WORLD WORLDWIDE SPAIN ITALY News Journal Update - (en) Spain, CNT, #435 - 41 bis and life imprisonment in Italy - Franco Colbu (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Alfredo Cospito has already won a very important battle, that of putting

the issue of prisons and repression back in the public debate. We still
don't know if at the cost of his life or not, but now everyone is
thinking about the prison system and the usefulness or not of
punishment. The subject is very complex; our Modena section of USI got
involved in this battle also as a consequence of the massacre that took
place on March 8, 2020 in the Modena prison. During the Covid19 period,
when the restrictions due to the pandemic made the prison system
unbearable, family visits had been cancelled, it was no longer possible
to receive packages from abroad, so prisoners only had to eat junk food
from the prison canteens and the fear of contagion inside the cells was
high, with an extremely precarious health system. A series of riots
ensued and the ensuing crackdown resulted in nine deaths that were
immediately filed as methadone suicides and two charred corpses that
could no longer be investigated; Five prisoners made statements about
the extreme violence used by the prison police. For these reasons and
because of Alfredo Cospito's fight, we have launched an Anti-Prison
Table that opens every Tuesday afternoon and we have organized an
anti-prison and anti-41 bis demonstration for Sunday March 12, with the
presence of 600 companions.

The procession was very determined and reached the front of the Modena
prison and halfway, at the Cialdini flyover, two banners were unfurled:
one with the words "Cospito Libero, 41 bis Tortura", the second with the
names of the nine dead prisoners and the inscription "Noi non
archiviamo" (We do not archive). In front of the prison many speeches in
solidarity with the detainees, a beautiful speech by Nicoletta Dosio of
the 'No TAV' movement in Val Di Susa, who recounted having been in the
Vallette prison in Turin in the days of Covid19 and that no one in
prison he believed that the nine deaths in Modena were methadone
suicides; she recounted the anguish and loneliness that the detainees
felt in those days. We played the anthem of the Arab Spring, since eight
of the nine dead were Tunisian, and we closed with a punk concert that
continued throughout the procession. The procession then marched through
the Sacca neighborhood, where we are carrying out various environmental
struggles and where the headquarters of the "Libera" social space (USI's
Modena branch) is located, to the train station. The procession,
obviously at our request, was very communicative, without moments of
tension. The city was extremely militarized - this is how I imagine the
day of a coup - and for two days the local newspapers tried to terrorize
the population, who instead crowded to the sides of the procession. On
Saturday the 11th, in the central square of Modena, Piazza Matteotti, we
set up a 41 bis cell, inviting people to enter and experience the
condition of prisoner on their own skin; then, in the evening, we
organized the conference "More di pena" (Die of grief) with Alfredo
Cospito's lawyer and other important guests. It was a very crowded
evening, which gave great significance to the two days against the
prison on Saturday the 11th and Sunday the 12th.

Alfredo Cospito is detained under the 41 bis prison regime, a transitory
regulation later converted into law to combat the mafia system and later
also applied to political detainees investigated for massacres (it is
known that the mafia has only been minimally affected by this extent, as
it continues to infiltrate the economic and state structures of Italy).

Alfredo Cospito is detained under the 41 bis prison regime, a transitory
regulation later converted into law to combat the mafia system and later
also applied to political detainees investigated for massacres (it is
known that the mafia has only been minimally affected by this extent, as
it continues to infiltrate the economic and state structures of Italy).
Even the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has requested information
on the Cospito case from the Italian State and has asked it to guarantee
compliance with international standards regarding detention and, in
particular, human dignity.

41 bis is torture, deprivation of any contact with the outside world,
impossibility to read and write and even to keep the photo of family
members in the cell, it is total isolation. Cospito is accused of
conditioning the activity of the anarchists outside of prison as a boss,
as if he were a mafioso sending pizzini to direct the car from outside.
But anarchists don't have bosses and this accusation demonstrates the
absurdity of Cospito's sentence. Alfredo is an anti-organizer far from
anarcho-syndicalist practices. However, with his hunger strike, which
began on October 20, 2022, he has collected a lot of solidarity from
groups both in Italy and around the world. His lawyer is very concerned
that this right-wing government is now facing him in hand-to-hand
warfare, and it seems that even UN intervention will not be able to make
a dent in this attitude.
Every Tuesday at our headquarters, the Spazio Sociale Anarchico
Autogestito 'Libera' in Modena, we open the Anti-prison table, and after
the march on March 12 we are continuously interviewed by almost all
Italian free radio stations, demonstrating how these struggles are felt
everywhere. the country; We also receive many former prisoners or
relatives of dead prisoners whose families denounce that they were
murdered and ask us to support them in the reopening of the trials. We
will continue to actively support Cospito and the rest of the detainees
with marches, garrisons, radio interventions and through the means we
deem appropriate. By now it is clear that the repressive norms created
against emergencies such as the mafia will be increasingly used to
oppose social struggles. The hunger strike and the use of his own body
as the only weapon of struggle are opening an important gap, we hope
that it will be resolved before his death. Alfredo has declared that he
wants to live, but he cannot remain in 41 bis: that would not be life.

Our anti-prison coordination has been strengthened and anti-prison
initiatives and in solidarity with Alfredo will increase, for a world
without prisons, for a social change that puts everyone in a position to
survive with dignity and enjoy the collective resources of the planet .

https://www.cnt.es/noticias/el-41-bis-y-la-cadena-perpetua-en-italia/
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