WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SICILIA (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria, May: Alfred Cospito. Hunger strike ended - THE FIGHT AGAINST 41 BIS CONTINUES (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Alfredo Cospito on 19 April decided to end the very long hunger strike that had

begun 181 days earlier, on 20 October 2022. His more than wise decision was
dictated by the objectives of the positive results achieved by the harsh protest,
first of all the success to break the wall of silence erected around the shame of
41 bis. Let us remember a few months ago, when there was no newspaper or
television news program that did not open with the Cospito affair, forced to
explain the facts and reveal to a public opinion distracted or drugged by legal
anti-mafia, that someone was shouting that the 41 bis was solely and exclusively
state torture and revenge. They tried in their own way to give interpretations
often artificial and tainted by ideological prejudices and clichés, but they
could not help but highlight the extreme gesture of an individual who, confined
in prison under a very harsh regime, had no other weapon than his own body to
play this last game, and he was playing it to the end.

The comrade struggle has caused many intellectuals to take sides; we are not
examining the ideas of a Cacciari or a Manconi, a Di Cesare or a Mentana and so
on, but we would like to underline that in any case they and many others had the
courage to put their face in a difficult battle , passed on the sly for so many
years, when speaking of 41 bis was presented as siding with the mafia: another of
the convenient lies of the state and of the legal anti-mafia, responsible for the
deaths in solitary confinement of many prisoners and the civil death of almost
800 people held captive by the state.

The noisy squares activated in every corner of Italy and the numerous solidarity
demonstrations held abroad have contributed to keeping the spotlight on the
battle of Alfredo on, indeed they have turned it on even more. Squares that could
have been much fuller, noisier, more decisive if divisions and hegemonies had
been set aside, starting with those within the anarchist movement. Alfredo would
have benefited, the prisoners of 41 bis and life imprisonment would have
benefited, and all of us would have benefited.

On the merits, the decision to end the hunger strike, which came after a physical
loss of 50 kilos and an increasingly risky health condition, was taken after the
pronouncement, on April 18, of the Constitutional Court which declared: "In
continuity with its numerous and compliant precedents, the Court has considered
this provision constitutionally illegitimate in the part in which it prohibits
the judge from considering any extenuating circumstances as prevailing over the
aggravating circumstance of recidivism pursuant to art. 99, fourth paragraph, of
the code pen., in cases in which the crime is punished with the statutory penalty
of life imprisonment". That is, Cospito has the right to have extenuating
circumstances applied, especially those deriving from the fact that the attack on
the carabinieri school in Fossano caused neither victims nor damage. The Court of
Assizes of Turin will now have to reformulate the sentence in the light of this
important pronouncement, and probably, by canceling the possibility of life
imprisonment for Alfredo (a legal monstrosity, as we have written several times),
it will order the exit from 41 bis . At least we hope.

But there is not only this: the European Court of Human Rights has issued the
declaration of admissibility of the appeal brought by the lawyer. Antonella
Mascia of Strasbourg and the lawyer. Flavio Rossi Albertini concerning the
differentiated prison regime envisaged by article 41-bis O. P., in which serious
violations of the European Convention on Human Rights are denounced. Although the
time for the evaluation of the appeal is two to three years, the Court could give
a definitive pick to the 41 bis. It is not little, indeed it is a fundamental
step. It could not have been hoped that such a complex battle would have achieved
immediate and clear results; Alfredo's life was at risk, and we, among many
others, declared that we were interested in Alfredo alive and not the martyr that
the government wanted to hand over to us to transform the protests into a matter
of public order, diverting attention to the problems posed .

We await the pronouncement of the Court of Assizes of Turin, and in the meantime
we send our warmest greetings to Alfredo, wishing him a slow but clear recovery,
and a soon release.

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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