“A gesture of humanity and courage”, such as the revocation of 41 bis, a Alfredo Cospito who “is one step away from death in the Bancali prison in Sassari following a hunger strike that has now lasted for 80 days”. This is what the Minister of Justice and the government are asking for, the appeal signed by about twenty jurists and intellectuals, including the former president of the Constitutional Court Giovanni Maria Flick, Livio Pepino (editorial director of Edizioni Gruppo Abele), the artist Moni Ovadia and father Alex Zanotelli, Comboni missionary.
Sentenced to 20 years for having promoted and directed the Fai-Federazione Anarchica Informale and for some attacks, Cospito has been in prison for over 10 years and since last May 4th he has been subjected to the 41 bis “with the exclusion of any possibility of correspondence, reduction of air to two hours spent in a concrete cubicle of a few square meters and reduction of sociality to just one hour a day in a small room together with three prisoners”.
Who is Alfredo Cospito, the first anarchist sentenced to hard prison
edited by the Turin editorial staff
Since last October 20 Cospito has been on hunger strike “which continues today with a loss of 35 kilograms of weight and a worrying drop in potassium, necessary for the correct functioning of involuntary muscles including the heart”. The subscribers recall that Cospito does not intend to suspend the protest, but rather wants to carry it forward “until the last breath” . And they write: “the hunger strike of prisoners potentially until their death is a dramatic existential choice that challenges everyone’s consciences and intelligence. In the face of this, “the seriousness of the crimes committed does not disappear or diminish but must take a back seat plan”. But “configuring the attitude of those who make the body the ultimate instrument of protest and affirmation of one’s identity as a challenge or blackmail means betraying our Constitution which places at the top of the values, the protection of which is the State, human life and the dignity of the person: for his own legitimacy and credibility, not as a concession to those who oppose him. Here lies – as the events of recent days have shown in the world – the difference between democratic states and authoritarian regimes”.
Fasting for 75 days. State silences on Cospito’s protest
by Luigi Manconi
Cospito’s extreme protest “signals many anomalies”: such as “the frequent disproportion between the deeds committed and the penalties inflicted (underlined, in the case, by the same Court of Assizes of Appeal of Turin which, for this reason, referred the acts to the Constitutional Court); the meaning of the 41 bis regime, transformed in practice from a limited and exceptional instrument to prevent contacts of particularly dangerous prisoners with the mafia organization to which they belong, resulting in a generalized aggravation of prison conditions; the legitimacy of life imprisonment “. But today “the urgency is to save a life and not to make oneself co-responsible, even with silence, for an avoidable death. Hence the appeal to the Prison Administration, the Minister of Justice and the Government “so that they get out of the indifference in which they have demonstrated in recent months towards Cospito’s protest and make a gesture of humanity and courage. It is a necessary step – underline the signatories – to save a life and to initiate a change in the dramatic situation experienced by prison and those incarcerated therein”.