From now on, Infoaut.org will feature a weekly news bulletin, briefly summing up and reporting in English all the updates about Italian struggles published in the previous week on our portal. Stay tuned;) for other important news about our foreign language section!

The Infoaut Staff

 

MONDAY 3F

Italy – Standoff in the CGIL (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro) trade union. The majority supporting the incumbent secretary Susanna Camusso is pushing more and more towards the establishment of a full-fledged company union – by either marginalizing or coopting the internal minority (chiefly represented by the FIOM metalworkers union) from time to time. Amid concerns about internal democracy in the organization, two national representatives resign and enter the grassroots USB (Unione Sindacale di Base) union. At the same time, the household and professional appliances manufacturer Electrolux threatens to close its Italian facilities in a bid to cut down workers’ salaries to Eastern European standards.

Pisa – Autonomous high school students, along with their teachers, challenge the headmistress of the Pacinotti Technical School and go on strike over failure of activating an evacuation plan after a false emergency alarm.

Milan – A No Tav activists’ group blocked the Freccia Rossa high-speed train railway in Milan-Rogoredo, in solidarity with Chiara, Mattia, Claudio and Niccolò – four other members of the movement arrested on December 9 and charged with terrorism for allegedly damaging construction yard equipment. Calling for their release, the action promoted a nationwide day of action against squandering of public resources and environmental devastation on February 22, and a national demonstration in defense of social struggles – to be held in Rome on March 15. You can write to the prisoners at the addresses at the bottom of this page.

Castelnuovo di Porto (Rome) – 800 asylum seekers were left for two days without food, water and energy in a narrow space – as the management of the migrant care center they were in fleed the facility after the flooding of the ground floor on January 31. As they denounce the situation, the facility precincts are patrolled by military and police forces, who prevent any access to it.

Turin – Remarkable anomalies at the trial of two No Tav activists accused of slandering against the pro-establishment journalist Massimo Numa. Besides the heavy presence of DIGOS political police officers, the statement of the defense is disturbed by the simultaneous presence of two public prosecutors (that in Italy, during other trials, can act as judges) and their cosy dialogue with Numa. The charges of the accusation against the activists get mistaken, too.

Florence – In the Tuscanian metropolis ruled by centre-left Democratic Party secretary Matteo Renzi, after a full week of struggle with three occupations and two evictions, 14 families finally found a home in the squatted hotel Concorde in Viale Gori.

 

TUESDAY 4F

Turin – 13 families which occupied a vacant building in Via Spano barely 20 days ago – during a nationwide week of housing rights mobilizations – were evicted by police. An occupier was stalked in the early morning by DIGOS officers, then detained for several hours and stripped of his keys, thus giving the agents a mean to enter the building. The families included one with a pregnant woman, which was hospitalized for the imminent birth at the time.

Leghorn – A hundred occupiers and evicted belonging to the Housing Rights Committee and the Ex-Caserma social centre burst into the city’s municipal council and interrupt it, in protest over the local housing emergency.

Pisa – The Popular Committee of the Sant’Ermete neighbourhood lies claim for its projects to an unutilized space of the local ARCI club, with the latter rank-and-file members’ support. The ARCI (Associazione Ricreativa e Culturale Italiana), a nationwide, progressive-leftist cultural clubs’ network, is a composite civil society organization: some of its chapters acts as social area managers for the Democratic Party while others host more radical, and even antagonist projects.

Teverola (Caserta) – Some 70 loaders picketed the gates of the logistics’ company TNT, in response to the unjust sacking of 30 workers. The picket was lifted after a written commitment by a company local manager of calling up a negotiation roundtable in a week, with the SI COBAS grassroots union proposing a 6-months unemployment fund and the reinstatement of the workers through a new cooperative contractor.

Bologna – Following an open letter to him by prominent leftist writers and intellectuals, Carlo Lucarelli, a mainstream writer, scenarist and TV host, apologizes for having misjudged and publicly condemned the loaders’ struggle at Granarolo dairy company – albeit under alleged pressures from the local establishment.

Catania – The Social Centre Liotru (named after the city’s iconic fountain) is born in Catania, in a 4-year abandoned public library. After having been evicted from a former college building last month, the precarious workers and students of the Aleph collective that occupied the Liotru denounced the lack of social spaces, the real estate speculation in the city and the repressive policies of the municipality.

 

THURSDAY 6F

Turin – The 13 families evicted on tuesday from Via Spano occupied the former public baths of Via Conte Roccavione – a municipal vacant property. More and more people in Turin are rising up and self-organizing to cope with the housing emergency: the northern Italian city features fifty thousands vacant houses, whereas the municipality carries out a record number of evictions and sells off its estates to pay up for its debts. Meanwhile, the trial against Forgi and Paolo – two No Tav activists arrested last August 30 and still under house arrest – begins with an impressive police presence and specious evidence. An ongoing campaign of the movement is aimed to counter the Lyon-Turin Ferroviaire society request of payment of punitive damages, legitimized by a court verdict. An appeal will be filed, but the priority right now is to raise the required 214.100€ in order to avoid seizures furtherly damaging the activists.

Pomigliano (Naples) – Peppe De Crescenzo, a worker and a SLAI COBAS unionist in the FIAT factory of Pomigliano committed suicide by hanging himself. It is the latest in a series of similar attempts, a tragedy criminally belittled in the previous months by media and police forces.

Rome – Universitary students in the capitol protest against lack and mismanagement of student housing, and complain about hurdles to their education rights and plunging living standards in Rome.

Milan – After an eviction attempt was repelled in the morning, the Committee of San Siro Neighbourhood Dwellers and the ASIA USB tenants’ union occupy the housing office of the municipality.

Bologna – Bureaucratic and reformist CGIL trade union is joined up by the ARCI (see above) and Libera (an anti-mafia association hailing from the institutional centre-left and civil society) executive boards in condemning the struggle of the logistics’ workers of the Granarolo dairy company, members of grassroots SI Cobas union and social centers’ activists. Still, the Granarolo dairy company never complied to the commitment agreed upon with the SI Cobas and the prefect in regard to the workers’ reinstatement, and employed illegal cooperatives at its service.

 

FRIDAY 7F

Turin – 20 activists from the No Tav movement are on trial for breaking the seals of the iconic Clarea Cabin under police seizure. During the latest hearing, the public prosecutor requests 9 months in jail for the 5 Stars Movement founder Beppe Grillo and Alberto Perino, a movement spokesperson; for Giorgio, another prominent activist, the public prosecutor requests 18 months in jail.

Rome – Widespread actions during the day: after a woman was evicted from her house in the morning, two real estate speculation projects were denounced in the Testaccio neighbourhood (the “city of youths”) and at the Guido Reni barracks (the “science museum”).The former Regina Elena squat was symbolically reopened: evicted because of an allegedly “imminent” social health project, it was actually left abandoned for four years.

Palermo – Outrage sparked against a municipal councilwoman after the collapse of a building in the central Piazza Garraffello. The longtime-battered historical square, part of the Vucciria popular market, was then shut down and walled up, along with all its economic activities and social fabric. A pattern pursued by the administration, bent on promoting more upscale neighbourhoods and gentrifying new ones, and taking the chance provided by the crisis to dump the social costs of its misrule on weaker social subjects.

Brescia – A foglio di via ban from the city was issued against a prominent member of the Brescia 1911 ultras, under the pretext of him having allegedly started a street scuffle. This came after 36 charges were issued in the previous months against supporters of the local soccer team, either banning them from the stadium (DASPO) or forcing them to leave a signature of theirs at the police headquarters at the time of the matches.

 

SATURDAY 8F

Rome – A defendant was acquitted of the accusation of plundering and devastation (a crime introduced by the Mussolini fascist regime and retained by the Italian Republic up to this day), downgraded to resistance and mischief, during the October 15 2011 trial. On that day, during the Indignados demonstration in Rome clashes broke out, and a massive resistance was put up by hundreds of demonstrators against the police.

Ravenna – During the night between February 7 and 8 unknown assailants set the Selva student space on fire. A massive student mobilization swept through the city during last autumn, and the Selva was increasingly becoming a place of student hangout and self-organization. Solidarity came from the Studaut high school autonomous students’ national network.

 

SUNDAY 9F

Monza – Almost 100 police agents evicted the K2O building, occupied last October 12 during a week of action in preparation of October 19. After the eviction, the facility was demolished and a city demonstration for housing rights was called by the occupiers for February 15.

Cosenza – A protest tent camp, claiming the legacy of October 19, was set beneath the Rendano theatre to tackle the visit of Interior Minister Alfano and regional governor Scopelliti – both members of the New Centre-Right government party and supporters of the austerity policies of the latter.

Spoleto (Perugia) – The first occupation ever in the Umbrian city, that aimed to put an abandoned printing house to social use, is evicted after 9 hours of resistance by a large number of police forces.