Am 12.11. wurden in Mailand und Athen 8 Personen festgenommen, sie sollen sich angeblich an den Auseinandersetzungen und dem Widerstand gegen die EXPO am 1 Mai diesen Jahres beteiligt haben. Zwei weitere Personen sind flüchtig. Des Weiteren wurden 4 genoss*innen aus Mailand und Como kurzzeitig festgenommen und wieder freigelassen. Nach kurzer Zeit wurden anscheinend die anderen griechischen Gefährten mit Meldeauflagen aus der Haft entlassen. Im Folgenden die Dokumentation eines Textes in Englisch von infoaut.org
Repression against comrades participating to May 1 in Milan
Yesterday morning a joint international police operation in Milan arrested 8 comrades - 4 of them being based in Milan and other 4 in Athens - in the framework of an inquiry about the riots which erupted during the great No Expo demonstration, last May 1st, in the Northern Italian metropolis. Other two comrades, a Greek and an Italian one, are on the run - while 4 more from Milan and Como and another one from Athens are charged and under investigation without being arrested.
The charges are those of arson, illegal disguise, aggravated resistance to a public officer, devastation and pillage - "devastazione e saccheggio", a legacy crime from the Codice Rocco fascist law that was never abolished after the fall of the regime: just to be arbitrarily used through the years in several trials concerning street riots - but producing an executive sentence only in the case of the GenoaG8 trial, when sentences ranging from 6 to 14 years in jail were inflicted upon 10 demonstrators framed for public disorder.
Political police DIGOS commissioner Ciccimarra talked at the press conference of a work of analysis on 600 GB-worth video and photo material, fingerprints and DNA samples, warning about more arrest to come in the search for an "international masterplan" behind the riots.
Among the mainstream media, the most sickening work was that of the Milan-based national daily Corriere della Sera (one of the biggest Italian press outlets), which anticipated the arrests a couple of weeks ago, in the aftermath of the closure of the Expo kermesse. In spite of the different perspectives among the participants to that May 1 that reconstruction and the following arrests, coming after the show was over, implied a fear of retribution from the autonomous antagonist movement by the authorities.
The Corriere also published pictures, names and surnames of the convicted comrades, in spite of the legal safeguards of their presumption of innocence until found guilt.
A solidarity sit-in is scheduled today at 6pm in Piazza XXIV Maggio, a historical location for the Milanese movement close to Dax's Ticinese neighbourhood; we will publish addresses of the comrades in prison as soon as the will be available, in order to let everyone write them.
Liberi Tutti! Eleftheria!
update 16/11/2015
You can write to the No Expo Italian comrades imprisoned after the police operation last thursday at this address:
Alessio Dell'Acqua
Niccolò Ripani
Edoardo Algardi
Casieri Andrea
C.C. San Vittore - Piazza Filangieri 2 - 20123 Milano
We also invite to join actions organized by the movement in Athens in order to prevent extradition of the Greek comrades - which are now free but under investigation and compulsory sign-in - to Italy.
Solidarity is a weapon!