The imprisoned anarchist militant Alfredo Cospito is on hunger strike since 20th of October 2022, resisting in Italian jails against the isolation regime 41 bis. We are in full solidarity with Alfredo Cospito and principally against all solitary confinement and isolation methods.
The 41 bis is a special detention regime in Italy, also known in Italian as “carcere duro” (hard prison regime) and is defined by the Article 41 bis of the Prison Administration Act. Even though it acquired its final denomination only in 1986, the 41 bis derives from the Article 1 of Law Nr. 354, issued in 1975. During this period, the class struggle had intensified in Italy. From militant left groups to autonomous factory workers, people of Italy were rising the struggle for freedom with the wave of anti-imperialism that was sweeping all the world. It is during this times that the prison system was radically reformed: the institution started thinking itself as something that can, at any moment, suspend its own rules, thanks to the intervention of the executive power. The state wanted this change in order to subjugate the revolutionary will that now fills the prisons, and wanted to crush possible prison revolts even before they started.
A subsection of the original article reads as follows:
“In exceptional cases of riots or other serious emergency situations, the Minister of Justice has the power to suspend the application of the normal rules of treatment of prisoners and detainees, in the institution concerned […]. The reason for the suspension shall be the need to restore order and security and shall be for the duration strictly necessary to achieve the said purpose”.
The article took its current name in 1986, the starting year of the “Maxi Trial” (Maxiprocesso) against Sicilian Mafia. This trial came as a consequence of very intense inner clashes between the mafia and the Italian state, starting from the late 70s. During those years, mafia targeted state authorities, such as politicians, prosecutors, judges, generals, etc. Being little less than 500 mafiosi tried and sentenced to many years of prison, the jail’s population was subject to a deep change. Many inmates had now strong connections with their organizations in the outside world. The disruption of these connections became the main concern of the prison authorities. The “suspension of normal rules”, as vague as it was presented in the article, took the shape of solitary confinement and isolation from the external world.
Under this regime, it became clear that the rights in prison are linked to a reward-punishment system: the ones who collaborate receive a prize, consisting in a penalty reduction, whereas the ones who do not are subject to a “special” treatment, like 41 bis. Presenting the 41 bis regime as an “emergency” measure against Sicilian Mafia, it was easy for the Italian state to legitimize such an institutionalized form of torture.
The Article 41 bis kept being reformed during the coming years, with its strongest modification being made in 2002. That was a follow-up of 9/11, when the so-called “Global War on Terror” was declared by US terrorists. In the aftermath of 9/11, in all the NATO sphere of influence, the security measures applied to “contain terrorism” were sharpened, and mainly directed to the left revolutionary movements. It was in this context that the architecture of the isolation regime of 41 bis in Italy took its current shape.
Nowadays, the 41 bis consists of:
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24-hour camera surveillance in cells and bathrooms;
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isolation for 23 hours a day (it is allowed to meet and talk to other prisoners – max. 3 – for one hour per day);
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censorship and post restriction, like:
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a ban on receiving books, prints and magazines from outside;
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keeping a maximum of three books in the cell, previously authorized by the prison authorities;
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visits from direct family members, only one hour a month and prevention from any direct contact by means of windows, cameras and intercoms. Children under the age of 12 can only hug their parent briefly, under the close supervision of an agent.
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10 minutes of recorded monthly phone calls with the family member who must go to a police station or a prison to identify themselves;
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exclusion from access to “benefits”, penalty discounts, alternative measures;
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a video conference trial: the inmate follows the trial alone in an equipped cell in the prison, via a video link managed at the discretion of judges, prosecutors, law enforcement agencies – therefore deprived of the possibility of being in the courtroom.
Alfredo Cospito is a 55 year old anarchist from Italy, who is charged of being the “leader” of the FAI (Federazione Anarchica Informale – Informal Anarchist Federation). FAI is a loose connection of groups and individuals who are doing armed actions against State and Capital in the ideological line of insurrectionary/nihilist anarchism, which was mostly active in the first decade of 2000s. Alfredo is accused of two actions; shooting of the CEO of Italian nuclear power company Ansaldo Nucleare, Roberto Adinolfi who was critically wounded but survived the attack in 2012 and the bomb attack against Scuola Allievi Carabinieri (Police Academy) in the city of Fossano, Italy, which caused only property damage in 2006. He accepts the first attack, but rejects the second. He got arrested in 2012, only related to first attack and got ten years of prison. While serving his sentence, he is accused of the latter action and even though nobody died, the court labeled the action as political massacre, which made his 20 year old sentence to life sentence without parole.
During his sentence, Alfredo continue to produce theoretical texts and was continuously in exchange with the wide anarchist movement outside. To prevent this, Italian imperialists moved him to 41 bis regime in May 2022. To resist this unlawful and illegitimate measure, he started an indefinite hunger strike, that up to now he has been carrying out for 116 days.
We are in full solidarity with Alfredo Cospito. The isolation measures applied against him are torture methods targeting an individual’s ideas, ideology, worldview and character. Imperialist science and institutions call this “treatment”, to change a person, to “cure” from bad ideas. Psychological torture is by no means better than physical torture, which is, under every law, a crime against humanity. Isolation causes not only psychological damage but also over a long period of time physical damage, like health issues.
ISOLATION IS TORTURE.
ALFREDO LIBERO!