On Tuesday, June 16, in Rome and other cities, new police raids hit the anarchist movement, with seven arrest warrants against as many comrades, 5 preventive detentions in prison and 2 house arrests with electronic bracelets, searches throughout Italy (including La Vampa in Naples), and the eviction of the Bencivenga Occupato social center in Rome. The main charge is the now classic “association for terrorist purposes” (270-bis). In addition, two comrades were arrested for the new crime of “terrorism by words” for possession of some pamphlets found during the searches.
Although the information disclosed by the media is scarcer and incomplete than usual, it is clear that the investigation revolves around a number of acts of sabotage of railway lines, in particular the one carried out on February 14 on the Rome-Florence line, against the Cortina 2026 War Olympics.
While the mystification and defamation of anarchists by the media is certainly not new, we cannot help but dwell on the level reached this time by the regime’s propaganda (in particular the ineffable TG1), which seems particularly grotesque: “they met on a farm like the Mafia”, “they planned the strategy of tension”, “They intended to commit acts of violence.” “anarchist terrorism”… While it is useful to remind these gentlemen that for anarchists, the Mafia is as much an enemy as an authority, and that in this country the “strategy of tension” has been implemented by the state, it is not difficult to identify a very precise intention behind these obsessive words: the one that led, in 2015, to transform the National Anti-Mafia Directorate (ADN) into the National Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Directorate (DNAA). As a result, absolute monstrosity now applies to anarchists, with the associated treatment, until now reserved for real or presumed mafiosi (and moreover inflicted for decades on revolutionary communists). With the aggravating circumstance, for revolutionaries, of not practising violence for reasons of profit or power, but as a kind of end in itself, for the pure taste of destruction or for who knows what obscure death drive. As if high-speed railways were not part of the Military Mobility Plans put in place by the European Union (with the help, in Italy, of Leonardo S.p.A., which signed an ad hoc agreement with RFI, Italian railway, in 2024) to prepare for a direct war with Russia. As if thousands of people had not resisted the Winter Olympics for very clear reasons: the military presence (for the occasion without uniforms) of the Israeli team, the escort of the murderous ICE gangs, the devastation of the Alpine environment in the name of the usual “big event”… It is as if these reasons had not been put forward, in unequivocal prose, in the press release following the sabotage. As for the usual accusation of “terrorism,” we believe that Gaza has clarified the matter sufficiently – and that there can no longer be any doubt about who is spreading terror.
In time of war, said an old poet, the first victim is the truth.
While Alfredo Cospito remains in a prison regime of 41 bis as a kind of scapegoat for the “defects” of the entire anarchist movement, the state goes so far as to criminalize the very intention to act to save him from torture. While we still have to catch our breath after the death of Sara and Sandro, the state is trying to use it against us.
We do not know whether the people arrested and wanted committed the acts of which they are accused. We can only repeat what we have written so many times in similar cases: if they are “innocent”, they have all our solidarity, if they are “guilty”, they have even more.
Solidarity with Nico, Bibi, Micol, Arnau, Stefano, Giulia, Luna, Pietro, Tony, to all the suspects and those searched.
Alfredo out of the 41 bis!
Sara and Sandro in our hearts.
Anarchists from Trento and Rovereto
In the face of all these omissions and media misdirection, we provide the press release claiming responsibility for the sabotage of the Rome-Florence high-speed line on February 14:
On the night of 13 February, at various railway points and junctions, we set fire to and damaged cables along the tracks, causing several high-speed lines to become clogged.
These actions are our contribution to the warm welcome and best wishes of this edition of the Olympic Winter Games.
We participated in huge blockades of roads and ports during the months of mobilization for Palestine, invaded stations and attacked the police when possible. But today, we have chosen to act protected by the light of the moon, in a small group brought together by affinity and the desire to be consistent with the slogans chanted in recent months: let’s block everything! Because we believe that in addition to participating in the great mobilizations and the conflicts they can generate, it is necessary to disseminate autonomous action, so as not to let them be defused, co-opted and directed by the professionals of “militant” politics.
Power is preparing for war and we, anarchists, revolutionaries, conscious individuals, would like to do the same. Railway infrastructure is a key hub in the mobility of forces and war material, and the agreement between RFI and Leonardo to implement military logistics on the peninsula is the clearest example of this. Attacking RFI is therefore a concrete act of anti-militarism and a gesture of solidarity with all those who suffer the atrocities of war and colonialism today.
The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics are no exception: rivers of money that fuel land speculation ready to arm rivers with concrete to build disposable facilities and change the social “use” of working-class neighborhoods. Much of the bright and prestigious image of the major sporting event is acres of larch forests razed to make way for ski slopes and mountains irreversibly disfigured by the ski lifts.
This action also expresses our anger at the presence at the Games of ICE agents, the anti-immigrant squads now infamous for murders, roundups, abuse, and violence perpetrated against undesirables and internal opponents in the United States, reminding us that every police force and fascist group is there to be used against its own population when “reasons of state” demand it.
It only takes a few ingredients to act against the world of exploitation, oppression and devastation: a little study, precaution and determination in equal parts, a few accomplices, a few liters of fuel… And everything is possible! Good luck!
Solidarity with anarchist prisoners around the world Solidarity with Juan, Stecco, Anna, Alfredo, Tonio, Ghespe, Dayvid with the comrades repressed in Operation Ipogeo, with the Palestinian prisoners.
Long live anarchy
Here the known addresses of the comrades in detention. These addresses are provisional and may change in the coming days:
Nico Aurigemma
Arnau Vallet Casadevall
Stefano Marri
Andrea Toniolo
Regina Coeli, via della Lungara 29, 00165, Roma
Micol Marino
C.C. Rebibbia femminile, via Bartolo Longo, 92 00156 Roma
Francesco Benedetti
C.C.Lorusso e Cotugno, via Maria Adelaide Aglietta 35, 10151, Torino
Pietro Rosetti
C.C.di Forlì, via della Rocca 4, 47121, Forlì