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
