allowed to be sent to him, no access to newspapers – and he is no longer allowed to write articles. Thrown back completely to purely physical existence, ultimately at the mercy of mental death.
The intensification of his imprisonment goes back to a decision of the Court of Cassation, which considered a bomb attack in 2006, in which no one was killed or injured, as a completed political assassination and, since Alfredo showed no remorse, sentenced him to life imprisonment under the infamous “41-to” article of the penal code.
That here the state takes revenge on an unbowed anarchist and activist, who did not let himself be broken even during the years in prison, is obvious. Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote very clear-sightedly:
“Punishment is the name of revenge itself: with a lying word it feigns a good conscience” (from Thus Spoke Zarathustra).
Life imprisonment is itself a form of hidden physical death penalty, but subjecting people to further isolation extends the spectrum of the execution of revenge to the psychological, the spiritual level. Humans need more than something to eat and to drink to survive! The human relations are essential to be able to live. But locked up in the bare cell, almost no human contacts, no access to books and other things, all this can and should, according to the logic of justice, break people. Revenge in its purest form!
Alfredo fights against this with his means and possibilities. He does not physically attack prison staff, no, he stakes his own life! He starves! And starves! And starves!
Solidarity with Alfredo!
Abolish the “41-bis”!
Thomas Meyer-Falk
– himself from 1996-2007 in solitary confinement –
currently JVA (SV)
Hermann-Herder-Str.8, 79104 Freiburg, Germany
