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A communique from Anarchist comrade Juan from the prison of Terni

From Act for Freedom!, (Italy)

A communique from Juan from the prison of Terni
‘Those who have ears to hear, let them hear!!!’
Arise, ye workers from your slumber,
Arise, ye prisoners of want.
For reason in revolt now thunders,
and at last ends the age of cant!
Away with all your superstitions,
Servile masses, arise, arise!
We’ll change henceforth the old tradition,
And spurn the dust to win the prize!.
The Internationale – song born of poet and anarchist Eugène Pottier in 1871

Hi to all friends and comrades!! I’m Juan arrested on 22nd May after three years on the run. I’m writing from the AS2 unit of the prison of Terni, where I’m locked up. I’m calm, my morale is stable and I’m determined to move on.

Each day I was in hiding I was well aware that I could end up in jail; after all I’ve always been there, since the day I decided to struggle on the side of the oppressed.
My capture was due to a lack of a series of precautions that I normally took. I lowered my guard at the wrong time in the wrong place.

I have no regrets, I accept my responsibility, I’m getting over it and might it be a lesson. I’ll write about how my capture took place some other time.

But first I’m going to explain my judicial situation so as to give the general picture. I’m in prison because of two lines of investigation. The first concerns a consecutive sentence of nine years (three of which I have already served) linked to my struggle/life of the last twenty years spent in Italy.

The convictions are for various offences including theft, resistance, robbery, contempt, damage, occupation of public and private places, assault, false identity. Among these final convictions there is also that of the NO TAV ‘Big Trial’ (three years and nine months), which I’ll make some points about some time in the future as an accused Anarchist.

Knowing that some of these sentences would come into effect, I spent three years on the run (and not because of the investigation concerning an attack on the POL GAI [police training centre] in Brescia, as the magistrates insist). With no regrets I claim my escape as an act of reconquering my freedom, which goes beyond all authority and law.

In the second line, which began during my time in hiding, I am accused of articles 270, 280, 285 (massacre) and am accused of two attacks. The first against the POL GAI (police training centre) claimed by the acca cell in the context of black December in 2015. The second attack, on 12\08\2018, concerns two explosive devices, one which exploded and the other full of wooden nails, found by bomb disposal experts and intended to be a trap to attract the occupants of the building and the forces of order; these were placed at the premises of the Northern League of Treviso and claimed by the Haris Hatzimihelakis\Black International 1881\2018 cell. I wasn’t aware of this investigation until the day of my capture, contrary to what the judges are saying in order to worsen Manu’s custodial situation, as he is accused of aiding and abetting. However we are waiting for a more complete picture as soon as the investigation closes.

Already a quick reading of the DIGOS and prosecutors’ preliminary investigations gave me an idea of what they want to repress. Specifically against me as an Anarchist and generally against the anarchist reality as a whole. Nothing new that hasn’t been already done by judges in all sorts of ways. To recognize repressive intentions is a guide to understanding what they actually want to strike and consequently how to move.

(From this point on, words in inverted comas are taken from the papers of the preliminary investigation)

According to the investigation, the claims of the two attacks are allegedly linked to an interview with Alfredo Cospito in the Anarchist paper Vetriolo 2019 and are supposed to represent “the same contents and the same operational lines”… as if there were orders from above. Charges are allegedly in cooperation with the usual unknown, because besides my DNA, partially identified, there would be another unknown DNA belonging to my presumed accomplice. On the one hand, associative crimes are brought into play, on the other I would be the only deviser, organizer and perpetrator. In other words, neither fish nor fowl.

My cynical jokes aside, it is clear there is an obvious intention by the magistrates, with their aberrant state ideology, to fabricate devisers-leaders in the anarchist reality, with operational lines to be followed and hierarchical structures. A strategy adopted in this specific case as well as in recent investigations that have struck anarchist realities. In this case, Alfredo is allegedly “one of the most important and recognised exponents of the terrorist movement of an Anarchist background currently imprisoned in the prison of Ferrara serving a sentence inflicted for the attack on Engineer Adinolfi”.
The state and the law (as usual) would like to make the accusations worse by fabricating leaders of an imaginary hierarchical terrorist organization, so as to manipulate and unify everything in one single inquisitive cauldron and throw the ‘representatives’ of the anarchist galaxy into it. In this way they are trying to create a spectacular atmosphere, they are preparing the ground to make scorched earth and eliminate any autonomous instances and direct action in the anarchist struggle.

But there is more. The judiciary would like to incorporate the practice of anonymous direct action by including such actions in the investigation “even if claims of specific acronyms (the action was claimed by so called haris hatzimihelakis\black international 1881\2018 cell) are not considered essential in the context of anarchist initiatives which also accept anonymous initiatives with similar initiatives and with the modalities already used in other attacks attributed to the FAI/FRI group”. So the intention is to create precedents for anonymous actions of attack by including them in the various investigations when this suits them most, so that they can fabricate their imaginative terrorist organizations with leaders created ad hoc. Moreover the aspect of solidarity with anarchist prisoners and those who are locked up or generally those who revolt, is emphasized.

These are the key points that they linger over and which they want to strike and silence, because they represent the bases with which anarchists continue to support certain practices publicly (there are some anarchists under investigation for various publications and sentenced to years in prison). In this investigation, as in all those underway against anarchists, they want to repress the basic concepts of anarchist theory and action, such as refusal to delegate, direct action, solidarity with revolutionary prisoners, multiform non-hierarchical practices of attack and permanent rebellion averse to all forms of authority.

In this way power is telling us indirectly that these basic concepts remain qualitatively blunt if they are not accompanied prospectively with a projection into the struggle alongside the exploited; it is here that they are striking us preventively.

We need to have a common vision and feeling which includes the individual and the collective in an alchemy of local and specific struggles (as anarchists) intended as tactics of different and diversified struggles which are however born and recognize themselves in the whole of the general struggle and in the wealth of its methodological and projectual diversity. Which constantly needs to be in equilibrium with an internationalist perspective and harmonized in the chaos of infinite tactics and strategies of anarchism which flow into the universal struggle for anarchy. All this seasoned with the fundamental essence of Anarchy; universal solidarity at every level of the struggle/life.

The state is playing this game in order to strike us harder and to reaffirm that there can be no form of social organization other than the authoritarian and hierarchical one of today’s society.
Revisionism of the past is a powerful weapon that states use to disempower the various forms of revolt of the present time and create a void around today’s revolutionaries leaving them without roots or soul. That is why it is important to not forget but to propagate past epochs, and treasure the memory of our comrades’ struggle as a stimulus for the struggles of today.

A glance at our past is enough to realize that certain tensions and methods have always been used in the anarchist struggle, even before the birth of the antiauthoritarian international in 1871.
I claim these fundamental principles head held high! I refuse any theorem that they want to pigeonhole me in contrary to my most basic principles as an anarchist.

And here it is not a question of saying that the struggle is non-violent or of passing oneself off as angels or pious souls. It is a question of calling things by their name and claiming the instances of struggle that anarchists, rebels and revolutionaries use and have always used all over the world.

I have said all this openly and publicly ever since I chose to struggle through my special conception of anarchism. Regardless of whether I am responsible for the deeds I am accused of or not, I share and am in in solidarity with the struggle and the actions of attack on capital and the state. Which by its very nature is always responsible for the massacres and genocides all over the world.
“We must fight and fight for disproportion to be crushed”

And whatever path we take, always with our hearts!

For Anarchy!

Juan Sorroche – Prison of Terni AS2
07\2019

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To write to Juan:
Juan Antonio Sorroche Fernandez
C.C. Terni
Str. delle Campore 32
05100 Terni (TR)
Italy

Juan let us know by letter that he’s receiving all the letters written to him, even if the censorship is pretty hard. However, he is having problems in sending replies and is asking for a bit of patience in receiving them and to not be discouraged by the silence. For the rest, he says he’s calm and doing well.
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Translated by Act for freedom now!