25/09 TO GENOA AGAINST ANTI-ANARCHIST REPRESSION

Caught in the grip of health emergencies, wars, increasingly fierce internal repression, the energy crisis, economic recession, the systematic erosion of individual freedoms, the dismantling of acquired rights, and a widening social gap, we are asked to perform an act of blind loyalty like that of a dog that, though beaten, does not shy away from its master’s harassment, of resigned submission to the inevitability of these events: the chorus of politicians of all hues, of the bosses, of the regime’s yelpers, is re-proposing to us the fatuous promise of the solution to the problems that beset the daily lives of most, of the common good, to be obtained, as it happens, through ‘tears and blood’ sacrifices to which we should also, ironically, give our consent in the electoral ballet.

It seems to us that this spectacle is a painful repetition. The assent and social cohesion that is being demanded of us is aimed more at feeding the interests of political apparatuses and the business dealings of the economic bosses, these already closely cohesive at several levels, who thrive on the backs bent by the chain of labour and necessity. To us anarchist comrades, libertarians, rebels, refractory to authority, the way forward seems clear: to resolutely oppose this power that is suffocating us and against the State, the men and women who represent it, against the prisons and all places where anyone is imprisoned, against the political and economic institutions that speculate, plundering the planet’s natural resources and degrading our lives.

We claim the necessity of the conflict against this state of affairs because we are aware that the oppression we are experiencing is the result of processes that unfold historically in a well-defined way, that this system of exploitation will not end on its own, that it is up to us, here and now, to pursue the idea of freedom to which we aspire. And it is to this clash that we bring back, without any victimisation, the meaning of repression when it targets us: repression and prisons will continue to exist as long as there is a state to bring down and that will do everything it can not to fall, unmasking any illusion of democratic justice. This confrontation is burying many many of our most generous comrades in prison, Anna, Alfredo, Juan, Monica, Francisco, Davide, Claudio, decades in jail, entire lives facing isolation, censorship, and the physical and psychological violence of very strict detention regimes.  Yet they are defending tooth and nail the idea they keep alive in their besieged hearts. We do not want to be any less; their courage and steadfastness inspire our paths out here. Since 5 May, our comrade Alfredo Cospito has been locked up in the prison of Bancali near Sassari in 41 bis, an extremely harsh detention regime which entails almost total isolation, the absence of sociability, the almost complete censorship of correspondence, the recording of the monthly 10-minute phone call and visits reduced to one hour a month behind a partition screen without the possibility of any physical contact, continuous body and cell searches, the very reduced availability of objects also of daily use (clothes, books, paper and pen) and always subject to the arbitrary will of the jailers.

This particularly penalising and fundamentally vindictive measure is clearly aimed at silencing the voice and ideas of a comrade who, over the years, has made a decisive contribution, with his theoretical critique and his practice, to the anarchist debate; at annihilating him for persevering with determination and dignity in his path of struggle; at dulling, with the spectre of exemplary punishment, the comrades’ initiative outside and solidarity. In Genoa, three comrades who did not spare themselves in supporting Alfredo and the other prisoner comrades have been subjected to special surveillance measures requested by the usual public prosecutor Federico Stalker Manotti, in an attempt to isolate and inhibit those around them; a further request for surveillance was issued for another comrade in Genoa and on September 28 the hearing against him will take place. These are the reasons we have decided to take to the streets in Genoa on 25 September, a date, that of the elections, which is the symbol of the farce of the social contract being renewed on our skins; if the machine of domination is advancing with all its apparatuses to engulf the comrades’ lives, in our most disruptive desire for freedom, in our hatred of authority and in active solidarity we can find the appropriate levers to crack the enemy front. We invite you to join us. When the repression tightens and lashes out, the response must be clear, determined and consistent. Let’s break the isolation into which they want to plunge our comrades. Let’s deploy ideas, strength, strategies in response to the anti-anarchist campaign that the State has been waging for almost a decade now.

Solidarity is a weapon, let’s use it!

Alfredo out of 41bis. Against all prisons.

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fuoridallariserva Translated by Act for freedom now!