Italy: To the Rebels and the Dead of Modena Prison

[A letter from an incarcerated companion on the massacre in Modena Prison. [Published in Italian on Round Robin on March 19, 2020. Translated to French on Attaque on April 8, 2020. Most translator’s notes are from Attaque]

A little more than a week has passed since the revolt in Modena Prison, and the media has already forgotten the massacre that took place here and in the other prisons where revolt broke out, just a few days ago. Nine deaths in Modena alone.

I knew some of them because, until a month ago, we were in cells close together, and these days I’m thinking of them so much I can’t sleep.

They were men who, just before, were discussing what could be done to improve the developing situation. Read the rest of this entry »

For Those With Fiery Hearts

[This text was written collectively by the anarchists arrested in Trentino, Italy in Operation Renata in October 2019. The verdict in their case is likely to come down on December 5, 2019. This translation is from the source texts on Round Robin and draws on the French translation on Attaque. There are two appendices from those same sources providing additional context.]

[This text is laid out as a pamphlet for printing and distributing]

——————————————————————————————–

“Anarchists don’t aspire to success, to victory, to competition. They struggle because it is right to do so. And, in each struggle, defeat is a part of life. They don’t abandon their ideas because they lose or give up on the struggles to come. The System can perpetuate itself because the people don’t struggle, not because it is invincible. The task of the anarchist is to breathe revolt into the people, not sporadically but continually. Like a wave that rolls in and rolls out. You ask me if we’ll win? This is the wrong question. Ask me instead if we struggle, and I will answer yes.”

Luigi Galleani

Today, we have decided to speak up about the repressive operation dubbed “Renata” [See Appendix 1]. Other texts have analyzed the investigation in terms of both the state’s overall repressive character and of the technological, investigative, and judicial tools used to strike against those who still dare to fight for something different, who still fly on wings of freedom.

We have decided to address ourselves not to the judges nor to zealous agents of repression. No, it’s not in the courtroom that we have decided to speak today. We want to speak in spaces of struggle, where there are still critical minds, wherever people are aware of how much needs to change immediately, that this state of affairs needs a revolution.

We will speak then of the facts presented in court and of which we are accused.

These actions – by night or by day, individual or collective – take place within a conflict that goes far beyond the specific acts or the territory in which they took place. They are the product of a much broader conflict between the exploited and the exploiters and their defenders. Read the rest of this entry »

Concerning the Recent Raids across Europe and Ongoing Repression from the Hamburg G20

[The ongoing repression linked to last year’s G20 summit in Hamburg has not been much discussed outside of Europe. Mobilizations against global bodies like the G20 are international traditions (whether or not we consider them to be wise), beyond the sense of international that exists in Europe where borders are less stark. These summits exist as heightened moments of repression that shift around globally, providing local police forces and their masters with enormously enhanced resources to crush anarchists, non-electoral leftists, and others who persistently oppose them locally. The G20 as a policing operation is carried out by different police forces around the world, but the phenomenon is international in scope and recognizing it is a necessary first step in linking our struggle through solidarity.

[In North America, a similar insistence on crushing protests that the state considers to have gone too far is visible in the ongoing J20 repression in the United States and on a smaller scale in the use of G7 policing resources to go after anarchists in Hamilton, Ontario and other Canadian cities. The scale of the hunt initiated by the Hamburg police is beyond either of these and in fact the only recent reference point I’m aware of in North America are other summit protests where the state was humiliated in the streets, notably in Toronto in 2010, where international warrants were still being carried out over a year after the demonstrations took place.

[I don’t always agree with the analysis of repression the comrade from Hamburg is putting forward in this piece, but I still think what they have to say is extremely valuable. I won’t pick out every point, but the narrative of “the German state managed the summit badly” is strange to me, since the good management of a summit’s security isn’t something I think we should care about. I changed the title for this reason, but the original title is translated literally below and it might just refer to the state needing to save face.

[However, the person interviewed remains strongly in solidarity with the courageous acts that took place in the streets during the summit and continues to centre them in their analysis, which to me is a sufficient basis for translating and republishing their words. They also offer specific reference points for solidarity that we can make use of on the other side of the Atlantic. As well, the urgency of the issue of censorship raised in the final paragraphs is largely missing from our conversation in North America.

[All translator notes are in [square brackets], all italics outside brackets are the author’s, and all footnotes are from the original text. More updates in English on G20 repression are available here: https://unitedwestand.blackblogs.org/en/]
Read the rest of this entry »

Info on New Repression against Anarchists in France

Texts on the recent repression against autonomous media projects in France

Translator’s intro:

Over the past couple of months, there have been several acts of repression aimed at autonomous media project in the territory controlled by the French state. Below are two translated texts dealing with this.

The first discusses criminal charges brought against an anarchist comrade for texts published on the long-running anarchist website cettesemaine.info. This site recently decided to stop publishing, while making clear that it is not because of the repression they face, but rather with the limits of counter-info projects and dissatisfaction with how much importance the internet is given in the anarchist space. The comrade’s trial is this Wednesday, November 8, in Paris.

The second is from Indymedia Nantes about their decision to ignore a legal demand from the French cybercrime division ordering them to remove communiques about attacks and announcing contingency plans in case their site is blocked in the coming days.

This repression follows on the German government’s recent decision to shut down Indymedia Linksunten and in a context in France where the current government has bypassed the usual democratic steps to write parts of the State of Emergency (that has been in effect for a year and a half) permanently into criminal law. Some see this as a broadening of the repressive measures developed for use against Islamist groups to include anarchists and social movements.

As an anarchist involved in counter-info projects, as an anarchist period, I feel solidarity with the comrades at Indymedia Nantes and especially with the person being dragged before a judge this week in Paris. Fuck all courts and the world that needs them. One way of showing this solidarity is to share information about the situation and to make plans for how we can continue communicating in a context of increasing repression, while never forgetting that solidarity means attack.
Read the rest of this entry »

Paris: Chronology of solidarity actions with those accused in the burned police car case

Translated from paris-luttes.info

Post updated on October 8 2017 to include new actions and link to full English translations where available

The trial is ongoing for nine people accused of participating in the burning of a police car on May 18^th 2016 in Paris. Because solidarity attacks continue to occur throughout the French territory around the trial dates, here is an attempt at an exhaustive chronology of direct actions carried out in solidarity with those accused in this case.

All links in this article are to French-language communiques unless stated otherwise. All actions are in France unless a country is indicated. Since most of the texts linked to have not been previously translated, we opted to simply translate a sentence or two from each one to give a sense of the action, in addition to providing the link. All italics are translators notes.

Many of these actions specifically name Kara and Krem, two anarchists still in custody in this case. Krem was based in the Paris area prior to his arrest, while Kara is from the United States. Their verdict is expected on October 11, 2017. Read the rest of this entry »

Paris: A second trial of the struggle against the deportation machine

Translated from Indymedia Nantes

On May 30 2017, judge Gendre released a committal order of her own, sending seven additional companions and comrades to court in connection to the struggle against the deportation machine in Paris.

In a first trial concerning the struggle against the deportation machine, on June 23, 2017 in Paris, four people who were subjects of one of the preliminary inquiries into this matter. After various reclassifications and withdrawals of the charges, three of them are accused of “tracing inscriptions on facades and street material” (meaning tags) in January 2011 and two of having “willfully damaged a banking ATM belonging to the Postal Bank” (by pasting a poster) in February 2010 during a group stroll.

In parallel to this, on May 30 2017, judge Gendre released a committal order of her own, sending seven additional companions and comrades [1] to court in connection to the struggle against the deportation machine in Paris. Although the date of the trial has not yet been decided (though it may be set in the next few weeks), we can already say a few things about it.

This second trial stems from a second preliminary inquiry that lead to five house searches in June 2010, then to the arrest of two additional people on October 28 and January 19 2011 (one of whom spent a week in pretrial prison). The charges ranged from “serious damage or destruction to property in a group” to refusing to give DNA and fingerprints [2], and also included “willfull group violence” relating to some unfriendly visits to the Air France office at Bastille square and to the SNCF (national train company) shop in Belleville, as well as to the redecoration of the poor windows of a Bouygues telecom store at the same time. These two actions took place on March 17 2010, a few hours after ten undocumented people were sentenced to years in prison for the fire that destroyed the Vincennes detention centre [3].  Read the rest of this entry »

Solidarity with the anarchists and anti-authoritarians charged with terrorism by the Belgian state

Translated from La Lime

This text from La Lime, a solidarity fund based in Brussels (whose name translates to The File, like filing through bars) was republished in early May 2017 in advance of a hearing for those charged in this case. An older version of the text circulated in April 2016 before the previous hearing.

If fighting for freedom is a crime, innocence is surely the worst of all

At the end of 2008, during the period of diffuse hostilities set off by the revolt in Greece after the police murder of Alexis, the Belgian Federal Prosecutor launched an investigation targeting anarchists and anti-authoritarians [1]. In 2010, on the basis of a list of actions attributed by the police to the “anarchist movement” and while the struggle against a new closed prison [2] in Steenokkerzeel pushed ahead, judge Isabelle Panou was assigned to the case, which was classified as anti-terrorism. In May and again in September 2013, upwards of ten searches were carried out as part of this investigation against various residences and the anarchist library Acrata, located in Brussels. It’s only at this moment that the existence of an anti-terrorism investigation became visible for the first time. This investigation is led by the anti-terrorism section of the federal police, with support from National Security, the General Intelligence Services, and military security at different times, as well as by the anti-terrorism services of other European countries. The investigation was completed in 2014 and today sees twelve anarchists and anti-authoritarians sent to court. Read the rest of this entry »

The Deportation Machine Case: Trial date set for four comrades

From Brussels Indymedia

After seven and a half years of pre-trial hearings and thousands of pages of disclosure, after fifteen people had their homes searched, were arrested, followed, eavesdropped on, filmed, interrogated, incarcerated, placed on house arrest, and kept under various bail conditions for seven years, the state and the justice system will finally take only four people to trial on June 23 2017 in Paris. The most serious charges served only to justify the intensity of the repression, since they were dropped, leaving only the more limited charges (graffiti, light property destruction, refusing to give DNA and personal information, etc). Let’s take this occasion to all show our solidarity against borders and against all forms of imprisonment, while refusing the categories of “guilty” and “innocent” imposed by the powerful and while rejecting the Justice system. Read the rest of this entry »

Cash for Kalimero! Supporting Prisoners of the Social War in France

Source: Cette Semaine

These past months, in different cities, including during unpermitted demos or riots, many of us have been thrilled by the number of offensive actions in the street. From clashes with the guard dogs of the state and property to the broken windows of shops and even the pillaging of their contents; from attacks on journalist-cops to overcoming the pacifiers of the day: all of this has shaken the arrogance of the powerful. In all forms of struggle — which aren’t limited to “social movements” — self-organization and direct action are indispensable if we are to break with the pacification world of commodities and with state terrorism. Because to claim that it’s unimaginable for individuals to directly oppose the existing order is just a veiled way of saying that social revolt is simply impossible.

Repression is not just the moment when the flashball or baton comes to strike recalcitrant bodies, it’s each moment of daily life under the domination of the State and Capital, through their thousands of omnipresent  psychological and physical manifestations that coerce the poor into accepting a shitty life. It’s the prisons that lock up ever more people for ever longer sentences, in order to punish, isolate, break, and store them, out of sight of the peaceful consciences of good citizens. It’s also the outside prison, built from measures like electronic bracelets, house arrest, exclusion areas, bail conditions, and so on. Read the rest of this entry »