In these three years I was faced with choices which led me by the hand through a path fraught with crossroads and bifurcations.
Like on a minefield, I had to decide carefully where to step, with my pride and my self-respect at stake. The first choice I had to face with was whether I should continue to contribute, or let the prison overflow me, patiently waiting to get out. As limited as my situation is, I chose to continue to contribute through the written word. Once I made this decision I faced another crossroad: whether to confine myself — ecumenically — from this “high point” of my “status” (sic.) of a “revolutionary” prisoner — to bestowing blessings in each directions, applauding to every anarchist practice, paying attention not to make any enemies; or to use the weapon of critique, ever more harshly, trying to outline some analysis, to open some discourses. I chose the easier way (at least for me): openly push my critique to the extremes, at the cost of isolation (less letters, less information, less generic solidarity).
But always aware of the abyss between the thought and the action.
Words, strong as they may be, always carry something that sounds phony, even when they pose real, concrete risks, which may effectuate in years of prison for apology or incitement.
In “my” cell, the words I listen to most carefully are those that follow the actions, those which become flash and blood. They are alive, real, there’s no mistaking. They differ from the continuous blabbering in the background of an anarchist movement withdrawn in itself, affected by an embarrassing lack of courage and fantasy. A movement that feeds on appearance, on rhetoric and sometimes on demagogy, with its demonstrations, assemblies, communicative marches, campaigns of information and on rooting in a territory, a continuous blah blah. You don’t have to support claims of responsibility, but you know for sure they are honest because they are products of an action, because they’re written by really taking part in the game, putting one’s life in danger. In these times of virtual reality it is no small thing, and when then these claims talk to each other becoming campaigns of action, the background noise, the blabbering, definitely disappears, and everything gets more serious, more dangerous, more real. Continue reading “‘Ready or Not’ – Alfredo Cospito”→
Update about the health condition of Alfredo Cospito on the 71st day of hunger strike (Italy, December 29, 2022)
On December 29th, 71st day of the hunger strike to the bitter end against 41 bis and life imprisonment without possibility of parole, the antagonist radio station Radio Onda d’Urto broadcast a speech by the doctor who is regularly visiting anarchist comrade Alfredo Cospito, imprisoned in the Bancali prison in Sassari. We report a partial transcript of the speech and, at the end of the update, the recording of the broadcast (in italian language).
“[…] So, let’s consider that Alfredo is now 70 days into his hunger strike. He started from a weight of 115 kg and today he is at 84 kg. Surely he has a strong physique, he started from a fairly high weight so he has a better chance than others of being able to sustain this hunger strike. It is clear, however, that everything has an end at some point; in the sense that currently his haemato-chemical parameters are quite good, except for the fact that it is going down a bit with the electrolytes. Today he spoke to me about reducing his agony, in the sense that he wants to make it precipitate a little in order to shift the ground a little, a little more, so that he might eventually be transferred from 41 bis. I told him, however, that as far as potassium is concerned, which is part of the electrolytes, like sodium and chlorine, it is indispensable for contraction, especially for cardiac contraction – I am a cardiologist –, in fact, with the electrocardiogram that we did today there are alterations that are found in the ventricular recovery phase, and which show particular waves that result from potassium deficiency. Obviously I got a bit angry because, a few days ago, he stopped taking the supplements [extremely mild, light, which he has been taking for some time], so this is also the cause of the lowered potassium […]. He is a little convinced [to keep taking them, for a few more days] so he promised me that today and tomorrow, while waiting for the results of the tests [which are done about every four days], he will take the supplements. Then, as for the rest, psychologically he is in high spirits, smiling; a couple of days ago they moved him from his cell to another one, so he has air time with three other inmates, and this pleases him very much, because he talks to these other three inmates during air time. As a complexion then, in fact, he is a little better because he was very, very pale, but not pale because he was deficient in red blood cells; pale precisely because he was not taking light. And obviously the calcemia that he still has good is crumbling a little bit from the bones; somewhere, if you don’t take in food, the body subtracts and tries to help in some way. Let’s say that also as reasoning, as lucidity, he is fine; nothing to say about the answers he gives, they are not at all confused. He is reading, now and then he has a bit of blurred vision, he told me a bit of visual impairment, and that goes with the vitamin deficiency, of course. Every now and then, also because he wants to be conscious, he takes a little honey, which is a bit better than sugar […], when he was hypoglycaemic, they used to give him some sugar, but now he takes honey, so he doesn’t have these glycaemic drops any more. Then, for the rest, he is quite well; obviously he has lost a lot, a lot, a lot of weight, even since the first time I saw him, but nothing disastrous from the haemato-chemical analyses […]”.
In the face of the attempted annihilation of Alfredo, it is of the utmost importance that the ideas, deeds, and contribution of the comrade not be forgotten, condemned to oblivion as desired by the repressive apparatus of the state with the Scripta Manent trial, the Sibilla operation, and the transfer to the 41 bis regime.
The recent decree of the Court of Surveillance of Rome that confirms the detention in 41 bis is placed in the same perspective – the annihilation of the comrade – and is indicative of the reprisal that the state intends to give to the anarchist movement. Repression, convictions, decades of imprisonment, however, will not be enough nor can they ever lead to surrender: inevitably, our passion for freedom is stronger than any authority.
We continue the struggle with determination, we support all anarchist and revolutionary initiatives in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito who has been on hunger strike for over 70 days, with Ivan Alocco since December 22nd again on hunger strike alongside Alfredo, and with all imprisoned anarchists and revolutionaries.
The recording of the Radio Onda d’Urto broadcast (in italian language):
BE WHERE THEY DON’T EXPECT – ROME JANUARY 1 – 25 HERTZ VEHICLES SET ON FIRE
During the 1st night of the year we left flammable material and lit the triggers on ten HERTZ car rental vehicles parked along the Appia Nuova. According to media reports a total of 25 vehicles including cars and vans were devoured by flames.
Hertz collaborates with the Greek police by supplying them with vehicles at bargain prices thereby making itself complicit in the often murderous repressive violence that it exercises on a daily basis to protect the economic and political elites that dominate through the Greek state. On December 5 just past, on the very day before the anniversary of the death of the young anarchist Alexis Grigoropoulos, a policeman shot and killed a 16-year-old member of the local Roma community, Kostas Fragoulis, in Thessaloniki. The same had happened the previous year. The Greek police are responsible not only for the repression of the anarchist movement active in that country, but also for continuous violence through harassment, beatings, rape (a recent case occurred in a barracks in Athens) and murders against the poorest and most marginalized components of the population, as well as anyone who tries to organize to defend themselves against the systemic violence of capitalism, confirming themselves as the state organ predisposed to disciplining the exploited and oppressed. That is why anyone who collaborates with this institution is to be regarded as an enemy of anyone who fights for the freedom and self-determination of peoples in an internationalist logic, and treated accordingly. For these reasons we attacked Hertz in Rome and will continue to do so at every opportunity. We call through this action on Hertz, since we cannot appeal to any arguments and ethics since the only reasonable value and argument for this company is evidently profit and economic growth, to stop any cooperation with the Greek police, otherwise the losses caused by international anarchist solidarity could be greater than the profits…
With this gesture we want to send a message of closeness and solidarity to:
Thanos Chatziangelou, on hunger and thirst strike since December 19 in Nigrita Prison to demand explanations about his punitive transfer from Korydallos Prison;
to Alfredo Cospito, on hunger strike since Oct. 20 against the 41bis regime to which he has been subjected since May 2022 and the hostile life sentence;
to Ivan Alocco, again on hunger strike since Dec. 22 in solidarity with Alfredo, imprisoned in France being accused of several arson attacks against diplomatic and company cars;
to Toby Shone forced into British jails and who will be subjected to particularly restrictive measures because of his claimed anarchism;
to all anarchist and rebel prisoners in the world;
to all those anarchists of action who stubbornly continue to risk their freedom to chase the craziest of dreams. Forward comrades! Our hearts beat in unison despite miles separating us!
Our comrades on strike instill in us determination. This is not the time of despair and resignation for us, this is the time of conscious anger that arms our will to act.
BANISH HESITATION – THIS IS THE TIME TO ATTACK!
AGAINST ALL AUTHORITY – CREATE 10 100 1000 DIRECT ACTION GROUPS!
BE WHERE THEY ARE NOT EXPECTED – BECOME DANGEROUS!
ALEXIS LIVES IN OUR EVERY ACTION! ETERNAL REVENGE!
Letter – Intervention of the anarchist comrade from Sardinia Omar Nioi
(convicted in the trial of “Operation Scripta Manent”) at the event held in Athens (A.S.O.E.E.) on December 19, 2022 regarding the anarcho-nihilist hunger striker Alfredo Cospito.
Organization: Anarchist Hangout Nadir(Thessaloniki),
Translation project blessed-is-the-flame.espivblogs.net,
Comrades.
The translation from Italian was done by the Counter-Information Group Radiofragmata.(radiofragmata.nostate.net)
First of all, a greeting to all the comrades who were present in this initiative, a greeting and a special thanks to the comrades who promoted it. To this day, the weaving of international relations, exchanges and comparisons continues, as in the past, to be an essential element and always a living part of revolutionary anarchism, in order to strengthen our intentions.
Scripta Manent: A political trial against 20 years of the history of revolutionary anarchism
The events:
At dawn on 6 September 2016, 32 comrades throughout the Italian State were awakened by the civil police (DIGOS). The result of the first part of the police operation called “Scripta Manent”, ordered by the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office through its investigator Roberto Maria Sparagna, is 15 suspects and 7 arrests. On the other hand, an eighth anarchist, in charge of the Anarchist Black Cross publishing project (now closed), is arrested after a house search against him in which batteries and an electrician’s manual were found. In addition to comrades Alfredo Cospito and Nicola Gai, already in prison since 2012 having been tried and convicted for the injury of Roberto Adinolfi, (CEO of Ansaldo Nucleare) action taken by “Nucleo Olga of FAI/FRI”, comrades Alessandro, Marco, Danilo, Valentina and Anna are arrested. For the comrades, articles 270 bis (on association with terrorist purposes), 280 bis (on terrorist acts with lethal or explosive devices) and 285 (on massacre) are triggered for various reasons, which are in question starting from as far back as 2003 and all relating to a series of attacks specifically signed by the “Informal Anarchist Federation” through the cells FAI/Narodnaya Volya (FAI/ People’s Will), “Cooperativa Artigiana Fuoco e Affini FAI/Collaboration of Fire and Artifacts (Occasionally Spectacular))”, “FAI/RAT ((Rivolta Anonima e Tremenda/Federazione Anarchica Informale – Anonymous and Tremendous Revolt/Informal Anarchist Federation)” and “Nucleo Olga FAI/FRI” (FAI/IRF Cell Olga).
Thus, there is the umpteenth investigation of the Informal Anarchist Federation, another attempt to fish in the darkness just to secure a salary, which between the period of investigation and trial, makes as many servants of the State as possible fatten their pockets. During the first months of this operation, the arrested comrades have been subjected to bans on meeting each other, censorship of correspondence, complete isolation and several transfers. In April 2017, the announcement of the closure of the investigation – for those arrested and under investigation in September 2016 – added, in addition to the crimes previously contested, to 12 of the 17 original accused to Article 414 of the Criminal Code (on incitement to commit a criminal act with terrorist purposes) as authors and/or distributors of the work of the Anarchist Black Cross, the newspaper and the blog, making explicit reference to certain opinion articles and other articles from No. 0 to No. 3. With regard to the offence of incitement to crime, the aggravating circumstance of “committing the act by means of computer and telematic tools” is also mentioned. Continue reading “Omar Nioi – Scripta Manent: a political trial against 20 years of history of revolutionary anarchism”→
Lately the state has been intensifying social misery and repression while at the same time sharpening class barriers, making survival a luxury. It is trying to impose total social control over every aspect of our lives, thus reinforcing its counterinsurgency policy. One of the social groups that experience this control to the greatest extent is the prisoners, being a subject completely cut off and stigmatized from the rest of society, thus becoming the perfect breeding ground for the harshest state policies.
Thus, on 28/10 the new penal code is passed which, among other things, includes the tightening of the conditions of leave and conditional dismissal, tightening of disciplinary procedures, extending the detention time of those accused of criminal-terrorist organizations, robberies or drugs, reintroducing type C prisons as ” Maximum Security Prisons ” and the prohibition of transfer to rural prisons. In this way, the regime of exclusion experienced by political prisoners is deepened while at the same time it is extended to other categories of crimes, increasing the time of incarceration of those who fall into this category. Immediately after the passing of the bill, mobilizations against it started in many prisons throughout Greece, with the participation of many criminal and political prisoners.
Thanos Chatziangelou actively participated in the above mobilizations and was quickly targeted by the state, culminating in his vindictive transfer to Nigrita prison on 19/12, as happened a few days later with Kostas Dimalexis who was transferred to Trikala prison. The purpose of these transfers is to remove the militants, who have not stopped opposing their oppressors, from the communities of struggle they had created. Thanos’ response was immediate, starting a hunger and thirst strike on 19/12 demanding the disclosure of the reason for his transfer and his return to Korydallos prison. Continue reading “Thessaloniki, Greece: Responsibility claim for solidarity attack on stores with the anarchist hunger/thirst strike of Thanos Chatziangelou”→
In the evening of 28 to 29 December we delivered to the flames a service van of the ΟΣΕ (Railway Organisation of Greece) in the area of Agia Sophia, in Patras as a small contribution to the struggle of comrade Thanos Chatziaggelou, on hunger and thirst strike since 19/12. We consciously chose this day as it was called a day of nationwide solidarity for Thanos.
Comrade Thanos hold on tight.
The prisoners of the Greek prisons have been fighting their own struggle against the new penal law for about a month now and that is why they are being targeted. We, your comrades, from our side, are acting as we ought at every possible opportunity, raising the flames of solidarity, revenge and attack, hoping that they will reach your unyielding consciences and light up your difficult nights of captivity, even for a while.
WHOEVER FORGETS THE PRISONERS OF WAR FORGETS THE WAR ITSELF
Comrades, let this attack be a small reminder to you and to the State that we will never leave our positions, we will never surrender our weapons and our consciences to the enemy and we will attack each time with new vigour and with new fury.
Comrade THANOS, Comrade KOSTA, Comrade LAMBROS, Comrade FOTIS, Comrade GIANNI, Comrade IASONA , the war is not over no surrender no submission.
Solidarity with comrade Alfredo Cospito and the 11 Turkish fighters on hunger strike.
Alfredo is in fair condition, is very lucid, and was expecting a rejection by the surveillance court of Rome [the verdict of the December 1st hearing at the surveillance court was announced on the 19th]. He does not despair that he will still be successful in his battle. In any case, he lets it be known that he intends to go on until death. Since the prospect of life imprisonment has been avoided for now – at least postponed – with the decision of the Turin court of appeal on December 5th [also on December 19th was held in Turin an appeal hearing at which the judges drew up the documents to be sent to the constitutional court], Alfredo reiterates that he will end his hunger strike only if he will be declassified from 41 bis prison regime.
He is aware of the solidarity mobilisation through news reports, when actions and initiatives impose this level of coverage on the regime media. The newspapers, on the other hand, come to him with pages cut out, holes that have become increasingly frequent in recent weeks.
At the moment, a few letters, telegrams and postcards seem to get through, unlike the months before his struggle, when everything written to him ended up being confiscated. Particularly with regard to telegrams, which seem to be the communications that most frequently pass the censors’ meshes, it is important to remember that these must be individual and must contain the sender’s name and address at the bottom.
We remind the address:
Alfredo Cospito
C. C. “G. Bacchiddu”
strada provinciale 56 n. 4
Località Bancali
07100 Sassari
Italy
Hammering against temporary employment agency in Foligno
On a mid-December night, the windows of the UMANA temporary employment agency in Foligno were smashed with hammers. Action in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito on hunger strike against 41 bis prison regime and life imprisonment without possibility of parole.
We chose a temporary agency because we are disgusted by administrators of human flesh, whether they are biological appendages attached to a bunch of keys, like those who torture our comrade, or administrators of labour for the hungry jaws of capitalism.
In May of this year, the anarchist prisoner Alfredo Cospito was transferred to the 41bis isolation regime. The torture method of sensory deprivation aims to break his rebellious spirit and silence him. In order to obtain the removal of his isolation conditions, our comrade started an unlimited hunger strike on October 20. On December 1st – on the 42nd day of the hunger strike – a review of the conditions of detention decided to continue the torture procedure. If the Italian fascist state persists in its practice of isolation, Alfredo may not see the end of this year. But his death will not be a suicide: it will be the murder under torture of a vengeful political justice.
Let’s prevent this murder
The most passionate form of revolutionary solidarity is to continue the struggles for which our compasses are behind bars. It was in this spirit that on December 11, during a night-time sabotage action, we went to a pylon of the Fessenheim-Paris EHV line and unscrewed the bolts. The pylon is still standing, but its statics are clearly compromised. Let our revolutionary anger act in alliance with nature, and let a winter storm do the rest!
Alfredo has always been able to link the question of social revolution with that of ecology and, through his words and deeds, connect the ecocidal plundering of our planet with the struggle against the dominant powers, exploitation and oppression. In his statement on the shooting in the knee of the Italian nuclear industry leader Roberto Adinolfi (ansaldo nucleare) and later in various statements of the procè in the Scripta Manent case, he described the need to anchor a revolutionary perspective in the anti-nuclear movement. In a valuable contribution to the debate, he also spoke in 2018 about the struggle against the CIGÉO project for the burial of nuclear waste in the French village of Bure in the Meuse. Referring to the idea of diversity of tactics practiced there, he suggests an intensification of the forms of struggle chosen. This is one of the contributions that were later used to justify the hardening of his detention conditions. Continue reading “Grand Est, France: Attack on nuclear infrastructure in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito”→
December 19, 2022, 61 days after the start of the hunger strike to the bitter end against 41 bis prison regime and life imprisonment without possibility of parole by anarchist Alfredo Cospito.
The decision concerning the appeal against the 41 bis detention order for anarchist Alfredo Cospito has just been announced: the surveillance court of Rome rejected it. The comrade will remain in 41 bis. This is not the moment of despondency, it is the moment of anger. You will pay dearly for it. Today as yesterday: death to the State, to the capital, to all authority.
