Received 05/09/2019
Italy: “Prometeo” operation – Text of Robert from the prison of Bancali (Sassari)
Hello everyone!
I am Robert and from 6 July I find myself locked up in the prison of Sassari. I am accused together with two comrades of sending “explosive bags” to two public prosecutors, Sparagna and Rinaudo, and to the director of the DAP [1]. At dawn on May 21st [2019] we were searched and taken to jail. Beppe and I were locked up in Opera, where we spent a month in the “observation” section. This is the area where prisoners are placed who must serve the 15 days of punitive isolation or those considered to be of high risk for self-harm. In our case, we found ourselves in that section, given that Opera does not have an AS2 [“High Surveillance 2”] but “only” AS1, AS3 and the inevitable 41bis. Having been banned from communicating with the other inmates, we spent a month in single cells with the blind permanently closed and an hour of air in the morning in a squalid narrow courtyard. In that section it was also forbidden to use cookers, so we adapted to the prison food, which was almost always inedible. Not that I had ever had any expectations for these places of psychological and physical annihilation. After a month the transfer arrived, and they took me to AS2 in Terni where I stayed for two weeks. Not satisfied with the movements, on 6 July they transferred me to Sassari where there is an AS2 so far used to lock up the Islamic prisoners accused of terrorism; evidently 2019 is the year in which to experiment the anarchist / Islamic combination. This place is defined by the prisoners themselves as “La Guantanamo d’Italia” for the harshness and restrictions of the regime itself and for its remoteness from everything that, in addition to making the talks difficult, completely paves the way for the administration of the prison in making decisions and measures even more arbitrarily.
About the operation Prometeo will make a couple of brief considerations. The investigation, conducted by the ROS [“Special Operational Grouping” of the Carabinieri] of Turin coordinated by the Milan prosecutor’s office, reveals itself as yet another weak attempt to hit the anarchists as such.
To certain acts the law enforcement officers must necessarily provide a justification, construct motives and attribute responsibility. This time, the diligent investigators have revealed their creative talents and their frustration by fishing in the heap, miserably exploiting eavesdroppings and everyday dialogues, and clinging to any pretext to give substance to a stalemate. Correspondences with prisoners and solidarity initiatives become the key points on which to investigate, and represent the pretext for inventing connections and forcing. Nothing new that has not already been seen in the investigations that have hit various situations in recent months and years.
In these times of hysteria and witch-hunts, the State does not miss the opportunity to stir up the war between the poor by instituting undesirable subjects (anarchists, foreigners, vandals, etc…) to divert attention from the atrocities that daily implements. And by making use of cowardly and liberticidal measures, he tries in every way to get rid of those who are considered too much and those who hinder the interests of the bosses.
With a lot of delay because of the censorship, I learned of the hunger strikes of the comrades, and of the mobilization that was created to break the isolation and echo the voice and the struggles of those locked up. I find it interesting that we are trying to develop a discourse that goes beyond the emergency, with the hope of not being caught unprepared on similar occasions. I therefore send a strong hug to all those who have undertaken the hunger strike and to those who fight inside and outside these murderous walls.
Mass murderer and terrorist is the State.
With love and anger, with the heart over the bars. Daje forte!
Robert
Date of the censorship stamp: August 5th, 2019
Date of the letter to which the writing was attached: July 17th, 2019
Transcription note:
[1]. This is Santi Consolo, former director of the DAP (“Department of Penitentiary Administration”), as the charges refer to 2017. The current director of the DAP is Francesco Basentini.
Italy: “Prometeo” operation – Giuseppe was transferred from the prison of Rossano Calabro to that of Pavia
Beppe, an anarchist imprisoned for the repressive operation “Prometeo” (“Prometheus”) of May 21st, 2019, was transferred to the prison of Pavia. Here is the new address to write to him:
Giuseppe Bruna
C. C. di Pavia
via Vigentina 85
27100 Pavia
Italy [Italia]
Updates will follow.
[Received via e-mail and translated into English].
