A judge in Italy has declined to indict twelve anarchists associated with the insurrectionary magazine Vetriolo of various incitement and subversion charges.
Alfredo Cospito and Michele Fabiani, along with ten others, faced terrorism enhancements on almost all the charges sought by the public prosecutor.
Cospito and his partner Anna Beniamino have been imprisoned for years, along with other comrades accused of clandestine action.
In 2013 Cospito was sentenced to ten years and eight months in prison for having shot Roberto Adinolfi, a manager of engineering firm Ansaldo, in the leg.
Being already in jail, in June 2006 he was also convicted of having set two explosive devices in front of a Carabinieri police training college in northern Italy.
In 2022 he was moved to the Bancali prison in Sardinia, and subject to a restrictive 41 bis regime of isolation, which human rights organisations have
The prosecution of Vetriolo magazine began in November 2023. However, at the hearing on 15 January the judge announced that the indictment sought by the public prosecutor in Perugia would not go forward
During the hearing, the accused made spontaneous statements to clarify their positions on the entire case against them, as well as for the abolition of the 41 bis regime.
Cospito warned that his disturbing prosecution as supposedly having a “top role” in an anarchist organisation “opens wide the gates of 41 bis (a repressive prison regime) to anyone who disturbs power”, describing the case as “fundamentally an attack on freedom of thought and of the press”.
The State needed 3 people to declare a ‘Terrorist Organisaation’ – Kyriakos is dead and Marianna wounded and jailed.. “because they needed a third, like magic, they discover a bag with one fingerprint and kidnap Nikos.
This is an attempt to provide information and context for those outside Greece concerning the recent state abduction of anarchist Nikos Romanos.
On 31 October, 2024, an explosion in the Athens neighborhood of Ampelokopoi killed the comrade Kyriakos X and severely injured the comrade Marianna M.
They were both in an apartment where an explosive device detonated, knocking out one wall of the building. The state claims they were planning to detonate a bomb elsewhere and that it exploded prematurely. Both Kyriakos and Marianna are anarchists, respected participants in the movement.
The press in Greece is owned by a handful of old families who control most of the remaining greek assets– those that haven’t been sold off to foreign investors.
The Greek mainstream media exists to disseminate state narratives, and it immediately began slandering the victims of the explosion as well as engaging in wild speculation– such as that the israeli embassy was the intended target.
Whether or not that’s true, it is true that israeli mossad agents came to assist the Greek police in their investigations.
Since the explosion, the state has made additional arrests of people it claims are somehow connected to the apartment and its lease, sublease, etc.
As the Greek press promoted the propaganda of the state, there commenced activity in some cowardly corners of the left to distinguish the more “guilty” of those accused from the others. This is the question of who to tar with the labels of “anarchist” and “terrorist” — thereby assumed to deserve repression– vs. who is really “innocent.”
The anarchist movement itself, both in Greece and internationally, has rejected such division and remained strong in solidarity despite a chilling increase in repression.
There were multiple support gatherings outside the hospital where Marianna was held under guard and when, shortly after her second surgery, she was transferred to Korydallos prison, comrades also gathered there. Kyriakos has been honored with actions, banners, marches, events and memorials, and will remain a beloved comrade forevermore.
There has been no “disavowal,” no step back..
Earlier demonstration for Nikos Romanos
Since the tragedy in Ampelokopoi state repression against those suspected of being “anarchists” has become more aggressive, although this is consistent with an ongoing trend since the pandemic.
What we have seen now are not new tactics but an increase in frequency: police actions such as stopping and searching people around the neighborhood Exarcheia, early-morning “preventative detention” of targeted individuals (people considered politically prominent) on the days of demonstrations and marches, and an increase in surveillance of those the Greek state has a grudge against, including by parking unmarked cars with surveillance equipment in front of their homes.
Few people in the anarchist movement here have been under as heavy surveillance, long-term, as the comrade Nikos Romanos. He was a friend of the anarchist Alexis Grigoropolous, and witnessed Alexis’ murder by police on 6 December 2008.
Since that time Nikos has been arrested many times and accused of many crimes, along with false accusations of involvement with the direct action group Conspiracy of Cells of Fire.
Because Nikos is a living witness to the shameful conduct of the state, he has been labeled a terrorist by politicians and the mass media many times over. Of their many accusations, however, the only crime the judiciary has ever pinned on him is a bank robbery, for which he served a prison sentence.
6 MONTHS OF IMPRISONMENT OF THE ANARCHIST COMRADE ABEL
🔴 DEMONSTRATION⚫️
📆 Saturday 30 November 🕢 19:30h 📍 Plaça Orfila, Barcelona
**DEMO CALLOUT**
This November 30th will mark 6 months since our anarchist comrade Abel was kidnapped by the State and imprisoned in the Brians 2 CP Prison (Barcelona) with a firm sentence of 3 years and 9 months for the assault on a JUSAPOL protester who was carrying fascist symbols in 2018.
All the judicial instances of the State, ratified the accusation of the crime of injuries with aggravating factors of hatred with the aim of thus shielding his henchmen and further criminalizing the militancy of the comrade. A punishment, which the state has doubled, since during all this time his classification in ‘third degree regime’ has been rejected on two occasions, alluding to the ideology of the comrade and his lack of empathy with the “victim”.
This is how the Power justifies the reintegration programs (an essential condition for obtaining prison permits) to which the prisoner must submit in order to annihilate his revolutionary conscience: like a carpenter who hammers in the crooked nails on a board.
In this way, they turn the sentence into torture and blackmail.
But for us, their penitentiary policy based on exercising a set of structural violence according to the social position of the prisoners is nothing new: pure labor exploitation, humiliation and aggression by the jailers and systematic mistreatment of families are just the tip of the iceberg.
We have never expected that their laws would serve as a tool for us, much less aspired to reform them to soften the abuse and suffering. Because we know that prison, like any other repressive institution, is an instrument at the service of the Power and the ruling class, whose objective is to annihilate any hint of dissent in society.
An institution that only deserves to be destroyed and abolished.
Therefore, the jail, that hole where time seems to stop and sometimes passes without us realizing it, is the place that Democracy has reserved for those who dare to question the established order. Throwing into it those who are forced to live in the blind spot and those who fight without ceasing.
We also go out to shout for all of them.
Because we do not forget the rest of the prisoners in struggle who resist inside and outside the State and those who could be yet to come. Because we are not satisfied with making the glass that separates us tremble with our fists, with hurrying our voices in a call against the visitors clock, with sending our affection by post.
We want to see those walls fall.
This November 30th we go out to defend what is ours and what they want to steal from us.
Because we are those who, loving the spaces we inhabit, resist in them, putting our bodies on the line for the trivial and simple fact that they are our trenches. We prefer the ashes of the metropolis to the yoke of Capital.
Because of the hatred of homelands, borders, wars and disasters, where we are in the front line, lovers of conflict and revolt, who sow mutual support and solidarity against all systems of domination.
Without offering to the dead, wounded and fallen, not a minute of silence, not a minute of kneeling, but a whole life of combat and revenge.
Because of the hatred of the bosses, bourgeois, parties, fascists and tyrants who with their mask of democrats wanted us by force as extras in the spectacle of misery.
Despite this, we decided to be protagonists because of our passion for freedom and hatred of their authority, because of our affection for our equals and our love for our brothers who want to take us away.
For all this, we take to the streets this November 30th. Because solidarity is the weapon that shortens the distance that separates us. For love of Anarchy and hatred of repression.
The activist entered Brians Prison on the same day that the amnesty law was passed, convicted of a crime of treasonous injury and aggravated hatred against a protester of the Jusapol Police March in 2018. The Supreme Court confirmed the sentence of three years and nine months in prison by considering him a co-author of an action he did not commit.
The Electoral Board orders the Police to clean local government buildings of of yellow ribbons and pro-independence symbols. In the Supreme Court, Marchena protects the magical stories of the civil guards by banning the videos of them attacking peaceful voters. As far right aggressors go free with state and media approval a new neo fascist movement is galvanised into being..It is not clear if the order of the Board also includes all the new symbols – or even more original ones like the banner of Port de la Selva that replaced yellow with blue and “llibertat political prisoners” with “llibertat peixos pacífics” (transforming ‘Free Political Prisoners’ into ‘Free Peaceful Fish’)–
It is very likely that all will be banned if we look at the history of the 155 elections, those of 21D 2017, in which the Board banned the color yellow in the lighting of fountains and buildings or the Christmas lights.
The grotesque spectacle of military police entering public buildings and removing banners, posters and ribbons is very likely to repeat itself. The orders come from a body so ”independent and impartial” that it includes among its members two of the judges that make up the tribunal of the continuing show Trial of the Catalan Leaders.
the yellow ribbon crossed out by a red line will not be enough
In turn, the President of the Generalitat (limited Catalan parliament) was brought before the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate whether he has committed a crime of disobedience punishable by fines and disqualification from public office.
Are the prosecutors of the rebellion preparing the way for a new episode of Direct Rule from Madrid (Article 155) that ends with the dismissal of another Catalan president? Everything is possible is this Kingdom.
This was the response of the ‘electoral body’ to the decision of Torra and his counsellors to replace the ‘offensive’ yellow ribbons with other posters crossed by a red line -referring to the symbol in defense of the freedom of expression that has also been in one of the windows of the Palau of the Generalitat- or by other yellow icons, such as chickens, sheep and other animals that decorate the door of the Consellería de Agricultura.
Door of the agriculture Ministry with illegal Yellow Animals.
We reach the hilarious but serious prospect of the Catalan President facing dismissal and a charges for allowing the display of a yellow chicken in a public building.
The Spanish National Police have a new ultra right group called Spanish Spring CENEPE (Primavera española del CENEPE) composed of Spanish police officers which proposes to toughen violent police actions and disseminates hate messages and threats. According to El Confidencial, there are 13,062 armed members of this police Facebook group. An approach to Vox’s political positions has also been detected, with the broadcast of messages, videos and slogans of this new ultra right party. Full text in Spanish at: https://www.lahaine.org/fN2m
Meanwhile in the politically controlled Supreme Court Trial, these same judges, with Marchena in the lead, continue with a farce that cannot stand the slightest test of impartiality. Last week was the turn of various Civil Guard agents drafted into Catalonia.In a surprise move the Court allowed the Office of the Prosecutor, the State Attorney and, incredibly, the new fascist party Vox , to ask them about their presence in the attempted repression of the 1-O Referendum . Independent observers, including Noam Chomsky, have been barred from the Trial.
Despite the fact that the whole world saw the dozens of videos of them beating up thousands of peaceful voters, the police claimed they were the real victims. The stories of the agents, border on the fantastic. They talk about how they felt a “hatred never seen”, an “unusual violence” … and other pearls like that as they hospitalised over 1000 voters.
The Electoral Board of Barcelona has prohibited on Thursday the public media TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio from using the words “political prisoners” or calling Puigdemont “exiled” in their news programmes.
So that the delirium is not so evident, Marchena decided that their stories cannot be contrasted with what actually happened. Directly he prohibited showing a single video image of the ”facts” about which the police declared, which could have contradicted their every word.Democracy and Judiciary, Franco style continues on TV. The authoritarian and recentralizing course of the Regime continues deepening since the institutional coup of Direct Rule 155, and in this scenario the script is written side by side by all its agents, from the Crown to the PSOE (”socialists”), including of course by the far right PP, the Cs party and the exciting newcomer on the gravy train, the openly neo-fascist Vox.
Update Update Update The General Strike in Catalunya called for Wed 8th Nov by small Intersindical-CSC trade union has been supported by the USTEC education union and the main Republican civil groups, Òmnium and ANC .
The strike is to protest the jailing of protest leaders and Government ministers, the occupation of paramilitary security forces, the imposition of Direct Rule, etc
However the majority CCOO (ex comminist) and UGT (ex socialist) trade unions again came out against it and the anarchist CGT made a statement in favour but left it to their members to decide individually, arguing they haven’t time to consult them.
All schools and Universities and public offices will certainly close down as well as cities like Girona and LLeida which have a native Catalan majority.
But the bosses organisation Foment de Treball have taken a High Court case to declare the General Strike Illegal.
The neo-fascists in Madrid have been hiring fleets of coaches and even trains to bring in thousands of violent right wing ‘demonstrators’, as seen at last weekend’s huge demo openly led by thugs sporting swastikas, zieg heils and Francoist symbols.
The insidious campaign is to split Catalan society down the middle. over 40% of the population are workers from Spain, most are well integrated over generations with families who consider themselves Catalan. Mixed marriages are common and normal with the 2 languages coexisting perfectly in their homes. Tension between the communities has been minimal (as in ex Yugoslavia before politicians whipped up xenophobia for personal power).
The anarchists too are divided, actively calling and sup`porting the 3rd Oct General Strike from an anti nationalist workers standpoint, but reluctant to continue if a nationalist civil conflict in Catalunya is provoked.
The Spanish nationalist media these days has become a torrent of anti Catalan hatred and outright lies. With an explosion of racist attacks the General Strike on Wednesday and the ‘Mega Demo’ on Sat 11th could finally break the self imposed pacifist stance of the Catalan republicans, which is what the State needs to justify mass criminalization of the majority democratic movement.
we include below a translation of a key text
A triumph of popular mobilization
by LLuita Internationalista on Barcelona Indymedia The proclamation of the Catalan Republic is the expression of the will of the people of Catalonia to break with the Monarchy. It is the result of a permanent and massive popular mobilization (demos of over a million for 5 years) , which, until now, has forced the governments of the Generalitat Catalan Govt to apply the popular mandate. The regime of the transition, which Franco left “tied up and well tied up “ (by his legacy) is in its most serious crisis, cracked and may not survive. Continue reading “New Catalan Strike for Prisoners and Republic amid Far-right Repression”
The Free 