The comrade Beppe is in need of economic support
If you are anarchists you will surely have heard about the Prometeo trial that ended in Genoa just a few months ago and which is an exemplary case for understanding how the mainstream media really work in this country.
Let’s remember the facts.
The Prometeo trial saw three of our comrades, Natascia, Beppe e Robert accused of sending two explosive packages addressed to two ex public prosecutors in Turin: Sparagna e Rinaudo, both involved for years in ferocious repression of the struggle along with the ex director of the Dap, Santi Consolo, one of those mainly responsible for the torture that thousands of prisoners live daily on their own skins…
The public prosecutor Federico Manotti, already well known in the past for his repressive fury towards Anarchists… asked for a total penalty of over half a century’s prison.
17 years was requested for Natascia and Robert and even 18 years and 4 months for Beppe.
The chief indictment brought out for the occasion was the infamous article 280, or attack with aims of terrorism.
This trial arrived after something like 3 years (I repeat 3 years) of preventive detention… with continual transfers from one prison to another (Pavia, Opera and Bologna) and always under regimes of maximum security…
At this point it is useful to recall the absolutely shameful behaviour of the mainstream media regarding such an event..
At the time of the arrests the Prometeo investigation was launched on all the front pages of the main national newspapers and in the opening of the news on the main television networks…
The same media clamour that accompanied the investigation until the disproportionate request for sentencing by the prosecutor… would turn into a shameful silence as soon as the trial really entered its full course…Of the acquittal in the first degree of all three defendants nothing more will be said in all those same information organs that just a few months before had instead unleashed hell…
The spotlight on the Prometeo story will be completely extinguished right from this first absolution leading up to the grande finale characterized by a definitely incontrovertible verdict, a final acquittal with full formula for all three defendants…
Good… actually very bad indeed, but so far the Prometeo story resembles in all respects other terrible events (of pure repression) of recent history of a past that is evidently slow to disappear…
A story that looks so much like other equally disturbing stories of repression by the judicial bodies of instrumental manipulation by a mainstream media totally subservient to power…
Of this affair we were particularly struck by the personal story lived by one of the defendants involved, our Anarchist comrade Beppe who was singled out by the Pm Federico Manotti as public enemy number one towards whom he vented rage in a particularly bloody way..
The Prosecutor’s request for Beppe was in fact 18 years and 4 months, and it was with this tremendous sword of Damocles on his neck (and under high security prison regime) that the comrade had to face 3 long years of preventive detention.
It is therefore not surprising that in such a tremendously stressful situation and of systematic suspension of one’s most elementary rights, that Beppe ended up getting ill in prison, until being forced to have thyroid surgery in the prison of Pavia.
But Beppe’s real problems actually began immediately after his release and return home, when the media spotlight on the event began to fade, until it was completely extinguished to acquittals that had already happened… because, as too often happens in such cases, it is precisely when the spotlights are lowered that certain problems can be created and after so many years in the movement we have noticed and seen how this problem affects especially some of our best comrades in struggle, in particular those with a great personal dignity and not inclined to forms of self-pity even when they would have every reason to fall into any form of the same..
These brothers in struggle of ours generally do not like to feel sorry for themselves or telling their personal vicissitudes because they are people accustomed to assuming their responsibilities in full without ever asking anything from anyone and above all without ever asking for anything from those close to them…
If for example we take a look at Beppe’s judicial and personal affair we notice exactly this and it was only thanks to the personal interest of some of us and in particular of one of our comrades that we finally became aware of his situation… and all that has emerged would at this point be equally necessary to talk about…
So let’s really talk…
Let’s talk for once about this comrade of ours who so far has never asked or demanded anything but who in all these years of detention has struggled and suffered in silence without any of us really knowing what his personal situation was today…
Anyway to put it briefly Beppe has been released after 3 years’ prison to end up in a situation just as heavy and equally coercive…
After 3 years of preventive detention, he now finds himself completely destitute and with the need to assist a very old and sick mother night and day…
And all that in a little Sicilian village of about 3,000 souls far away and disconnected from everything and everyone.
We came to know about these problems thanks to the interest of our dear sister friend and comrade in the struggle very attentive to these personal events that we often forget as soon as certain spotlights go out.
Beppe does not deserve this situation after literally giving himself for the struggle…
Just because he never asked for anything for himself doesn’t mean we can afford to keep ignoring everything we just told you…
Especially now that we know it and so we start telling it like there’s no tomorrow…
And it is precisely for this reason that we have finally decided to write this post of denunciation with respect to everything that we learned about his exemplary personal story…
It was in fact necessary that the whole anarchist movement came to know it and took note of it in order to be able in some way to help him concretely in this situation…
A first idea we came up with would be to be able to organize in the short to medium term at most… any kind of benefit initiative in support of our Anarchist comrade Beppe (as comrades of Genoa have already done in the past for trial expenses)…
Never as in this case it would also be necessary to move quickly and with a certain urgency demonstrating with facts what solidarity between comrades can and must be…
some anarchists
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Translated by Act for freedom now!