We receive and spread this text concerning the serious situation of pressure that they are putting on Mattia (one of the 5 prisoners who submitted a report on the state massacre in Italian jails, March 2020) in the prison of Ancona. Mattia is not the only prisoner [of the 5] they are trying to wear out in various ways. Since mid-February they have been applying mail censorship on Cavazza [another of the 5 prisoners] (in the prison of Piacenza). Moreover all of them have had to go through more questioning by the Modena prosecutors. It is clear that they want to put pressure on them to make them give up, and the intention of guards, conniving doctors and the prison administration to give a clear warning to anyone who still wants to raise their heads in the face of the violence inflicted on them is evident.
WHAT BAD HEALTH CARE, THIS IS REVENGE!
Mattia is one of the five prisoners who signed a report on the events in Modena of March 2020, the beatings after the revolt and Salvatore Piscitelli’s death in a cell, which occurred in the prison of Ascoli Piceno.
Already about a year ago [Mattia] was seen at the A&E in Ascoli Piceno while being held in that jail (before the report was submitted), and on that occasion he was told it was necessary to plan a surgical operation because of a serious health problem, which would get worse if neglected. Mattia is currently being held in the prison of Montacuto (Ancona). Over a year has passed and the operation still hasn’t been done. In recent weeks his health situation has worsened and he was taken to A&E twice. There again doctors planned an operation and prescribed an antibiotic, which however he wasn’t given for a number of days on his return to the prison. In spite of his admissions to A&E, the prison doctor maintains that Mattia is in good health and that he can have another check in 6 months. Meantime, even if authorization was given about a month ago for a trusted doctor to be allowed into the prison, no date has been set for a visit.
How to read all this?
Let’s begin with a certainly not original consideration: health care in prison is very bad as a rule. The exception is not bad health care, but finding a doctor who is not conniving with the guards. We saw it and continue to see it; it is enough to think of the revolts a year ago when prisoners strongly demanded protection for their health, a concept incompatible with that of reclusion. It is sufficient to see today, after over a year, how the pandemic is still spreading, without dignified measures being taken to stop it. It is sufficient to hear what prisoners tell us about the anti-COVID vaccine being presented to them more as a constraint than a choice: if you don’t get vaccinated we put you in isolation, we block all your activities, we prevent you from having any medical visits.
But let’s return to Mattia’s situation for a moment. Abuse against him and the other prisoners who submitted the well-known report is repeated: parcels and correspondence rejected or blocked, mail subjected to censorship, money sent by families not delivered, refused to makeinternal requests and the ever present blackmail on body and health. After the brutalities and mass murders perpetrated a year ago, the state machine has openly decided not to change direction and is giving clear signals to all those who don’t keep quiet in the face of daily abuse by jailers and health workers. The iron fist put in place in dozens of jails in March 2020 is a practice still claimed by the State. And those who raise their voices to denounce the violence of the guards and the connivance of doctors must be silenced. They have tried to harass the 5 prisoners who made the report with transfers, continuous threats and repeated interrogations. Till now, none of this has produced the desired effect. Now they are piling it on by deliberately worsening the health situation of one of the prisoners. They want revenge. This is what they are saying to Mattia by neglecting his health, this is what they are saying to all of us.
Always in solidarity and complicity with those who don’t look away or put down their heads in the face of the State torturers! Let’s express all our solidarity and anger.
Let’s support them more, as best as we think!
To write to Mattia, Claudio, Cavazza and Francesco
