Brigate Rosse – Partito Comunista Combattente

Athens, Greece: ‘Until the demolition of every prison. Always with anarchy.’ Document of the Open Assembly of Anarchists for the initiative in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito in front of the Italian Embassy

Posted on 2023/02/21 by darknights

‘Until the demolition of every prison. Always with anarchy.’ Document of the Open Assembly of Anarchists for the initiative in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito in front of the Italian Embassy (Athens, Greece, Feb. 16, 2023)

We publish “Until the demolition of every prison. Always with anarchy,” the call for the Feb. 16 initiative in front of the Italian Embassy in Athens in solidarity with anarchist Alfredo Cospito on hunger strike to the bitter end. The enormous movement of international solidarity that has manifested itself in recent months is proof of how to the isolation and censorship of the state and its prisons we will always oppose the tenacity and consistency of our ideas and practices. This text and the initiative of the Open Assembly of Anarchists, reaffirming the perspective of international revolutionary solidarity, are a further contribution in this regard.

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UNTIL THE DEMOLITION OF EVERY PRISON. ALWAYS WITH ANARCHY

Because for those who love life, reacting when it is turned into surviving is a necessary act.
– Anna Beniamino, “Declaration of beginning hunger strike,” Nov. 7, 2022

Alfredo Cospito, imprisoned anarchist convicted of the crime “massacre” in the “Scripta Manent” trial – a charge concerning the double explosive attack on the Carabinieri Cadet School in Fossano, claimed by Rivolta Anonima e Tremenda / Federazione Anarchica Informale (RAT/FAI) – has been on hunger strike against the 41 bis prison regime and hostile life imprisonment since Oct. 20, when he was imprisoned in the Bancali prison in Sassari, Sardinia. Since May 5, and after ten years in prison, the state has chosen to reinforce the isolation of the comrade (who until then had contributed significantly to the debate among anarchists with letters, articles and interventions) through the detention regime provided for in Article 41 bis of the Italian Prison Order (the carcere duro), a law-abomination that, in essence, requalifies imprisonment into a form of special isolation even on the intellectual and sensory level. It is a suffocating stranglehold that almost completely nullifies communication and contact with the outside world, a torture of psychosomatic annihilation against militants in order to force them to political “repentance.”

Moreover, the purpose of this regime is to create a barrier to revolutionary-antiauthoritarian dialogue between comrades inside and outside prisons. Systematic censorship and the attempt to annihilate the very existence of political prisoners reveal the teeth of democracy and the fear of authoritarian forces of those who carry and spread the seed of revolt and attack for the demolition of the world of the state and capital.

Alfredo Cospito, a continuer of anarchist discourse and practice, raises the shield of the hunger strike to repel the vindictiveness of the state apparatus. The Italian state, with its fascist practices-through the last elections and beyond-has a long history of confrontational tension with anarchists, its enemies who over the years have had trials and investigations for their actions and beliefs, even at the cost of death.

Also imprisoned in the same annihilation regime are three political prisoners, members of the Red Brigades for the Construction of the Combatant Communist Party (BR-PCC) arrested in 2003, Nadia Lioce, Marco Mezzasalma and Roberto Morandi, while Diana Blefari – also a member of the BR-PCC and a longtime prisoner in the solitary confinement of the 41 bis regime – committed suicide in 2009.

With the approval of the new Penal Code and with the even more recent approval of the new Penitentiary Code by the Greek state, “maximum security” prisons or wards now have as their purpose “increased supervision” of “unruly” prisoners, apart, of course, from political prisoners, convicted under the main counterrevolutionary legal instrument par excellence applied to guerrilla warfare, 187A; all seven years after the abolition of Type C prisons thanks to the struggle waged through hunger strikes by political prisoners at the time. This latest development in the state’s legal arsenal is nothing less than a tendency to absolutize prison conditions, also placing a regulation on social confinement with surveillance and control outside the confines of the prison and opening a serious possibility for the introduction of solitary confinement and torture models (similar to 41 bis) in Greek prisons as well. Prisoners in Korydallos and Domokos prisons are still engaged in resistance mobilizations against the new and further authoritarian Penitentiary Code. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: ‘Until the demolition of every prison. Always with anarchy.’ Document of the Open Assembly of Anarchists for the initiative in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito in front of the Italian Embassy” →

Greece: Dimitris Chatzivasileiadis – Speech of internationalist solidarity in the context of the trial of the Organization Revolutionary Self-Defense

Posted on 2023/01/08 - 2023/01/08 by darknights

FOR INTERNATIONALIST SOLIDARITY

There are moments when silence is an invitation to crime. There are moments when silence is complicity. Georges Ibrahim Abdallah

You are guilty not only when you commit a crime, but also when you do nothing to prevent it when you have the opportunity. Dimitris Tsafendasⁱ

Since May ’22, a counter-revolutionary trial has been taking place against anarchist fighters, for participation in the armed Organization Revolutionary Self-Defense. This trial comes at a time when the state-capitalist regime is climaxing its aggression against the oppressed, the exploited and excluded. The anarchist Dimitris Chatzivasileiadis is also on trial for this case, while he has taken responsibility, both in public and in this courtroom, for his participation in revolutionary struggle through the Organization of Revolutionary Self-Defense, as well as for keeping the weapons (which in the repressive operation of November ‘19, fell into the hands of the state), in order to continue the guerrilla struggle through the experience and strategy of the Organization Revolutionary Self-Defense. The court of appeal of this particular military tribunal of the counter-revolution will be completed in January ‘23.

Throughout the course of this trial, Dimitris Chatzivasileiadis has been defending the right of revolutionary struggle, the necessity of guerrilla organization and of the armed social self-defense against the tyranny of power, and has been deconstructing and attacking bourgeois justice and its counter-revolutionary laws, inside the enemy field. With an eye to the world revolution, from the beginning of the trial, Dimitris Chatzivasileiadis is speaking about movements and struggles in all parts of the globe, expressing solidarity with those who are struggling, with current struggles, with the political prisoners and their fight today, and with reference to fighters who have been killed. These days, a struggle in italian prisons is taking place; comrade Alfredo Cospito is on hunger strike already for more than 65 days, against the state of total isolation, 41-bis, that has been imposed on him. With the awareness of how critical Alfredo Cospito’s struggle is, comrade Dimitris made extensive reference to Alfredo’s fight, during the trial. Meanwhile, the italian authorities rejected Alfredo’s demand for his removal from the 41-bis regime, and the comrade is continuing the hunger strike. Continue reading “Greece: Dimitris Chatzivasileiadis – Speech of internationalist solidarity in the context of the trial of the Organization Revolutionary Self-Defense” →

International Red Help call for a day of mobilization in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito on hunger strike to the bitter end against 41 bis and hostile life imprisonment

Posted on 2022/12/12 by darknights

Call for an action day for Alfredo Cospito

On October 20, anarchist prisoner Alfredo Cospito began a hunger strike against the 41a prison regime, a struggle he intends to carry on until the end. Anarchist prisoners Ivan Alocco [the comrade ended the strike on Dec. 1, ed] and Anna Beniamino joined the strike, as did Juan Sorroche, who ended it after a month

The 41bis is the harshest prison regime in Europe. Created in principle to prevent members of the mafia from continuing their activities from prison, it was soon extended to revolutionary prisoners to prevent them from interacting with the outside world. Three prisoners of the Brigate Rosse-PCC, Nadia Lioce, Roberto Morandi and Marco Mezzasalma, have been subjected to this system for 17 years. The value of their resistance must be measured by the understanding that it would be enough for them to make an act of political surrender to get out of this regime.

Only by understanding these regimes of isolation as a means of pressure, as torture, to extort repentance, can we give its true meaning to the suicide of Brigate Rosse-PCC activist Diana Blefari in 2009, after four years in 41bis. Diana could no longer bear 41bis but refused to be betrayed. This choice was also a form of resistance, and it has a precedent, that of Luis Rodríguez Martínez, of the Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups of the First October (GRAPO), who committed suicide in 1983 after three years of total prison isolation. Continue reading “International Red Help call for a day of mobilization in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito on hunger strike to the bitter end against 41 bis and hostile life imprisonment” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the explosive attack on the house of the First Counsellor of the Italian Embassy – “Carlo Giuliani” Vengeance Cell

Posted on 2022/12/08 - 2022/12/12 by darknights

Since 20/10 Alfredo Cospito has been on hunger strike against the prison regime imposed on him by the Italian state, under the name 41 bis. Alfredo Cospito has been a prisoner since 2012, having taken responsibility for the shooting of Roberto Adinolfi, director of Ansaldo Nucleare, an action carried out by the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front (FAI/IRF). Since then the comrade remains unrepentant and continues to be committed to the cause of social liberation. For this reason, the Italian state decided to impose the 41 bis regime on him from 5 May, a prison within a prison where he will be in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, with one hour of pre-trial detention and meeting with other prisoners, who will be decided by the prison management, imposing full control over him, including which of his fellow prisoners he will associate with. Communication with friends and relatives will be limited to one hourly meeting per month, behind glass, or a 10-minute telephone call where the relative will have to make it from a police station or another prison. His right to possession of books and printed materials is also restricted, as is his correspondence. The exemption regime imposed by the Italian State on political prisoners and detainees through the 41 bis is now promoted for the entire consideration of the sentence and not the 4 years for which it was originally valid.

41 bis is a regime of political, social and sensory extermination, aimed at the complete elimination of all contact with the outside world. The aim is none other than the physical and moral extermination of those who choose the path of revolutionary vigilante justice against the tyranny of the state and capital. The extermination or the forcing of them to renounce their action is the essence of the laws of bourgeois justice, the so-called “anti-terrorist” laws, which provide for special conditions, wards and detention centres, isolation, torture and exterminating sentences, intended primarily for revolutionary organisations and their members, as many as the states label terrorists.

This is where the double contradiction of state terrorism emerges. First, it labels as terrorists those who rebel against the class-imposed terrorism of the rulers, reserving physical and moral extermination through its mechanisms, and at the same time the same mechanisms do not recognise the status of political prisoner or political opponent in those whom they try to exterminate. The State, therefore, cannot do real justice because it cannot speak the truth. Bourgeois “justice” is nothing but a mechanism for imposing and perpetuating class power over society.

Since the 1960s and its own storming of the heavens, the archipelago of the revolutionary, antagonistic movement on Italian soil, with armed guarded marches, occupations of factories and houses, self-motivations, organization of armed feminist movements and revolutionary organizations has proved that nothing is unattainable. From the actions of the BR/PCC in the 90s and 00s, to the attacks of the FAI/IRF and comrade Alfredo Cospito, the revolutionary thread continues to be woven with acts of resistance and emancipation that actively declare that nothing is over, and that revolutionary projects and visions remain relevant and alive in the ranks of the oppressed. And it is this thread, the historical continuity and memory that the fascist Meloni government, and every government before it, wants to silence and eradicate. The Italian state, faced with the archipelago of the revolutionary movement in its territories, has been forced to develop a series of repressive and counterinsurgency tools for decades, of which the 41 bis regime is an evolution. To this day, with the life-long imposition of the 41 bis torture regime, the Italian state is clearly leading its political opponents, those who try to do justice for the oppressed, into isolation and torture. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the explosive attack on the house of the First Counsellor of the Italian Embassy – “Carlo Giuliani” Vengeance Cell” →

Athens, Greece: Message of Resistance – Intervention at the Greek-Italian Chamber as a gesture of solidarity with Alfredo Cospito

Posted on 2022/12/02 - 2022/12/02 by darknights

“The question of the issues, the lever for awakening the insurgent power of the world is therefore Internationalism.” (Alfredo Cospito)

“Because for those who love life, to react when the question of life and death is at stake is an act of duty, from Monday 7 November I am starting a hunger strike” ( Anna Beniamino)

Anarchist prisoner Alfredo Cospito has been on a hunger strike to the death in Italian prisons since 20 October, demanding that the 41bis solitary isolation regime applied against him be lifted.

41bis is a sensory solitary isolation regime that constitutes torture and is one of the harshest special detention regimes in the European Union. The Italian state’s attack on Alfredo Cospito is not simply a state choice to eliminate an unrepentant anarchist guerrilla. It symbolises the full frontal assault on the choice of armed struggle and is carried out through anti-terrorist policies and special detention regimes.

The comrade’s strike is therefore both a struggle against torture and special conditions of detention and a battle so that the defence of the choice of armed struggle remains relevant and is not defeated through the murderous silence imposed on Alfredo Cospito. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Message of Resistance – Intervention at the Greek-Italian Chamber as a gesture of solidarity with Alfredo Cospito” →

Italy: Against 41 bis, from Alessandria prison: communiqué of Nicola De Maria in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito, Nadia Lioce, Marco Mezzasalma and Roberto Morandi

Posted on 2022/11/16 - 2022/11/16 by darknights

We publish the following communiqué by Nicola De Maria, militant of Brigate Rosse – Colonna Walter Alasia (‘Red Brigades – Walter Alasia Column’) imprisoned since February 1982, currently in the High Security section of the Alessandria prison, on the initiative – extension of the time outside the cell, against the strict provisions of prison regulations – undertaken by him on November 9 in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito, anarchist comrade on hunger strike to the bitter end since October 20 against 41 bis prison regime to which he was transferred in May this year, and with Nadia Lioce, Marco Mezzasalma and Roberto Morandi, militants of Brigate Rosse per la costruzione del Partito Comunista Combattente (‘Red Brigades for the construction of the Combatant Communist Party’) imprisoned in 41 bis for 17 years.

‘Crisis, war, repression against workers, unemployed, students’

In this context, the 41 bis prison regime for revolutionary prisoners has recently been extended; a regime that aims at the annihilation of their identity and psycho-physical integrity.

On November 9, 2022, I extended the time outside the cell in:

– solidarity with Alfredo Cospito, anarchist prisoner on hunger strike to the bitter end in the Bancali-Sassari prison against 41 bis;

– solidarity with the Brigate Rosse–PCC prisoners, Nadia Lioce, Marco Mezzasalma, Roberto Morandi, who have been resisting the 41 bis regime for more than 17 years.

Nicola De Maria, imprisoned militant of Brigate Rosse – Colonna Walter Alasia

[Published in italian here: https://lanemesi.noblogs.org/post/2022/11/16/contro-il-41-bis-dal-carcere-di-alessandria-comunicato-di-nicola-de-maria-in-solidarieta-con-alfredo-cospito-nadia-lioce-marco-mezzasalma-e-roberto-morandi/]

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(IT) Contro il 41 bis, dal carcere di Alessandria: comunicato di Nicola De Maria in solidarietà con Alfredo Cospito, Nadia Lioce, Marco Mezzasalma e Roberto Morandi
(EN) Against 41 bis, from Alessandria prison: communiqué of Nicola De Maria in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito, Nadia Lioce, Marco Mezzasalma and Roberto Morandi (Italy)

Greece: Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis: For Alfredo Cospito. Text of Solidarity by the Members of Revolutionary Struggle

Posted on 2022/11/16 - 2022/11/16 by darknights

For Alfredo Cospito

Text of Solidarity by the Members of Revolutionary Struggle

Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis

The physical and moral extermination of revolutionary fighters and political prisoners, or the coercion of them into political renunciation and repentance, has been the goal of the State and capital throughout time. In order to achieve this aim, States have created special conditions of detention and isolation for those who took up arms against the regime, for those they call “terrorists”.

One example of special detention today is the Italian model under Article 41 bis.

Under Italian law, the Minister of “Justice” is given the right to lift the rules of treatment of some prisoners and order their transfer to special conditions of detention. The special conditions based on Article 41 bis impose complete social and sensory isolation, limiting contacts with other prisoners, limiting visits to one (1) per month with relatives, not by physical contact but through a glass partition, limiting, prohibiting, correspondence and the possession of books, shrinking prisoners’ exercise period to one (1) hour per day and increasing the time of confinement inside the cell.

These conditions are a form of torture aimed at crushing militant prisoners and in general those under this regime. Continue reading “Greece: Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis: For Alfredo Cospito. Text of Solidarity by the Members of Revolutionary Struggle” →

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” →