----- Original Message -----
From: "Laurence Cox" <laurence.cox@???>
To: <SOCIAL-MOVEMENTS@???>
Sent: Saturday, September 21, 2002 10:50 PM
Subject: call for solidarity
> Hi,
>
> as listowner I'm never sure about forwarding calls for
> support etc. to the list, since its stated focus is theories
> of, from and for social movements. In this particular case
> I think it's probably justified given that the support is for
> someone who is not only an ex-movement activist, but
> also an active theorist. Along with the specifics of the
> case (and a request for letters and financial support),
> there's also a petition from Italian and French writers and
> academics, with more details on the general situation.
>
> Laurence
>
> ---
>
> An exile in France for ten years, Paolo Persichetti
> teaches political sociology at the University of Paris-Saint
> Denis. He is the author of various books and articles.
>
> Persichetti, born in 1962 and a student of political
> sociology, was arrested in 1987 on the basis of the
> statement of a "repentee" (pentito) after the murder of the
> air force general Licio Giorgieri. Persichetti was cleared in
> the first instance, but condemned on appeal for "moral
> support" (concorso morale) on the basis of the
> declaration of a "repenter" (pentito), who has since
> retracted, under emergency legislation.
>
> This legislation was the source of protests from Amnesty
> International and many foreign observers, including the
> French government, who refused to extradite Persichetti
> (under governments both of the right and the left) along
> with many other political exiles from Italy, on the basis of
> lack of confidence in this emergency legislation.
>
> Readers of *Empire*, by Toni Negri and Michael Hardt,
> will remember that Negri voluntarily returned from exile in
> France to an Italian jail in order to draw world attention to
> the situation of the exiles. Most other European countries
> have long since introduced amnesties covering such
> periods.
>
> Persichetti lived and worked openly in France until a
> recent change of policy on the part of the latest
> government led to his extradition to Italy. This change of
> policy provoked a national debate and protests in France.
> His colleagues are dedicating a special number of their in-
> house journal, Drole d'Epoque, to his case, while his
> students have called for support (see web link below).
>
> In Rome, he was put in a maximum security cell of
> Rebibbia jail rather than the cells destined for condemned
> prisoners; this entails being prevented from writing and
> working. It has not prevented 6 visits from the Digos
> (secret services). Subsequently (16 September) he has
> been transferred to Ascoli Piceno.
>
> Supporters are invited to write to him:
>
> Prof. Paolo Persichetti
> Via dei Meli 218
> I-63046 Marino del Tronto
> (Ascoli Piceno)
> ITALY
>
> As well as solidarity, Persichetti also needs financial
> support. This will be used initially to pay lawyers.
> Persichetti also needs support not only for his daily life in
> prison, but also in order to be able to write and to obtain
> the material he needs in order to continue working on his
> doctoral thesis, as well as to get visits from his partner, a
> student who lives in France. Persichetti is no longer in
> receipt of his salary, and his only source of money is
> solidarity.
>
> Moneys can be lodged at the following account: Janie
> Lacoste; CCP no 21.137.76 n 020, or by sending a
> cheque to Janie Lacoste, 67 rue de la Mare, 75020 Paris.
>
> Since Paolo Persichetti's future is now a long-term one, a
> small monthly contribution would be preferable to a single
> cheque. Thanks!
>
> For more information (in French):
>
> Le Monde 26.08.02
> <http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3226--288218-
> ,00.html>
>
> Appeal from his students
> <http://infos.samizdat.net/article.php3?id_article=170>
>
> Interview with Toni Negri
> <http://www.humanite.presse.fr/journal/2002/2002-
> 08/2002-08-28/2002-08-28-046.html>
>
> Appeal
> <http://www.persichetti.ras.eu.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubriq
> ue=8>
>
> ---
>
> Appeal from the world of culture for the exiles in France
>
> The hurried extradition from France of Paolo Persichetti,
> and that threatened to many other Italian refugees,
> repeats a scenario which has been already seen too
> many times recently. Once a sufficiently long time has
> past, use is made of a completely transformed historical
> and social situation to settle old scores, trusting that in
> the meantime the memory of the context in which the
> events took place will have vanished.
>
> In our case, the hope is that after ten, fifteen, twenty
> years no-one will remember what circumstances induced
> the French governments to grant asylum to people, then
> very young, who were sought by the Italian justice
> system. If Mitterand and his successors did this, it was
> not out of hostility towards Italy and its rulers.
>
> Rather, it was because, with the aim of extinguishing a
> protest movement (which was only some of the time
> armed) which had involved hundreds of thousands of
> individuals, governments, the political system and the
> Italian magistrature adopted normative and judicial
> solutions described as "emergency".
>
> That meant summary judgements, extended use of
> informers, coercive means for extracting confessions, and
> penalties exceeding any rule of proportionality. It is not
> by chance that this repressive apparatus (which led to
> over one hundred thousand charges, when the armed
> sections of the movement had far fewer participants) led
> to the protests of Amnesty International and of many
> foreign observers.
>
> Among these was the French government, which
> nonetheless did not automatically grant asylum to
> everyone, but left its own (non-emergency) magistrature
> the task of sorting through Italian requests for extradition.
> The majority of these were rejected as the result of
> "military justice".
>
> In the few cases in which the French government took a
> decision directly, it was because of the seriousness of
> the circumstances. The case of Paolo Persichetti was a
> case in point: condemned on appeal (after being found
> innocent in the first instance) to twenty-two years of
> prison for a nebulous "moral support" to murder, when the
> only repentee who accused him had retracted.
>
> But it is also too easy to forget the political context within
> which the crimes attributed to the refugees in France
> were committed. The Italy of the 1970s and the early
> 1980s was by no means a normal country. Massacres
> carried out by neo-fascists were subsequently revealed to
> be instigated or covered by the secret services. An
> association recognised to have subversive goals, the P2
> lodge, linked military and political men. The whole
> political class then in power had to confess its own
> corruption a decade later and dissolve itself ignominiously.
>
> In the face of so much disgrace, everything should be
> rediscussed, in a historical rethinking which Italy does
> not yet dare to undertake. Today the Italian government
> includes no few fragments of the subversive forces which
> were at the real origin of the "years of lead" (anni di
> piombo): P2, neo-fascists, survivors of the parties which
> fell to the inquiries on corruption. It declares itself in
> favour of civil rights for the accused, but only when it is
> the material interests of its own members or clients
> which are in question. [Special legislation has been
> rushed through in order to protect Berlusconi.] It is made
> up of individuals whose penal records do not bear too
> much inspection.
>
> We hope that the French government will take note of all
> this, when ambiguous requests for extradition arrive from
> Italy. Let it abandon the stupidity of a global struggle
> against a "terrorism" which includes everything; it knows,
> as we all know, that the people facing extradition have
> nothing to do with Bin Laden or with the crimes of the so-
> called Red Brigades who have reappeared on the Italian
> scene in a moment of great social tension.
>
> We hope that it at least will be capable of historical
> reflection. In Italy, it is useless seeking to bring that
> about; political questions and those of legislation are
> continually mixed up. This is particularly true today, when
> there are individuals in government who represent a
> synthesis between the two things.
>
> Valerio Evangelisti (writer)
> Serge Quadruppani (translator, writer)
> Wu Ming (writer)
> Lello Voce (poet)
> Luigi Bernardi (writer, editor, publicist)
> Carlo Formenti (journalist, Corriere della Sera)
> Giorgo Agamben (philosopher)
> Pino Cacucci (writer)
> Davide Ferrario (director)
> Guido Chiesa (director)
> ...
>
> Claudio Del Bello (university teacher)
> Mario Lunetta (writer)
> Francesco Muzzioli (university teacher)
> Roberto Giammanco (sociologist)
> Tom Behan (lecturer at the University of Kent at
> Canterbury)
>
> Send signatures to
>
> eymerich@???
> serge.quadruppani@???
> roberto.bui@???
>
> - - -
> Dept. of Sociology, St. Anne's building,
> NUI Maynooth, Co. Kildare
> Tel. (+353-1) 708 3985
> http://www.iol.ie/~mazzoldi/toolsforchange/
>
> ---
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