Turin: Updates on the 3rd May arrests

A court of review hearing, held to decide over Kam, Fran, Antonio, Beppe and Lorenzo ended a few hours ago. The charges that led the five comrades behind bars and banned Monica and Michela from the city were discussed, in order to decide if the measures imposed before the trial were to be modified.

Even if the hearing was held behind closed doors we learned that a large assortment of cops was in the courtroom: plain clothes officers from Porta Palazzo police station, Digos officers, screws, [prosecutors] Padalino’s and Rinaudo’s bodyguards and a bunch of carabinieri. They were all there to highlight the power that they hold in a courtroom. Power transferred through court papers and the reconstruction of that night’s events, like the events of many other nights, days and moments spent in a corner of some police station or in the streets during a police check. Anything that happens before and after, the cause and the effect, are mixed up to create a tale that is more effective on paper, the assessment of the charges and the weight of the sentence.

Nothing to be surprised about; the violence of the cops’ control in the streets is backed up by the violence of the sterile language of court papers, imprisonment and the limitation of freedom. We won’t dwell on the chronological order of that night’s events. It’s more interesting to look at what those events have provoked more generally.

Following the arrests the situation round about came alive with sparks of energy and oddities: chants against the police came from many corners of the road, with various intonations. A roar of voices broke out when the police vans left, some people occupied the road, others dragged skips into the middle of the carriageway and overturned them. It’s clear how annoying the police presence is for many people in the area. It’s suggestive to see how one little setback produces a chain of small events, how the participation of people passing by or turning up there on purpose spreads in a casual way.

This is what encourages those who still have ideas to come out into these streets, to get in the way, to regain their strength for a better life and to make choices despite the city, work, police, the State. One glimpses the possibility that struggling and putting hostilities into practice is not exclusive to the usual irreducibles, but is a need, a possible one, for a massive human mix.

And it is here that one also comes up against the cops’, prosecutors’ and judges’ stubbornness in persecuting certain behaviour, which could unite the malaise in expressions of well-organized and well-addressed anger.

The result of the court of review is now known: those arrested are about to be released. Kam, Fran and Antonio will be back under house arrest with prohibition to communicate with the outside because the proceedings of the 3rd May arrest are still valid; as for Beppe and Lorenzo, we still don’t know about possible restrictions on their house arrest.

Act For Freedom Now! http://actforfree.nostate.net/?p=28198
Previously posted on anarhija.info