Juan sentenced to 28 years’ prison.
With blood in our eyes
Saturday July 9th, the court of Treviso sentenced our friend and comrade Juan to 28 years’ prison (plus three years’ probation, 30,000 euro in compensation to the League and 17,000 euro in court costs) because he was held responsible for the attack in Treviso of the Carroccio in August 2018. Following the recent configuration of the charge of ‘political massacre’ – which stipulates life imprisonment – for an explosive attack on the carabinieri barracks in Fossano attributed to the anarchists Anna and Alfredo, this is the highest penalty, in our memory, ever imposed in Italy for a direct action that resulted in no injuries.
Among the infinite possible examples, it can be observed that the charge of ‘political massacre’ was not even brought against the Capaci massacre, [1992, anti-mafia Judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three escort cops, are killed in an explosion on the motorway near Palermo, Sicily and seven other people injured] while the fascist Traini was sentenced to 12 years for shooting at immigrants, wounding six of them, (and against a PD [Democratic Party] premises…). The aggravating circumstances of ‘terrorism’ (and of ‘massacres’ with neither dead nor wounded) apply to revolutionaries in general and anarchists in particular. We could also remember what was said in so much of so-called civil society in 2018 about state racism, on immigrants segregated on ships in ports, on the declarations of Interior Minister Salvini.
We say declarations on purpose, because the actual practice of state racism, criminal agreements with Libya, etc. has never been changed by whatever government in charge. But the social consensus towards institutional racism is no mere trifle: the Captain’s [Salvini, Northern League, anti-migrant ex-deputy pm and home minister] daily tweets produced a security decree that increased the possible penalties for picketing and roadblocking to 12 years. As has been the case in Italy since 1975 – in that unique security text that began with the Reale Law and has never been completed – ‘exceptional’ regulations proliferate without any democratic outcry ever leading to the slightest repeal. While we are discovering the obvious these days: that political pressure from a multinational like Uber is behind the taxi competition rules, we pretend that the subject of ‘security’ is instead ‘technical’. As if the tightening of penalties against workers’ picketing was not commissioned by the logistics bosses. If until now no one had taken 28 years in prison for an action such as the one in Treviso, it was not because of legal limitations (with the aggravating circumstance of ‘terrorism’ applied to the individual segments that make up an action – packaging, transport, use of ‘deadly’ materials – one can get close to life imprisonment), but because of social limitations. Continue reading “Treviso, Italy: Juan sentenced to 28 years’ prison. With blood in our eyes”
