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Raids against anarchist groups

01 August 2003

On 24 September 2003, carabinieri from the ROS (Raggrupamento Operativo Speciale) division of the Italian paramilitary police carried out raids on the homes of 40 people linked to anarchist groups and organisations in Tuscany, Liguria, Emilia Romagna, Piedmont, Lombardy and Abruzzi on orders from the Genoa prosecutors office. The raids, part of "Operation Blackout", are linked to a series of incidents in the last two years involving fires and the use of explosive devices to strike targets such as "pillars for the distribution of electricity, aerials used for mobile telecommunications systems, incinerators and the skiing infrastructure". The offences were aimed at objects rather than people, and the perpetrators sometimes attached slogans in support of Marco Camenish, an anarchist prisoner detained in Switzerland after spending ten years in detention in Italy.

Computers, floppy discs, CDs and written material were confiscated in the raids, which affected several anarchist collectives including Croce nera anarchica (Anarchist Black Cross), Terra selvaggia (an environmental and animal rights magazine), Il silvestre (an environmental group) and others, including the Federazione Anarchica Italiana. A statement by the activists said that the carabinieri sought "documentation on personal contacts, with the scope of "constructing" a web of relationships...to prove the existence of an imagined subversive association". In another press statement dated 11 October 2003, the activists reaffirmed that they have absolutely nothing to do with the acts of which they are accused, for which 13 people have been formally notified that they are under investigation.

Il manifesto 26.9.03; comunicato degli indagati delloperazione "black out" (statement of those under investigation) 11.10.03.