Anarchist Prisoners – Page 8

Berlin, Germany: Claim of incendiary attack on sixteen Amazon vans

Posted on 2024/05/07 by darknights

Claim of incendiary attack on sixteen Amazon vans (Berlin, Germany, May 1, 2024)

Hey Jeff, do you see the clouds of smoke?

On the night between 30/04/2024 and 21/04/2024¹, with 6 incendiary devices we permanently disabled at least 16 Amazon vans in a company parking lot in Berlin/Thyssenstraße.

Notoriously, May 1 is the international day of struggle of the working class. Our gasoline barbecue is meant to incite the struggle against the oppression of people and nature and fuel the inevitable clash between exploited and masters.

Ralf Kleber, former head of Amazon-Germany:
“We are much more disturbed by a frostbite than a call for a labor struggle by ver.di²”

The dismissal or even socialization of large technology companies and global players such as Amazon, Tesla, Apple, Facebook or Google is inconceivable and cannot be a prospect for the exploited. We believe that reforming these companies or making them more “socially acceptable” is futile because their power is too great and the ideas and concepts of humanity inherent in them are diametrically opposed to our idea of freedom. We believe that the desire to scrutinize and control every human thought, every social relationship and even the smallest step in work processes is a threat to life itself. If then even these smallest dimensions are to be controlled and adapted to a predetermined appearance, it is violent domination in its purest form! Often it is the megalomaniac white men who seek to shape and exploit the whole earth according to their patriarchal ideas. All this is called progress, although in reality these patriarchs are only trying to direct society in an all-powerful way toward their abstruse authoritarian visions of the future! Jeff, Elon, Mark, Bill and the like, rest assured that you will not rest!

These large corporations plan to dominate, surveil, and exploit people more and more intensively. Their digital networks, algorithms and technologies have become indispensable and permeate all areas of our lives. They affect our existence, our daily lives, our feelings, our thinking, our communication and our social relations. The technological onslaught thus also targets everything that has so far resisted capitalist exploitation. A dystopia that tends toward its fulfillment: endless amounts of data are collected, selected, evaluated and analyzed so as to ensure continuous and real-time analysis of social and relational processes. They must be monitored in order to predict developments and (ir)regularities. Small changes and shocks in the fragile economic market can affect supremacy in the race to maximize profits.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) represents the symbol of the link between the repressive organs of the state and capital. Not surprisingly, AWS has also specialized in armaments. For example, offering a new type of data center that will be used to gain military advantage anywhere in the world: the so-called AWS – Modular Data Centre (AWS – MDC), which is basically a modular database system placed in a container. It provides access to many of amazon’s cloud-based services and can be easily expanded with additional modules (containers). It can be downloaded anywhere, which is a clear military advantage: of course, Amazon limits the availability of AWS – MDC to U.S. government customers eligible for “Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability” (JWCC). In this case, it is the U.S. Department of Defense that will be able to acquire cloud computing capabilities and services directly from commercial providers of such services (including Mircosoft, Google, Oracle, etc.) at the desired speed and at all classification levels, from core to tactical.

The struggle against the exploitation of people and nature is a struggle against the wars of the rulers, their military, their armament industry! For the social revolution!

There are endless arguments and possibilities for attacking companies like Amazon and Tesla. That is why we look forward to an exciting week of action against Tesla.

Hi Jeff! Do you think your ego is as big as Amazon’s tower? Can you see the clouds of smoke from up there?

Elon, your GIGAntesco ego won’t be able to protect your electric carts!

Our greetings go out to all those who took to the streets last night at the “Take back the Night” demonstration, to all the anarchists and anarchists in prison, to the comrades and comrades affected by the “We are conspiring”³ proceedings, and to all those who are currently on the run.

[Published in German at https://de.indymedia.org/node/355896 | Translated into Italian and published at https://lanemesi.noblogs.org/post/2024/05/03/rivendicazione-dellattacco-incendiario-contro-sedici-furgoni-amazon-berlino-germania-1-maggio-2024/]

∗ ∗ ∗

Notes from La Nemesi

1 There is likely an error in the date. From what can be learned from German regime media, the action was completed on the night of April 30-May 1, 2024.

2 German trade union, one of the largest in all of Germany.

3 In German Wir haben eine Verabredung. This is a campaign in solidarity with two anarchists who, in February 2023, were located by a German federal police helicopter (apparently flying a routine reconnaissance mission) in a Berlin railway tunnel. The cops who arrived in large numbers at the scene claim to have found near the tunnel, in a cable shaft, a backpack containing incendiary material, as well as other items of great interest to their investigation (gloves, radios, a list of license plates of plainclothes cops’ vehicles, lighters…). The two comrades were taken into custody and released after 40 hours in custody. They are currently subject to precautionary measures (requirement to sign), awaiting trial for “conspiracy to commit crimes (fire) in conspiracy with unknown persons.” The trial will begin on May 27, 2024. This is the website of the solidarity campaign: https://verabredet.noblogs.org/

Chile: Urgent Appeal for Financial Support for Anarchist Prisoner Marcelo Villaroel

Posted on 2024/05/03 by darknights

We receive and disseminate this urgent appeal for Marcelo Villaroel, who needs financial support for the judicial proceedings that could finally set him free.

That solidarity… doesn’t remnain in your pocket! Free Marcelo!

On Marcelo’s legal situation, see here: https://ilrovescio.info/2023/03/11/it-es-appello-internazionalista-allazione-in-solidarieta-con-marcelo-villarroel-cile-13-20-marzo-2023/

Immediate urgency!!

Today we are going through a crucial moment in the legal situation of comrade Marcelo Villarroel Sepúlveda in Chilean prisons.

An appeal will soon be filed to try to annul the convictions of the military justice that persist on the comrade.

This is a legal work that has taken months in addition to the incessant work of the group that – with more desire and conviction than resources – has supported a commendable work.

In order for the appeal to be accepted, the participation of another lawyer is required who, not being a comrade or a supporter, will have to defend in the highest instances our position that demands freedom in the coming months for Marcelo.

To do this, we have to shell out economic resources that we do not have now, hence the call for direct material solidarity in order to be able to bear the costs of the crucial legal moment we face today.

Until we see our comrade free again in the streets, we will not stop!!

From different territories.
April 2024

Individualities akin to Marcelo Villarroel, free him now!!

Postepay Evolution
Barbisotti Domenico
Card Number: 5333171134866173
IBAN: IT40P3608105138259552859556

Source: Il Rovescio

Via & Translated by Abolition Media

$hile: “If the streets could speak”: words of Mónica Caballero before another March 29th

Posted on 2024/05/02 by darknights

March 31, 2024

If the streets of this city could speak, they would tell us stories of barricades and fire, mixed with sweat, blood and tears. In those stories would be the petite and resilient figure of Luisa Toledo, who with a couple of words moved generations, and who, no matter how many years passed since the murder of her sons Eduardo and Rafael by the police, never stopped taking to the streets to commemorate their death and above all their lives as young fighters.

Today, March 29th, new stories of barricades and fire will emerge, those that will rise up for Eduardo and Rafael, and in turn for the dozens of young fighters who decided to take the step towards the offensive attack against domination.

The stories of yesteryear of the young people who fought the dictatorship give us a rich and nourishing path, in which today’s young people grew up and lay new paths for those to come.

If the streets could speak, they would tell the stories of the young fighters of yesterday and today, and we must do our best to make them tell the stories of those to come. Just as Luisa Toledo did with blood, sweat and tears.

Only those who forget die die. May the barricades never stop burning.

Mónica Caballero Sepúlveda.
Anarchist prisoner

Source: Informativo Anarquista

$hile: Gendarmerie wants compañero Francisco Solar to serve his sentence in an exceptional maximum security regime April 22, 2024

Posted on 2024/05/02 by darknights

After the 86-year sentence against the anarchist comrade Francisco Solar was ratified and became final, the gendarmerie made a new maneuver in the comrade’s intrapenitentiary situation. After being held in Maximum Security Module 2 of the Rancagua prison, what would have been appropriate would have been his transfer to High Security Module 1 as a condemned prisoner along with the rest of the anarchist and subversive comrades. But this time seeking to deepen the legal revenge the comrade is taken to a floor in the same maximum security module 2 to serve his sentence in an exceptional regime of punishment and isolation.

Solidarity and complicity with those who attack the powerful!

Let us fight against the life imprisonment and solitary confinement of the anarchist comrade Francisco Solar!

Source: Informativo Anarquista

Concepcion, Chile: Propaganda action in support of Anarchist and Mapuche prisoners

Posted on 2024/04/30 by darknights

By: Anonymous/ Sent to La Zarzamora

“In the early hours of this morning, April 26th, we carried out a propaganda action in support of our comrades kidnapped in the jails of the Chilean state. We vindicate each one of their struggles against this system of death that only seeks exploitation in pursuit of its economic interests, destroyers of land and life.

We call for solidarity and action in the face of this punitivist scenario that imprisons those who struggle. In addition to the above, we call to be present in a concrete way with the families in struggle in the different land seizures of the Chilean territory.

Down with the anti-takeover law !!!!

Freedom for Mapuche prisoners

Freedom to Francisco Solar and Mónica Caballero

See to it that anarchy lives”

Rome, Italy: Claim of the incendiary attack against a private vehicle belonging to a carabiniere

Posted on 2024/04/30 by darknights

Claim of the incendiary attack against a private vehicle belonging to a carabiniere (Rome, March 29, 2024)

“Soon Anarchists we rush to the fight for victory or death with petrol and dynamite every class and the government to eradicate..”Anarchist Song

As the Mediterranean is increasingly a mass grave crammed with the corpses of the oppressed from the global south , Gaza is being razed to the ground worldwide and winds of war blow baleful to every corner of the globe leading the world’s proletarians to slaughter at the hands of master interests, we have decided to act, to attack. Identifying in the military of any side an enemy to be put down for anyone with a tension of freedom, without leaving aside the specific responsibilities of the homegrown weapon, we have decided to direct our hatred and vengeance against the military personnel of the Carabinieri Corps.

In a present in which every revolutionary hypothesis seems like a vain chimera, we have decided to keep fighting: they may deprive us of the hope for a radically different world but not of the thirst for revenge that we feel against those who perpetuate the oppression of one class over another and its defenders (such as the law enforcement) and those who enrich themselves by plundering the planet in a
dastardly manner.

The attack against power in any place and time, even at a time such as today, in which repression is striking increasingly harsher every glimmer of conflict and is burying alive our comrades held hostage in the prisons seems to us the best way to give continuity to the centuries-old clash between oppressed and oppressors, which as Anarchists we feel we are part of.

Hoping that these glimmers of individual revolt can risk this gray and pacified present, we reiterate that as anarchists we put the liberating violence of the oppressed before the systematic violence of those who hold the monopoly of the latter and we affirm the legitimacy of revolutionary violence as an instrument of the struggle against the state and capital.

It is in the firm conviction of the rightness of our ideals made of freedom and equality that lies the courage to fight, in the first person, choosing to take the upper hand and trying to return, albeit in a small way, the blows inflicted by the enemy.

For these and 1000 other reasons we chose to attack by making use of incendiary instruments 1 private car belonging to a cop: The choice to attack in the “private” stems from the desire to make those who choose to defend the social order pay the price for their choices in an increasingly targeted manner, those who choose to defend the established democratic social order, wearing a uniform.

COPS, BOSSES AND BOURGEOIS :

YOU WILL PAY DEARLY AND YOU WILL PAY FOR EVERYTHING.

We take this opportunity to reiterate our solidarity with the Anarchists Alfredo Cospito, Anna Beniamino, Juan Sorroche- Fernadez, Pierlorenzo Fallanca, Luca Dolce, and to all of the Anarchists placed under seizure in state prisons everywhere. You are not alone Comrades.

Incendiary greetings to the fugitives, may life smile on you, see you again on the barricades.

Cell Abele Ricieri Ferrari (DN: Renzo Novatore’s real name.)

(Black International 1881-2024)

Note from La Nemesi:

Errors are present in the opening quote. The song mentioned is “Mano alla bomba.” a translation of the Spanish-language song “Arroja la bomba,” and the portion of the correct lyrics is the following: Soon anarchists we rush / A fighter for victory or death / With oil and dynamite / Every class and the government to undo and eradicate.

According to what is known, the Italian was published in “Guerra di Classe,” a newspaper of the CNT-FAI (Sección Italiana), Barcelona, year II, no. 14, May 1, 1937, p. 6, with the title “Mano alla bomba!” and the indication Adaptation of VIR. Motif of the anarchist anthem “Arroja la bomba.” (VIR is the pseudonym of Virgilio Gazzoli, an anarchist from Pistoia). “Arroja la bomba” was composed during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1930) and was sung in prisons by imprisoned anarchists.

Source: La Nemesi

Italy: Alfredo Cospito and Anna Beniamino sentenced to 23 and 17 years in prison

Posted on 2024/04/30 by darknights

From: No 41 bis- international mobilisation

“The sentences of 23 years and 17 years and 9 months of imprisonment to the anarchists Alfredo Cospito and Anna Beniamino are final. The Court of Cassation confirms the sentence bis of the Court of Appeal of Turin. The requests of the defense and of the prosecution of Turin were rejected, and they insisted to the end on obtaining life imprisonment. Rage and love for our comrades! With the practices of which they are accused! Alfredo out since 41 bis!”

Thus communicated the comrades from Italy the final sentences imposed on Alfredo Cospito and Anna Beniamino in what was the trial of the Scripta Manent case, which sought to blame both comrades for “political massacre”, based on the action against the Carabinieri school of Fossano.

During the trial at the Court of Cassation in Rome, an appeal regarding the mitigating factors in the conviction for “political massacre” was reviewed, finally reconfirming the sentences already established in June 2023, after the long hunger strike of Alfredo Cospito against 41 bis, which lasted 182 days. In this way, both comrades remain in prison and under the same isolation measures.

It should be noted that during the early morning of April 22 the DIGOS of Turin “carried out 19 precautionary measures (3 house arrests, 1 prohibition of residence and 15 obligations of residence and daily signature) in the framework of the so-called Operation City related to the events of the march of March 4, 2023 in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito”, this as part of a series of repressive intimidation against those who mobilized in support of the comrade.

Despite the persecution and the continued imprisonment of Anna and Alfredo, the signs of solidarity continue, strengthening them from the other side of the wall.

Source: La Zarzamora

Via: Informativo Anarquista

Chile: Interview with Espacio Fénix EN/ES

Posted on 2024/04/26 - 2024/04/26 by darknights

ES: (Chile) Entrevista a Espacio Fénix

Opening the tensions of dialogue, we present the following section of interviews with individuals, collectivities and related spaces that make up the anarchic body in different parts of the world.

The interviews are a valuable contribution to the observation in detail and depth; they come, in a certain way, to broaden the view to give us feedback among comrades and to debate with perspectives and projections, that although they may be different, they converge in the ideas and practices of freedom against all authority.

Without further ado, we have in this first venture of dialogues the comrades of Espacio Fénix.

1-How and when did Espacio Fénix arise, and what projects converge in the space?

Espacio Fénix was born in the middle of the pandemic, at the beginning of 2021, in the midst of a series of ridiculous mobility restrictions and increased police intervention under the excuse of controlling and preventing the spread of covid-19.

Thus, a group of compañerxs got together, seeking to open a crack, a fissure within the asphyxiating panorama that was regulating everything, imposing the rhythm of power and where many seemed to be accommodating or waiting for the authority to give us “permission” to resume our lives.

We embarked on the idea of opening a physical space where comrades could converge, where anarchic material could circulate and where new comradeships could be woven and articulated. Thus in May 2021 we opened the doors of the space, we began to set up its infrastructure and in July we held our first activity in memory of compañero Santiago Maldonado.

Claustrofobia Ediciones, the Biblioteca Antiautoritaria Sacco y Vanzetti and various anarchic individualities converge in the space.

2-The “Ciclos de Cine” (Film Cycles) is the tool you have used the most to carry out activities. What is the significance for you of the screening of films, documentaries, etc.?

We started with the film cycles in October 2021 and we have not stopped every Tuesday, month after month, grouping the films by specific themes, seeking to stress our ideas and nourish our arguments with content, it is the beauty of the feedback between colleagues with diverse experiences and views.

From the very beginning, we proposed the screening of films as an excuse to sit down and converse, because after each screening, the central part of the activity comes to life, which is the discussion about what has been screened. There the words run, without leaders, where everyone can expose their dislikes, their liking or the results and analysis that is made of what we have seen. With this gesture we also seek to break the logic of passive spectators, of consumers, very typical of socially imposed roles.

In this sense, we have screened diverse audiovisual material, industry films, documentaries made by compañerxs, films that we like or dislike, always aiming at the discussion and tension between compas.

We do not seek to fill the cultural gaps of authority, nor to be the free panorama for those who lack resources; we seek, by different means and tools to spread our anarchic and anti-authoritarian ideas/actions, therefore the film cycles are just one more tool we choose.

3-Regarding the written material, what is the importance and power that you perceive in it?

The written material certainly has another power, another depth and transcendence, of course the spoken thought is important, but writing allows the ordering of ideas, so as to be able to reflect more carefully on what is going to be exposed and to assimilate/discuss more deeply on what is read.

In a present where immediacy, image culture, the digestible and pyrotechnical, where almost the medium is the message, emptying of content many of our tools, writing/reading is a weapon, which can also serve as a refuge, where to continue polishing and sharpening our ideas.

The written material is an instrument that impels us to grow, to argue and continually revise our positions, widening our views, shining light where there was darkness.

On the other hand, it is necessary to say that written material has always accompanied anarchists, as propaganda for the dissemination of ideas, it is an effective tool to enter into dialogue with more comrades wherever they are: in the street, in prison, or other territories. It is important because it nurtures individual thinking, as well as possible collective discussions.

The written material as propaganda can bring together comrades and depending on the objectives and projections that we have, we can realize initiatives of various kinds. In the same way that we can find ourselves on the path of anarchic struggle, we can also distance ourselves from people who spread anarchist propaganda of other tendencies, for us those who are called to participate in the electoral circus, appeal to platform organization, dream of unity and large federations and those who reject legitimate political insurrectional violence – to give just a few examples – puts us in another place on the sidewalk and in several cases as enemies.

4-There are political-cultural spaces that coexist peacefully with power, while others attract police attention. Why do you think this happens? Are there more dangerous ideas-practices? If so, what would these be?

We don’t think this was the intention of the question, but it is worth clarifying to avoid pejorative atmospheres. For us, anti-power spaces/ideas/practices (truly anti-authoritarian and anarchic, leaving out and fighting the bullshit of “popular power”) by definition do not coexist peacefully neither with power, nor with authority, nor with the police and their investigators of all kinds.

Police eyes and ears are always there, to believe otherwise is naive and dangerous. They let themselves be seen or directly attack depending on conjunctures or panoramas that mark a change of rhythm.

In this sense, it is not the police harassment that defines our comrades’ ties -it is defined by our ideas, values and projections- because valuable initiatives that are undoubtedly a contribution to the anarchic tide, may not receive the police onslaught in an evident and grotesque way and not for that reason be considered “legal”, “innocent” or in any way aspire to coexist peacefully with the power. For example, at present there are activities that do not receive police interference, but that 3 or 4 years ago were seen as a danger and received harassment; we are talking about common pots or self-defense activities. It does not change the activity or the background, but it changes the perception of power or the effect it seeks to achieve as a chain reaction (fear, disarticulation, etc.).

Now, it is important to emphasize that these types of practices carried out by those in power are part of their work, and must be understood as such. They have always existed and will continue to exist, we do not say this in an alarmist way, much less to call for immobility or to “disappear” from certain spaces. Simply because it must be clear, those who consciously decide to undertake a confrontational path to power and propagate it in multiple ways, may encounter those enemy dynamics, therefore, the consequences must be assumed. Continue reading “Chile: Interview with Espacio Fénix EN/ES” →

‘THE SUBVERSIVE WRITTEN WORD’ by anarchist prisoner Toby Shone

Posted on 2024/04/25 - 2024/04/25 by darknights

A contribution by anarchist comrade Toby Shone from Garth prison (UK), for the debate “Thought and Action (“Pensiero e Azione”) – Repressive Attacks on the Anarchist Written Word” organized for the Tattoo Circus in El Paso Occupato, Turin (Italy), March 9-10th, 2024.

THE SUBVERSIVE WRITTEN WORD

Dear comrades,

This is Toby Shone, an anarchist imprisoned in the operation Adream which was an antiterrorist investigation against the counter-information project 325. I am calling from a prison in northwest England, it’s a long term, high security prison, and the fact that we can steal these moments is very important.
As you may already know, Operation A-dream was a repressive attack by the UK state in which 3 collective housing projects, a family home and storage unit were raided by cops. I was accused of being an administrator of 325.nostate, which earned me 4 terrorist charges: section 2 (distribution of terrorist publications), section 15 (funding terrorism) and two counts of section 58 (possession of information which is likely to be useful for terrorist purposes). I was also accused of several direct actions and membership of FAI, ELF and ALF. Hundreds of police were involved in the simultaneous raids and despite this, only one of the comrades were briefly detained and subsequently released for lack of evidence. It’s clear through the conditions of imprisonment I am held under and the constant monitoring that an active investigation continues with tailings and surveillance of comrades on the outside along with observation of anarchist social spaces.

Why is this taking place? It’s because anarchism is a threat to the existing technocratic order, our direct-action groups have a palpable reality in however minimal way in comparison to the task to be done, and the counter-information constellation continues to shine in the dark nights and become easier to use and navigate. Anarchist publishing is viewed as being an unacceptable endeavour by the police and intelligence services. Reporting on anarchist direct action, social struggles, and uprisings because it forms a narrative of subversion is arguably targeted with as much repression as that towards those who carry out the deeds that are being reported. It’s a strategy which has been in existence for a very long time. In the case of Operation Adream, the police was scared of the explicit anarchist insurrectionalist and anti-civilization rhetoric combined with the distribution of electronic and paper publications. During the interrogations a particular concern of the detectives was the purpose of anarchist paper publication. All the electronic documents have a digital forensic signature known as the hash value which can be tracked across the internet and devices even if deleted from those devices. Paper publications on the other hand, cannot be tracked as they are distributed – an investigation into them requires material forensics and a traditional police enquiry: this needs more resources, money, and personnel and especially the underground publishing initiatives which may have an irregular schedule of publishing and “informal” methods of distribution.

This brings us back to the purpose of anarchist publications: paper copies exist and have the power through being passed hand to hand to have an impactful material reality. They also accumulate forensic traces, the books, magazines, and pamphlets we are talking of, dangerous ideas, which can inspire our lives. Their time duration is different from those digital, and we can view that accordingly. With our publications, even if they are doomed to be in university libraries, mainstream bookshops, or worse, museums and art galleries, they always remain controversial and even illegal in some cases. Their purpose is social war and the destruction of the State. In the investigation files of Operation Adream, dozens of anarchist publications were cited many of which we may take for granted, that are freely available at anarchist bookfairs, squats, social centres and stalls at events. Yet to the police, special unit, and prosecutors these publications form part of an amorphous conspiracy aimed at overthrowing the establishment, which is correct, but not exactly in the perverse way that they wish to interpret it. To explain, we are often confronted by the repressive model that has a special function ascribed to theorists and writers, that of “leadership”. They are accused of giving orders and instructions and then cells or cadres then carry out those orders. I don’t need to tell you that this is an offense to anarchist practice, but it was a clear line of questioning put to me by the counter terrorist division. Does possession of 325 magazine indicate membership of an organization? Does that organization execute actions? And is that organisation part of a larger terrorist infrastructure? These are the types of questions bounced at me. With this scheming, marionettes of repression are formed, arranged in hierarchical structures which reflect their feverish minds. So, in those interrogations the investigators focused in some parts on questioning me about administrative functions, decision making flows, statistics figures, target demographics, research and linguistics, or translations. To the latter the cops wanted to know who was responsible for the translations, how they were organized, and who decided what should be translated.

At what level does the level of repression equate to that of our actions? For me, the answer is straight forward. The level of repression is currently far beyond that of the anarchist direct action. It’s the nature of State’s repression to aim to be overwhelming and our struggle is still only an active minority. In the UK the silence and lack of action highlights the social living death. But it was not always this way. And the future remains unwritten. That’s why police infiltration will continue to try to prevent for ruptures and individual attacks. It’s impossible to separate Operation Adream from the consequences of over a decade of anarchist direct action and social riots in Bristol. Although those things are at low ebb currently, it doesn’t mean that it will remain so. Anarchism remains part of the fabric of this South-West region. And where the reports, communiques and analysis are published will remain high in the list of targets for the State. The hundreds if not thousands of publishers across the world, part of a connectivity of contemporary anarchism, add to our ability to stay relevant and expansive.

Huge changes are taking place in society, and mass discontent has the possibility to form into a needed vital resistance. The new anarchist critique of high technology is cited by various intelligence agencies, State and private, as having the threatening ability to infect the population with a deep anger of the digital future. This future being planned by the bosses is a vast surveillance state which is part of the cybernetic matrix, where machines are taking the place of humans, and the artificial intelligence has inserted itself into every place it can be situated. Likewise, we can see human beings are becoming more machine-like, and their environment is degraded and polluted. Increasingly we can talk about the fact that many complete failures are taking place in various social systems, due to the ecological collapse and economic and post-industrial transformation. Huge territories are rapidly changing from floods, wildfires, draughts and intense storms. Unprecedented challenges are coming very quickly with harsh effects on critical points pertaining to agriculture, migration, division of labour, geopolitical conflicts and so on. Our publications and counter-information networks are a direct way in which we can communicate our analysis and methods of organization. Repression recognizes the danger of the contagion of this message, and the narrative which we possess. To the extent that they illegalize our publications and try to impose exemplary sentences is only a means to and end for them. And this is what we have always faced. If we are effective, we meet repression, prison, death. That’s what many comrades face across the world right now. Essentially some of us have been living under surveillance and investigation for so long, everything we do could be considered as crime, simply existing. That’s worth writing about and when we read and know more about what others are confronting and how, we can gain our power.

Lastly, I want to talk about the censorship I am facing here. Since it’s been a consistent feature of my imprisonment and is also part of the topic we’re discussing. Many comrades face problems with their correspondence and receiving publications. This is not unusual. But it’s worth saying here that I’ve been denied access to the majority of my correspondence and books which I am being sent. Even though I am facing denials by the prison administration that this is taking place, it most certainly is. This is the strength of our newsletters, our books, our letters to catch with comrades, that they make the enemy afraid. In my case, I’m also being denied socialist, autonomous-marxist and communist papers and books, which have been sent to me by those in solidarity from the radical left, as well as books on black history, transformative justice, and prison abolition. The very few anarchist books I have managed to receive I hold them close to my heart, here in my cell. Freedom is written with ink and our blood, like it always has been and will be. Value your books, your newspapers, your letters sent and received, combative memory persists, and we pass it to each new generation without efforts alone.
I’ll finish here and so I thank you for your energy and your attention, and a strong hug to all, and especially those under repression for the written word. For from the words come deeds, and that is the topic we’ve encountered today. Love and rage, thank you.

Toby,
Garth Prison, 4th of March 2024

Italy: ‘The carousel of repression’ – Anna Beniamino

Posted on 2024/04/23 - 2024/04/23 by darknights

THE CAROUSEL OF REPRESSION

Almost eight years after the arrests for Scripta Manent, for the second time the Court of Cassation, on 24th April 2024, will pronounce judgement on the crime of “political massacre”, pursuant to art. 285 c.p., against Alfredo and myself, the last remaining fragment pending in the process (i), after a whirlwind of delays, recalculations, and repressive-jurisprudential manipulations (ii).

Although the repetition of error numbs the horror, and we are living in times of multiple horrors flaunted and total anaesthetisations, I believe there are still some words to be said about the ongoing annihilation attempt, about reactions, successful and attempted. Not so much because I believe this may be useful for our personal fates, but out of a kind of stubborn “romanticism” that considers silence and resignation always and even more lethal in a political process.

Having no inclination to resign silently to the administration of “justice” (as it happens daily in the prisons) and nor to be restricted by the logic of damage limitation (another cornerstone of survival between prison and courts), but shifting the focus to the repressive policies underlying this and the actual capacity to react, to create moments of struggle and rupture, to build barriers, individual and collective, against the arrogance of repression.

I have spoken of error and horror because that is what repressive policies are at their core, errors and horrors that blend together in completely distorting the theoretical and practical significance of the enemy, burying them alive and/or forcing them into defensive entrenchment and the Indian reserves of “counterculture” and the pursuit of “democratic indignation” (which by now is little more than an Indian reserve, with a threshold of sensitivity that more often than not is an impenetrable callousness in most), a strategy that weakens the reactivity of comrades in the short term, more than they may believe, in a sense of inevitability of events and the impossibility of constructing reactions.

Seven years ago, I thought it was possible to manage the Scripta Manent process as ordinary repression, countering from a technical perspective, point by point, both individual events and the entire associative framework, given the clear fragility of the accusatory structure. There was an excess of optimism about the ongoing political will and strategies and an unforgivable shortsightedness in not immediately highlighting with greater force what was happening. It took the threat of 41bis and life imprisonment looming to focus eyes and attention.

Far from wanting to fall back into the rhetoric of “judicial error,” of excess, because from a jurisprudential and probative standpoint, that was precisely the fact that some mainstream media had to reluctantly admit (while others held firm on their sensationalism) in order to justify the anarchist under 41bis. They had to contextualise the events and the character with a certain embarrassment, and also place the heart of the State, its security – endangered precisely what characterises political massacre – within a couple of exploded bins at 3 a.m. on the perimeter walls of a barracks, while having to awkwardly sidestep the other script holes offered by DNAA and the Turin prosecutor’s office.

Far from a “judicial error” because this is a deliberate intent, with convergences between paper castles of the police headquarters and cages of cement over cement: the episodic component (the career of individual cops or magistrates, the media always ready to hype up the new danger, the crassest propaganda) is there, but it converges into a well-oiled machine that always needs new heads to be cut off and displayed on the ramparts of law and order. Sometimes the machine stalls… and it is the duty and pride of every anti-authoritarian to make it stall.

In these years of prison time and trials, I have had the opportunity to experience firsthand a series of logical and legal manipulations that I didn’t think could be possible to concentrate in a single operation, making me equally aware that it is the modus operandi in practice between public prosecutors and courts in the extension of “special” legislation, from “emergency” to “daily”, in the fields of anti-mafia and anti-terrorism: no longer an exception, but the usual management that the National Anti-Mafia Directorate applies and has been applying to cases involving organised crime extended to anarchists, and that the justice system in general applies to those segments of social opposition and non-conforming elements that are isolated and easily attackable, which still express, albeit in a rudimentary form, the need to reclaim the streets, the word, and the dignity of a non-negotiated opposition. A synergistic attack – fuelled by a political climate not just of a simple right-wing government but equivalent in the last “political” or “technical” governments that wanted to define themselves – against the irredeemable components for electoral purposes: in a general lowering of the bar for criminally punishable acts and the parallel increase in what can be sensationalised in the media, one can discern the strategies at work and the resistance to be opposed.

In this sense, I believe Juan’s (iii) writings in capturing the positive aspects, if not the need to put a stop to them, in addition to the necessary critical and self-critical questions of the movement, are clear. Continue reading “Italy: ‘The carousel of repression’ – Anna Beniamino” →