Letter from Alfredo Cospito and update on the latest transfer to San Paolo Hospital on March 6
On Monday, March 6 (the 138th day of his hunger strike) Alfredo Cospito was again transferred from Opera Prison to San Paolo Hospital. Recall that the comrade had been an inmate in the Intensive Assistance Service (SAI) inside the Opera prison since Jan. 30, on Feb. 11 transferred for the first time to San Paolo Hospital, and then transferred again to Opera on the 27th of the same month (following the hearing on the 24th in the court of cassation), remaining there for a week, until this last transfer to San Paolo on March 6.
Following the outcome of the Feb. 24 hearing at the court of cassation (which rejected the petition to revoke his detention in 41 bis, further ratifying what had already been decided by the Rome supervisory court in its Dec. 1 hearing), Alfredo stopped taking the mild supplements he had been taking for some time.
Also in the same days as the latest transfer, on March 6, the opinion requested by the Ministry of Justice from the National Bioethics Committee on the possible medical intervention in Alfredo, that is, on force-feeding in case of loss of consciousness, was released. The CNB stresses that it has “no legal, political, moral or ethical legitimacy to formulate an ‘ad personam’ opinion” (and “consequently, the CNB’s response is of a general nature”), without even issuing an unambiguous opinion, thus dividing itself between the “pro-life” and the “pro-choice” (according to the latter, the Anticipated Treatment Arrangement should be respected in any case).
On March 1, during a press conference, Alfredo’s lawyer disclosed a hitherto undisclosed letter-statement by the comrade, plausibly dating back at least a month. We publish its full transcript here. Recall that to date, due to the systematic censorship inherent in 41 bis, it has not yet been possible to read the comrade’s first statement regarding the beginning of the hunger strike, dating back to October 20. The only statement published to date, other than this letter disclosed on March 1, was the one for the December 5 hearing in Turin as part of the Scripta Manent trial.
The state’s choice to annihilate the comrade poses the need to place, once again, no hope in the outcomes of the courts or in the opinions of the various structures deputed to express their views on the contradictions that have opened up in state bodies as a result of the hunger strike and with the development of the international solidarity movement. These are, especially with regard to the courts of the Italian state, structures and figures directly responsible for the very serious conditions in which Alfredo Cospito finds himself. The state, first with the transfer of the comrade in 41 bis on May 5 and later with the cassation ruling of the Scripta Manent trial on July 6, intended to give a warning to the anarchist and revolutionary movement. A warning that after the outcomes of the hearings of the Rome parole court on Dec. 1 and the court of cassation on Feb. 24 was expressed even more clearly, taking the form of a will to total annihilation against the comrade.
To the attempted annihilation against Alfredo and the constant mass-media campaign of slander the whole anarchist movement we respond with the clarity of our ideas and the tenacity of our practices.
Letter from Alfredo Cospito
My struggle against 41 bis is an individual struggle as an anarchist; I do not do or receive blackmail. I simply cannot live in an inhumane regime like 41 bis, where I cannot freely read what I want, books, newspapers, anarchist periodicals, art, scientific and literature and history magazines.
The only chance I have to get out is to deny my anarchy and sell me someone to put in my place. A regime where I cannot have any human contact, where I can no longer see or stroke a blade of grass or hug a loved one. A regime where photos of your parents are confiscated. Buried alive in a grave, in a place of death. I will carry on my struggle to the bitter end, not because of “blackmail,” but because this is not life. If the goal of the Italian state is to make me “disassociate” myself from the actions of the anarchists outside, know that I do not suffer blackmail. As a good anarchist I believe that everyone is responsible for his own actions, and as a member of the anti-organizational current I have never “associated” with anyone and therefore cannot “disassociate” myself from anyone. Affinity is something else. Continue reading “Italy: Letter from Alfredo Cospito and update on the latest transfer to San Paolo Hospital on March 6” →
