For a few weeks now, the red zones have been in force in Reggio Emilia,
parts of the city where a different law than the ordinary one applies,areas from which those who behave in a way that is considered annoying
can be removed and, if they return, arrested and subjected to a DASPO.
The police forces decide on the "annoyance" at their sole discretion.
Since these are administrative measures, in fact, the people affected do
not even have the minimum guarantees provided - at least in theory - by
the judicial system. ---- The red zones are the first tangible result of
a long campaign carried out by neighborhood committees and right-wing
parties, ready to emphasize every event of petty crime, especially in
the central station area.
A bit of chronology: in September 2021, the area of the former Officine
Reggiane was cleared, an abandoned industrial area where hundreds of
homeless immigrants, including drug dealers and drug addicts, lived in
terrible conditions. The "reintegration" paths were not as effective as
the eviction and many of those people spread to the nearby station area,
already affected by problems of marginalization. While what was
happening to the Reggiane was all in all not very visible, the station
area is there for all to see. The appearance of the crack then worsened
the situation.
After long hesitations, last July the prefecture of Reggio requested the
army to guard the area. While the previous administration had been cold
towards the military in the station, the new mayor opened up to this
possibility already during the election campaign, sensing the votes he
could collect in defiance of the ventilated principles of the left. It
is not the first time that even the so-called center-left aligns itself
with the security and repressive paradigm, and whether this is out of
conviction or for electoral purposes matters little. The urban security
proposed by politicians and the media is nothing more than a strategy of
"cleaning" the territories and promoting decorum - a concept now dear to
both institutions and self-styled good citizens - which in fact is only
the removal of people considered indecent, immoral, poor and considered
dangerous. The range of socially acceptable subjects is constantly
shrinking. Hence, from right-wing politicians and the no less right-wing
neighborhood committee comes the request for military personnel, for
greater powers for the police, for greater repression. The prefecture,
the expression of a government that could not be more right-wing, is the
spokesperson for this request. Let it be clear, we did not dream that
the committee is right-wing: in the Carlino we read their exultation,
which among other things led them to declare "we do not care about skin
color and we are not racist", but a few lines before you could read "in
our neighborhood it seemed like we were in Marrakech", in a derogatory tone.
The most worrying fact for us is that the politics of red zones and
militarization reveals a repressive mentality that no longer involves
only politicians and right-wing demagogues, but has also spread among
ordinary citizens. Information aimed at increasing the perception of
insecurity and danger fuels a demand not for social justice, as happened
in the past in these lands, but for criminal justice and greater powers
for the police, and only towards petty crime.
In a sensational reversal of causes and effects, many citizens are
scandalized by the sight of the poor, not by poverty. They lash out
against desperate people, not against those who have reduced them to
this state. They thunder against those who are homeless and try to
occupy empty buildings, not against those who have devastated the system
of public housing in favor of real estate speculation.
Certainly crime in Reggio is constantly on the rise and is taking
control. But what crime? And what is it taking control of? The crime is
the real, organized kind, especially the Calabrian mafia. And it is
taking control not of the station area, but of large branches of the
economy. According to a more than reliable institutional source and
certainly not suspected of anarchist sympathies, namely the chief
prosecutor Paci (interview of 01/21/24), the ‘ndrangheta is still
present in force in Reggio Emilia even after the Aemilia trial, and
indeed the city is becoming a fundamental hub for criminal trafficking
in northern Italy. Cocaine trafficking of course, but not only that.
Over the last five years the Reggio Emilia prosecutor's office has seen
a constant increase in economic crimes, with a 70% increase in the last
year alone. These are real crimes, which feed the mafia, committed in
tandem by mafiosi and good entrepreneurs from Reggio Emilia. In Reggio
Emilia, more anti-mafia interdictions have been issued than in Palermo
or Catanzaro: 217 in the last three years, already 50 by mid-2024. And
yet press campaigns, neighborhood committees and local politicians are
calling for red zones and the intervention of the army to combat
small-time drug dealing and persecute those who use abandoned buildings
to sleep in.
Do they really believe that people would relieve themselves in an open
corner if they had a place to stay and a decent job to pay for it? Do
they really think they would brutalize themselves with crack if they
weren't desperate? And above all, does anyone believe that if the police
were able to "clean up" the red zones, all the problems wouldn't
reappear identically in another neighborhood? In the institutional
sphere, the only solution would be decent social policies, which no one
even dreams of proposing.
Certainly finding drug addicts and dealers in your home and on the
streets where you live causes discontent, but it must be clear that this
is only the result of specific choices made by governments, often by the
same parties that now call for the army and repression, applying
policies that serve very different purposes, including, not least,
creating the habit of seeing armed soldiers on the streets and
considering their presence normal and reassuring.
Red zones as free zones for the police forces therefore, who already
enjoy broad impunity. Recently, the court of Reggio judged a dozen
prison guards for the brutal beating of an inmate, as well as for
forgery. Although found guilty, the officers were sentenced to
ridiculous penalties and will be able to remain in service since the
sentence provides for no mention in the criminal record. They will
return to work, feeling indeed legitimized by their role in the use of
violence. The crime of torture, of which they were accused, has been
"restructured" and transformed into simple abuse of authority. Beating
an unarmed prisoner who is psychologically subjected to his condition
would only be an "abuse of authority". It is certainly not the first
time in Italy that police violence has received the equivalent of a slap
on the cheek, but this is happening while with the DdL sicurezza the far
right in government is planning an abnormal increase in penalties for
any form of social opposition. Coincidences? We don't think so.
And there is the risk that, in addition to those for economic crimes and
the police, a free zone will also be created in Reggio for fascists.
After rumors of an imminent opening of fascist dens in the city, the
"patriots' network" has launched a march for March 29 to "take back the
city, against degradation, drug dealing and violence". It seems that
they are former members of Casa Pound and Forza Nuova, plus other
assorted fascists. The point is that the concepts and words they use are
the same as those of the aforementioned neighborhood committee, of the
government parties, the same as those of local politics, especially
"degradation". And so the risk is that an informal bond is created
between these subjects for a single purpose: widespread control, the
criminalization of any diversity and dissent, the promotion of their
decorum, the militarization of the city.
The mobilization against this event has already begun, but the appeals
to the prefecture to ban the procession and the calls to the
constitution have also begun. The prefecture: the one that requested the
military. The constitution: the one that has never prevented the rebirth
of fascism, so much so that today we have a post-fascist government and
fascists on the streets, the one that has never prevented even war,
despite the much-cited article 11. It should not be necessary to repeat
it: no law prevents fascism, only militant anti-fascism and the spread
of libertarian and anti-hierarchical practices from below can do so.
In Reggio there are many real problems: people without homes, without
jobs, some brutalized by addictions. There are also people who live on
the margins, who work but are poor and all it takes is a small setback,
an accident, a dismissal, a contract not renewed, a landlord who prefers
to rent shows by the day for the arena, and these people find themselves
on the streets. Especially if they are migrants. Especially if they do
not have a social network to welcome them. This is a real problem of
decorum. A city and a society that accept such a situation are not
decorous. But the deeper problem is that, as a society and as a
community, we have lost the ability to get to the root of the problems
to try to solve them. The answer can no longer be police or armed
soldiers, the answer lies in the practice of solidarity and in the
creation of a society different from the current one.
We also want security: the security of a dignified job, of decent
housing, of access to health care, of being welcomed if you flee from a
life of misery and death. We want a collective security that protects
every person, thus also protecting society as a whole. A security to be
contrasted with the repressive, private and individualistic one that is
today imposed by those in power and perceived by many citizens as the
only solution.
G&G
https://umanitanova.org/zone-rosse-e-zone-franche-reggio-emilia/
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