Anarchist Alfredo Cospito interrupted the hunger strike undertaken since October 20
On Wednesday, April 19th, 2023, anarchist Alfredo Cospito interrupted the hunger strike he began 181 days earlier, on October 20th, 2022, inside the Bancali prison in Sardinia. The comrade, who is currently imprisoned in the prison medicine ward of the San Paolo Hospital in Milan, had been on an all-out hunger strike for six months against the prison regime established by article 41 bis of the penitentiary order (a regime to which he had been transferred on May 5th, 2022) and against life imprisonment without possibility of release (in italian: ergastolo ostativo), which risked being the final sentence for the comrade at the end of the Scripta Manent trial.
The interruption of the hunger strike comes in the wake of the April 18th hearing in Rome at the Constitutional Court, which recognized the prevalence of mitigating circumstances vis-à-vis repeated recidivism in the case of all convictions for crimes whose fixed penalty is life imprisonment. This is the case of Alfredo, since with the requalification (by the Court of Cassation, at the end of the Scripta Manent trial) of the charge inherent in the double explosive attack against the Caserma Allievi Carabinieri in Fossano on June 2nd, 2006, from “common massacre” (art. 422 of italian penal code) to “political massacre” (i. e., “massacre with the purpose of attacking the security of the state,” art. 285 of italian penal code), comrades Alfredo Cospito and Anna Beniamino were facing a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of release and 27 years in prison, respectively, as requested by the Turin prosecutor’s office.
What has taken place in recent days is certainly not a “victory” for the rule of law or a “return” to the principles of the constitution, but rather a result achieved by the hunger strike and the international solidarity movement developed over the past 11 months.
By sentencing him to life imprisonment without possibility of release and imposing 41 bis prison regime, the state intended to bury Alfredo Cospito in prison for life. Today, this intent, although the comrade remains detained in 41 bis, has not been achieved by the state and its repressive apparatuses.
In recent months, the comrade has risked his life and is continuing to risk it today in this new and delicate phase of slow recovery of the faculty to feed himself. The comrade has already experienced presumably permanent neurological damage, localized particularly in the peripheral nervous system (he has integrally lost feeling in one foot, the other foot has reduced feeling, and one hand has begun to give similar symptoms). The continuation of the hunger strike in the manner in which it has been conducted for long months objectively placed him – rather than in the immediate danger of sudden death, which would probably have been avoided by the monitoring to which he is subjected in the hospital – in the risk of a progressive and permanent physical decline, with more or less serious consequences consisting primarily in the further impairment of the nervous system.
In this hunger strike Alfredo has always reiterated that he has fought not only for himself, but for all prisoners in 41 bis prison regime and, moreover, to develop solidarity with anarchists, communists and revolutionary imprisoned throughout the world. And in these six months of hunger strike, solidarity with Alfredo has been expressed in prisons halfway around the world, primarily by imprisoned anarchist and revolutionary comrades who in Italy, France, Chile, Greece, United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany have solidarized and struggled by undertaking hunger strikes in their turn, carrying out solidarity initiatives and fasts, and publishing statements and analyses. Finally, a solidarity that, particularly in Italy, other prisoners – not only imprisoned anarchists and revolutionaries – also expressed in multiple forms.
The authoritarian turn, an expression of capitalism in its neoliberal configuration currently in crisis, has generated and will continue to generate strong repression against anarchists; a repression that – as we have observed in recent years – has spread to the exploited social components that suffer most from the social and ecological crisis. But the warning that the Italian state intended to give to the anarchist movement has been returned to sender with determination and consistency. In these six months of hunger strike, the isolation of Alfredo and all the imprisoned comrades was prevented. These long months have seen the expression of a movement of international revolutionary solidarity that – even before October 20th and, we are certain, even after this April 19th – has been able and will be able to reaffirm the meaning and perspective of our ideas and practices. A movement that, having grown consistently since the beginning of the all-out hunger strike, while rejecting all assumptions of compromise, will continue to develop the consciousness of solidarity.
FORGETTING THE PRISONERS OF THE SOCIAL WAR MEANS FORGETTING THE WAR ITSELF: REVOLUTIONARY SOLIDARITY WITH ALFREDO COSPITO AND ALL IMPRISONED ANARCHISTS AND REVOLUTIONARIES.
April 20th, 2023
[Published in italian at https://lanemesi.noblogs.org/post/2023/04/20/lanarchico-alfredo-cospito-ha-interrotto-lo-sciopero-della-fame-intrapreso-dal-20-ottobre/ | English translation published at https://lanemesi.noblogs.org/post/2023/04/20/anarchist-alfredo-cospito-interrupted-the-hunger-strike-undertaken-since-october-20/]
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(IT) L’anarchico Alfredo Cospito ha interrotto lo sciopero della fame intrapreso dal 20 ottobre
(EN) Anarchist Alfredo Cospito interrupted the hunger strike undertaken since October 20
(DE) Der Anarchist Alfredo Cospito hat seinen seit dem 20. Oktober andauernden Hungerstreik beendet