DNAA (Direzione Nazionale Antimafia e Antiterrorismo)

Italy: Arrests and search operations between Pisa and the Apuan Alps in relation to the 2023 attack on the Pisa courthouse

Posted on 2025/09/16 by darknights

ARRESTS AND SEARCH OPERATIONS BETWEEN PISA AND THE APUAN ALPS IN RELATION TO THE 2023 ATTACK ON THE PISA COURTHOUSE (ITALY)

On the morning of 11 September, a police operation coordinated by the DDAA [District Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Directorate] in the main city of Tuscany and conducted by the DIGOS [General Investigations and Special Operations Division] in Pisa and Florence took place in the municipalities of Carrara, Montignoso, Pisa and Sarzana. The operation appears to have been named “Delivery”.

According to our information, two anarchist comrades who are subject to a preventive custody order under house arrest (it is not yet known if there are any particular restrictions; updates will follow) were arrested in Pisa and Carrara. The comrades – who were already searched on 26 March in relation to the same acts – are under investigation for “terrorist acts involving lethal or explosive devices” and other related crimes. This is part of the proceedings concerning the attack on the Pisa courthouse on 21 February 2023. We would also like to point out that the comrades were involved in the 2023 “Scripta Scelera” operation, which was orchestrated by the Genoa DDAA against the internationalist anarchist fortnightly journal “Bezmotivny” (and which was essentially “shipwrecked” during the trial held in Massa against four defendants).

According to the latest information, the other comrades involved in this operation were only searched at home and in their vehicles. This was also in relation to the crime of “subversive association with the purpose of terrorism or subversion of the democratic order”.

Every day, in every court, hundreds of exploited people are sentenced. By means of sentences, men and women are buried in prisons and their friendships and love relationships are mutilated. By means of explosives, structures will be hit and men of power will be mutilated. For every death at sea, in prison, at work, in the CPRs, not one, but 100 bombs against the masters. Your cameras and guards patrolling the city will never be enough to prevent action from penetrating your buildings”, read the statement of claim by Gruppo di Solidarietà Rivoluzionaria – Consegne a Domicilio [Revolutionary Solidarity Group – Home Deliveries] (joining the FAI-FRI), concerning the action against the court. This action was part of an intense mobilisation against 41 bis prison regime and life imprisonment without parole, and was carried out in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito, who was on hunger strike for over 120 days at the time. “Solidarity with all revolutionary prisoners around the world. Support social struggles with revolutionary struggle”, the text concluded.

ALONGSIDE THE ARRESTED COMRADES
A couple of those searched

UPDATE: The comrades are under house arrest with all restrictions (no communication or visits allowed).

Italy: Operation Scripta Scelera – absolution of the anarchists accused in the trial of Massa for the publication of ‘Bezmotivny’. An 8 month sentence for offense to the honour or prestige of the president of the republic

Posted on 2025/04/25 by darknights

OPERATION SCRIPTA SCELERA: ABSOLUTION OF THE ANARCHISTS ACCUSED IN THE TRIAL OF MASSA FOR THE PUBLICATION OF ‘BEZMOTIVNY’. AN 8 MONTH SENTENCE FOR OFFENSE TO THE HONOUR OR PRESTIGE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC (ITALY)

On April 8th, 2025, the sentence was pronounced in the ongoing trial in Massa against four anarchist comrades indicted for the publication of the internationalist anarchist fortnightly ‘Bezmotivny’ (repressive operation on August 8th, 2023). The defendants – who were involved in the operation together with six other comrades for whom the proceedings remained at the investigation stage – were charged with incitement to commit crimes and apologia of crimes and offences of terrorism (art. 414 of penal code, paragraphs 1, 3 and 4) with the aggravating circumstance of the purpose of terrorism (art. 270 bis 1, penal code), for the publication of the about sixty issues of ‘Bezmotivny’, and of offence to the honour or prestige of the president of the republic (art. 278, penal code), concerning a specific article (‘Soffiare sul fuoco’, published in ‘Bezmotivny’, year I, issue 17, October 25th, 2021).

All the defendants were acquitted of the charge of multiple aggravated incitement to commit crimes ‘because the fact does not exist’, whereas Luigi was sentenced to eight months, without the application of recidivism, for offending the honour or prestige of the president of the republic (the other three defendants were also acquitted of this charge ‘for not having committed the fact’). The request for compensation by the State attorney’s office was also denied.

At the end of the indictment held at the previous hearing on April 1st, public prosecutor Manotti of the DDAA (‘Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism District Directorate’) of Genoa had requested 7 years’ imprisonment for Gino, 6 years for Luigi (with the revocation of the suspended sentence for a previous conviction imposed on him by the court of Ravenna) and 5 years and 6 months each for Gaia and Paolo, while the State attorney for the presidency of the council of ministers had requested compensation of half a million euro.

Massa, Italy: The Inquisition at work. Requested from 5 years 6 months to 7 years imprisonment for the accused in the Massa trial derived from the Operation Scripta Scelera

Posted on 2025/04/07 - 2025/04/07 by darknights

On Tuesday, April 1, one of the most relevant hearings in the trial involving four anarchists indicted in the operation Scripta Scelera for editing and distributing the internationalist anarchist fortnightly “Bezmotivny” was held in Massa. Starting at 12:00 noon in Palma Square there were microphone speeches and a leafleting, and from 3:00 p.m. there was a presence in the courtroom by the solidarity comrades present.

During the hearing, Public Prosecutor Manotti of the Genoa District Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Directorate delivered his indictment, and then set out the requests for conviction against the defendants in reference to both counts of the trial: incitement to commit crimes with the aggravating circumstance of the purpose of terrorism (as well as apology for terrorist crimes) and offense to the honor or prestige of the president of the republic. He did not, however, seek conviction on the aggravating circumstance of having committed the act through computer or telematic means.

These are the requests: 7 years in prison for Gino, 6 years for Luigi (with revocation of the suspended sentence for a previous conviction imposed on him by the Ravenna court), 5 years and 6 months each for Gaia and Paolo. A hearing with defense arguments and sentencing will be held on Tuesday, April 8, also at 3 p.m. in the court in De Gasperi Square.

Before making a few brief remarks, let us recall that this trial-excluding the associative crime initially charged-involves four of the defendants in the proceedings, those for whom this trial with immediate trial was precisely ordered in January 2024 and who were under restrictive house arrest at the time, while as for the other six defendants the proceedings remained in the investigation phase.

The repressive apparatus has long been forcibly trying to “stop” anarchists. With the prosecutions in recent years against certain newspapers we are basically being “reproached” for being what we are, and in particular with Scripta Scelera the state would like to strike at anarchist agitation and propaganda. The shameless willingness to dumb down revolutionary publications as well as to demonize actions of attack against the state and capitalism show the real consistency of the permissive face of the state and its “freedoms of expression” especially in times of war. Seven years in prison for the mere publication of a newspaper-the sixty or so issues of “Bezmotivny”-we understand to be the highest sentence demand ever made in a trial against anarchists in reference to what, objectively, are “crimes of opinion.” Anarchist ideas are evidently dangerous because they overflow with an urgency of life, because they exhort us not to spend our existence on our knees, because they speak of the will to radically overthrow this old world, because they suggest a method of struggle, because…

What else to say? The warning of the new inquisition headed by the anti-terrorist prosecutors’ offices and the prevention police is clear: when faced with the theoretical-practical combination of anarchism, it is either silence or condemnation. Yet if they think they are convincing us that the game is not worth the candle, they are sorely mistaken….

3 April 2025

ITALY: GATHERING IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE ANARCHISTS ACCUSED IN SCRIPTA SCELERA OPERATION – MASSA, APRIL 1, 2025

Posted on 2025/03/28 by darknights

[Update] Gathering in solidarity with the anarchists accused in Scripta Scelera operation postponed to April 1, 2025 (Massa, Italy)

Posted on 2025/02/17 by darknights

[UPDATE] We inform that during the hearing of February 14th, it was decided by the judge to postpone that one scheduled for the following 28th, for which a solidarity gathering had been called. The new hearing has been set for Tuesday, April 1st, the times remain unchanged.

GATHERING IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE ANARCHISTS ACCUSED IN SCRIPTA SCELERA OPERATION – MASSA, APRIL 1, 2025

August 8th, 2023. Following a request for ten arrests in prison, Scripta Scelera operation leads to nine precautionary measures against as many anarchists accused for the publication and distribution of the internationalist anarchist fortnightly ‘Bezmotivny’. A proceeding with which the State intended to ‘normalise’ the precautionary measures for charges concerning revolutionary publications. Scripta Scelera represents another ‘chapter’ in the war policies of the Italian state, in continuity among other things with recent repressive manoeuvres aimed at removing political practicability from ever wider social sectors.

April 1st, 2025. After just over a year, the trial against four accused comrades is coming to an end. Public prosecutor Manotti of the DDAA (“Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism District Directorate”) of Genoa will deliver his indictment, with the requests for sentencing. Regardless of the prosecutor’s inquisitorial hypotheses on alleged instigatory and terrorist capabilities, the reasons that the State intends to strike are the ones of those who opposed the war also by denouncing the Italian industries involved in the production of armaments, as well as those who supported the 2022-’23 mobilisation against 41 bis prison regime and life imprisonment without the possibility of parole developed with Alfredo Cospito’s hunger strike.

WE WILL MEET ON TUESDAY, APRIL 1st, IN MASSA:
12:00 h. – SOLIDARITY GATHERING IN PIAZZA FELICE PALMA
15:00 h. – PRESENCE IN FRONT OF THE COURT IN PIAZZA DE GASPERI

* * *

We remind the account details for the solidarity fund and the e-mail address for organising benefit initiatives or receiving copies of the texts about Scripta Scelera operation:

Postepay card number: 5333 1711 9250 1035 – IBAN: IT12R3608105138290233690253 – Account holder: Ilaria Ferrario – For contacts: solidaliscriptascelera[at]paranoici[dot]org

Anna Beniamino: Pathophysiology of the prison monster: poisons and antidotes (October 2024)

Posted on 2025/02/07 - 2025/02/07 by darknights

Anna Beniamino: Pathophysiology of the prison monster: poisons and antidotes (October 2024)

Article translated and published in Spanish in “Tinta de Fuga,” periódico anárquico contra las prisiones y la sociedad carcelaria, no. 7, segundo semestre 2024.

PHYSIOPATHOLOGY OF THE PRISON MONSTER:
POISONS AND ANTIDOTES

Stories of mice and men

In pharmacology laboratories, antidepressants are tested with an experiment of exquisitely human cruelty: a mouse, drugged or “nature,” is submerged in a glass cylinder half-filled with water and the time of desperate swimming before immobility overtakes is calculated.
Usually the rodent without psychotropic support tries to climb along the cylinder and jump for 5 minutes before giving up; antidepressants lengthen desperate swimming attempts by a few minutes before resignation overtakes.
Stripped of the cynicism it conveys, the Porsolt or “desperate swimming” test is a useful allegory to illustrate the current situation in Italic jails and this summer’s trickle of suicides and riots in the overcrowded, dilapidated communal sections1, a charcoal of forced cohabitation in cramped spaces, in a word humiliating human dignity: drug-induced apathy and depression, the ubiquitous “therapy,” desperate attempts at reaction that often take self-harming forms, backyard hegemonies, desolidarization, childish brawls, where there is a constant pouring of suggestions and models from TV dramas, which is then the lobotomizing diversion that overcomes “therapy” in the pervasive echoing from cell to cell.
To the pathological infantilization of the individual, the prison works methodically, depriving him not only of freedom of movement, but also of that of minimal choice in the course of the day: the idiotic and incomprehensible regulations, the extreme bureaucratization of every minutia of daily survival. Depersonalizing mechanisms that deprive one’s humanity, the application of which essentially serves to establish the pressure of the repressive structure (and the individual’s capacity for resistance or adaptation), are handled aseptically, feeding a meat grinder where reactions can cover the entire range between anesthetized apathy and revolt as an assertion of subsistence in life rather than claim.
This Dantesque bedlam is overlaid and counterbalanced by the fragmentation and consequent isolation of differentiated sections and circuits. In most compas one finds oneself as well as in small numbers, divided from the rest of humanity in chains, locked between high-security sections and, even more isolated, in 41bis2 circuits.
High-security sections have an additional internal separation to avoid contact between those accused of “terrorism,” domestic and international (AS2) and those of “mafia-style criminal conspiracy” (AS3) and related offenses, to avert, in the eyes of the legislature, monstrous criminal chimeras due to cross-species interbreeding3. Or, more prosaically, even if only to prevent the spread of a basic knowledge of one’s rights as a prisoner, a subject on which political prisoners are normally better versed, as they come from more literate backgrounds on the subject and are more prone to the consequent dialectic.
In AS, with the rubber stamp of the “mafia” or “terrorism” formula, an opposite strategy is applied to the overcrowded common sections: separation between prisoners, removal from the place of residence to make contact with family members more difficult, reduced contact with the outside world (fewer interviews, 4 hours monthly, and fewer phone calls, 2 monthly of 10 minutes each), heavier sentences, with less if any possibility of alternative sentences under the aegis of 4bis o.p. 4.
Then there is 41bis, the bottom of the well, the bottleneck of the repressive funnel where it is easier to get in than to get out, in the highest degree5, with a further exacerbation of solitary confinement, intracarceral and extracarceral: a one-hour interview per month with partitioned glass and audio-video recording; almost total postal censorship; limitation of items allowed in the cell, including books and music CDs, the purchase of which is in any case made very difficult, if not impossible; one hour of air time per day in cramped, netted yards and with socializing with up to three other prisoners (in fixed groups selected by management).
This prologue, unpleasant, is to explain a minimum the difficulties and contradictions experienced, as antiauthoritarians, in facing and fighting prison these days in these shores.
The strategy of isolation, sterilization of human contacts and rescission of solidarity networks is obviously not an Italian prerogative but, as our Chilean comrades are well understanding, a practice that is spreading and being perfected there as well, as in the aggravation of Francisco’s conditions of isolation and the restructuring of the Alta Seguridad. Just as everywhere the restructuring of detention facilities combines punitive logics toward the individual refractor with those of a “Fordist” efficiency of preventive repression aimed at creating compartmentalized and incommunicative levels to more effectively and aseptically manage control, inside as well as outside. Continue reading “Anna Beniamino: Pathophysiology of the prison monster: poisons and antidotes (October 2024)” →

Gathering in solidarity with the anarchists accused in Scripta Scelera operation (Massa, Italy, February 28, 2025) EN/IT

Posted on 2025/02/07 - 2025/02/07 by darknights

GATHERING IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE ANARCHISTS ACCUSED IN SCRIPTA SCELERA OPERATION – MASSA, FEBRUARY 28, 2025

poster pdf

August 8th, 2023. Following a request for ten arrests in prison, Scripta Scelera operation leads to nine precautionary measures against as many anarchists accused for the publication and distribution of the internationalist anarchist fortnightly ‘Bezmotivny’.

A proceeding with which the State intended to ‘normalise’ the precautionary measures for charges concerning revolutionary publications. Scripta Scelera represents another ‘chapter’ in the war policies of the Italian state, in continuity among other things with recent repressive manoeuvres aimed at removing political practicability from ever wider social sectors.

February 28th, 2025. After one year, the trial against four accused comrades is coming to an end. Public prosecutor Manotti of the DDAA (“Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism District Directorate”) of Genoa will deliver his indictment, with the requests for sentencing. Regardless of the prosecutor’s inquisitorial hypotheses on alleged instigatory and terrorist capabilities, the reasons that the State intends to strike are the ones of those who opposed the war also by denouncing the Italian industries involved in the production of armaments, as well as those who supported the 2022-’23 mobilisation against 41 bis prison regime and life imprisonment without the possibility of parole developed with Alfredo Cospito’s hunger strike.

WE WILL MEET ON FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28th, IN MASSA:
12:00 h. – SOLIDARITY GATHERING IN PIAZZA FELICE PALMA
15:00 h. – PRESENCE IN FRONT OF THE COURT IN PIAZZA DE GASPERI

* * *

We remind the account details for the solidarity fund and the e-mail address for organising benefit initiatives or receiving copies of the texts about Scripta Scelera operation:

Postepay card number: 5333 1711 9250 1035 – IBAN: IT12R3608105138290233690253 – Account holder: Ilaria Ferrario – For contacts: solidaliscriptascelera[at]paranoici[dot]org Continue reading “Gathering in solidarity with the anarchists accused in Scripta Scelera operation (Massa, Italy, February 28, 2025) EN/IT” →

Perugia, Italy: Further statements by anarchist comrades Matteo Monaco, Sara Ardizzone & Paolo Arosio at the Sibilla proceedings

Posted on 2025/02/03 - 2025/02/03 by darknights

Statement read by Matteo Monaco during the preliminary hearing in the Sibilla proceedings

I take the floor well pleased to be able to do so in person this time.

I would have liked to be here as early as October 10 on the occasion of the preliminary hearing that was then postponed, but unfortunately the work commitments to which I have to submit for a living and the one thousand five hundred kilometers separating my residence from this courtroom prevented me from doing so. I am not going to rage about the gross errors, certainly not mine, that led to the failures of notification against me and resulted in the postponement of the hearing. They qualify themselves. And they also qualify much more actually. I face this hearing, as well as the eventual trial that will ensue, with serenity. Aware that I have nothing to defend myself against in a political trial such as this one. Proud to be on the stand together with some of the comrades dearest to me. Happy to finally be able to greet to Alfredo and express all my closeness and solidarity with him. Determined to look those who claim the right to judge me in the face.

We are here because we have to answer, in particular, the charge of incitement to commit crimes for the purpose of terrorism and subversion of the democratic order. Good. I’m not interested in going into the merits of the charges, let alone, as already mentioned, defending myself against these crimes of opinion. What I am interested in is to make my considerations clear with respect to this charge.
In my conception of anarchism, as well as of life itself, there is no instigator-instigated binomial, there are no empty heads to be filled, there are no masses to be directed and steered, and I do not claim to instigate anything. The very term “instigation” has a negative, devious meaning, implying a kind of persuasion of the other by deception or trickery or manipulation. And that is precisely why, gentlemen, I believe that there is no better instigator of crime than the state itself. What do you think engenders feelings of revenge and revolt among the exploited and oppressed all over the world? The export of war or anarchists? Are you really convinced that if someone decides to take charge of his life and revolt, it is because the anarchists whispered it in his ear? Does it not occur to you that the systemic violence perpetrated through laws, institutions and repressive apparatuses, always directed toward the proletariat and always in defense of the bourgeoisie, may genuinely produce a backfire? What then is the question? If anarchism propagates ideas of revolt? Whether I as an anarchist point to the destruction of this miserable system? Of course I do. If I write and applaud theories and practices of subversion? That seems like an open secret to me.

The truth is that the state, capital, its apparatuses and their concrete personifications, including you, are afraid. Not afraid of anarchists let’s be clear, they are afraid that the situation will get out of hand, that the control they claim to have over the world may falter. Any sick system inevitably tends to put itself on the defensive, taking measures to try to maintain an internal balance and trying to annihilate threats, whether internal or external. The creaks of this imbalance can be felt just about everywhere, and slowly they are beginning to become more and more evident and, above all, the perpetrators increasingly clear in people’s eyes: economic disasters, environmental disasters, wars, pandemics. Crises, you know, generate discontent, discontent very easily turns into anger, anger triggers riots. And this, all of you, you certainly cannot afford. So you try to act in a preventive way, going to strike relentlessly at those who have already declared war on you for a century and a half and those who consider you enemies regardless of crisis and discontent, trying to prevent certain ideas from spreading among those who have begun to harbor a certain distrust and resentment toward you. Because they are dangerous ideas for your stability and for your comfortable places in ivory towers. Continue reading “Perugia, Italy: Further statements by anarchist comrades Matteo Monaco, Sara Ardizzone & Paolo Arosio at the Sibilla proceedings” →

Italy: Juan Sorroche – ‘Reflection on the General Context of the Causes of the Struggle’

Posted on 2024/05/03 by darknights

Regarding my convictions and trial charges and the nexus of non-systemic revolutionary struggle action practices and “my” meaning of the anarchist vision

“(…) The reality is precisely this complex thing that cannot be traced back to the results of a judicial proceeding. This will always be arbitrary and will be based not on evidence but on force, not on logic but on domination. Difficult reasoning? Maybe so, but reasoning that once done can never be forgotten” [Published with the title “Noterelle su Sacco e Vanzetti. In margine a un convegno di studi”, in “Anarchismo”, n. 63, July 1989, pp. 36-40].
Alfredo Maria Bonanno, A mano armata, Pensiero e azione, Edizioni Anarchismo

In remembrance, and a warm greeting and see you soon comrade Alfredo!

Note:

To facilitate the writing of the text, I chose to use mainly the masculine as a gender ending. Aware of the importance of rejecting and countering gender abuses (as of any kind), I trust in the reader’s understanding so that no one feels discriminated against.

Premise:

Hello to all, compañeras and to all, compañeros

I am Juan Sorroche, an anarchist prisoner arrested on May 22, 2019 and I write from the AS2 section of the Terni prison where I have been locked up for 5 years.

After my heavy sentence on January 26, 2024 in Rome in the Court of Cassation trial for the action against the Lega Nord, a party that was and is part of the government of the Italian State, a strongly racist, misogynistic and xenophobic party.

As an anarchist prisoner I would like to make clear to comrades, revolutionaries, outcasts and oppressed the connection of the causes of the struggle for which I am here in prison today as an anarchist prisoner.

In the first instance, even though the prosecutor had removed the charge of “political massacre” (285), I was sentenced to 28 years in prison plus 3 years of probation. On appeal, almost half of the sentence, I was sentenced to 14 years and 7 months. A few days ago, the Court of Cassation definitively sentenced me to 14 years and 7 months, a significant and exemplary sentence for the attack.

In the first instance, I want to say that I entered prison already having spent a cumulative period of about 8 years behind bars for my struggles in Italy, which is why I escaped into hiding in 2016 to continue living-fighting. Of these 8 years, 4 years are for the “NO TAV trial”. Subsequently, the other 4 years were different trials related to anti-prison and anti-CPR struggles, anti-fascist and anti-democratic struggles, struggles against technologies, GMOs, “environmentalists”, in which I took part, always trying to include the anti-state and anti-capitalist aspect of anarchism in Trentino as well as in different Italian situations. Including the Susa Valley, a path that I had taken in the past years in the NO TAV struggle against one of the projects of capital and the State and the devastating tentacle of the high-speed train. I was arrested, among many others, for the days of struggle and violent clashes of July 3, 2011. During the trial and during my imprisonment at the time, I claimed with a personal statement those days of struggle and the paths of opposition to the TAV and more generally the anti-state and anti-capitalist aspect. I refused the defense in the “NOTAV Trial”, positioning myself anti-juridically even trying to fight in court by refusing the trial, believing that I should not “defend” myself in that judicial theater, and for this I was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months. And I take those decisions with my head held high.

In May 2019, after 2 and a half years on the run, I was arrested together with another comrade accused of having supported my being on the run, and then the comrade was sentenced for aiding and abetting to a year and a half, a sentence that was significant and exemplary as we had not seen each other for years, and it gave us a hint of the new tenor of the trials to come.

When I was arrested, little by little, I became aware of a series of investigations and trials that see me accused of several attacks (with terrorist aims) in Italy:

– the bombs at the headquarters of the Lega Nord in Treviso for the attack of 12/08/2018, regarding the two explosive devices, one exploded and another full of nails discovered by the bomb squad in the form of a trap to carry out the components of the building and the police; these were placed in the headquarters of the Lega Nord in Treviso and were claimed with the claim:

“Let’s hit them at home!!!: (…) to specifically attack racism and exploitation. To strike at the state, capital and its perpetrators. Direct action makes it clear to us why and how. For an internationalist, rebellious, and anarchist solidarity! Solidarity with all prisoners (…). And to all the rebels locked up in the homeland prisons of the world!”
Haris Hatzimihelakis Cell/Black International 1881/2018

– the bomb at the Surveillance Court of Trento 2014. Sentenced in the first instance to 3 years and 2 months, then acquitted on appeal, I must soon go to the Supreme Court. Claimed anonymously: in solidarity and to give voice to the prisoners who struggle with dignity in all prisons and to the anarchist comrades who were in prison isolated in AS2 in Italy and other anarchist prisoners in the world.

– the bomb against the POL GAI (police academy) claimed by cell H, I report some sketches of the published claim:

“(…) as a cell H (C.A.A.) akin to the Black International and we join the call to action for a BLACK DECEMBER. We attacked one of the armed arms of the state. In this “school” cops from all over Italy and other countries are educated. This is a small signal against war. We stand in solidarity with all the people who are fighting against all states and capital. Our thoughts go out to the many comrades who have been repressed, locked up, tortured, or killed in the present and in the past. In solidarity with all the detainees who are struggling.”

This is in the context of the campaign launched by anarchist prisoners in Greece for a Black December, called international in the context of anarchist action in 2015.

A trial that I will begin shortly.

To date, I have accumulated 23 years in prison.

Actions that I agree with because for me they are part of the history of our movement of struggle in non-systemic revolutionary anarchism of action and of the struggle for freedom of all the oppressed in the world. Regardless of whether or not I am responsible for these facts. And I am determined to move forward in my anarchist life in order to live-fight within my limited possibilities as a prisoner. Continue reading “Italy: Juan Sorroche – ‘Reflection on the General Context of the Causes of the Struggle’” →

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” →