Campaign 10 Euro for the Iraqi resistance ruled legal
On September 3 the court of inquiry of Perugia, Italy, annulated the sequestration warrant against Emanuele Fanesi, militant of the Anti-imperialist Camp, who holds the bank account of the campaign “10 Euro for the Iraqi resistance”. His computer and all documents related to this bank account sequestrated by the political police DIGOS on June 30 must be returned to him.
The court argued that there is not sufficient evidence to sustain the prosecutor´s claim of “membership in an organisation with the aim of (international) terrorism” (…§270 bis of the penal code).
This is a scattering defeat for both the American party in Italy and the US itself. They have been trying to criminalise the Anti-imperialist Camp since the beginning of the occupation of Iraq for its open and declared support for the Iraqi resistance. This drive to impose the tyrannical Patriot act on Europe was expressed in the letter of the 44 US congressmen to the Italian ambassador to Washington demanding to make an example by banning the Anti-imperialist Camp thus dismantling national sovereignty as well as international law. The latter stipulates that resistance including armed one against foreign occupation is legitimate according to …§ 51 of the UN charter while the US and the Americanist forces around the world try to depict the popular resistance against their usurping empire as “terrorism”.
We are faced with a deja-vu: also the arrests of three leaders of the Anti-imperialist Camp on April 1, 2004, and the ensuing indictment for terrorism have ended up in the same limbo. They had to be released despite the objection of the prosecutor and their processes still did not start because they know that the amalgam constructed will not hold.
While we are celebrating the victory in one battle the struggle is continuing. In the case of Emanuale Fanesi the public prosecutor will certainly go into cassation.
At the same time the battle with the Italian foreign minister over the conference “Leave Iraq in peace – support the legitimate resistance of the Iraqi people” is raging. Abiding by the order in the letter of the 44 US congress members, who had asked to impede the conference, Fini blocked the visas for the Iraqi participants. As reaction the Italian Free Iraq Committee has started a hunger strike in front of the foreign ministry on August 31to get the visas issued. Among the seven hunger strikers there is also Emanuele Fanesi.
An September 2 the Free Iraq Committee requested visa for Haj Ali to speak at the conference, the man tortured in Abu Ghraib depicted with the hood and the electrodes. If Fini rejects also this request for “security reasons” even the last fool will understand what American-type democracy means.
Assisi, September 4, 2005
Anti-imperialist Camp
