I encourage you to consider signing this petition.
Antonio Negri has been one of the leading theorists of anti-systemic
movements since the 1960s, and is now incarcerated in Italy.
Richard Hutchinson
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 04:53:53 -0700
From: Arm The Spirit <ats@locust.etext.org>
Reply-To: ats-l@burn.ucsd.edu
Subject: Antonio Negri Imprisoned In Italy
[Antonio Negri, the author of "Marx Beyond Marx", among other
works, and "patron saint" of the Autonome groups in Italy in the
1970s, recently returned to Italy after fourteen years in exile.
He is in need of the support of other revolutionary socialists
and I encourage you all to participate in this E-mail petition
campaign. - Peter Urban, Irish Republican Socialist Movement]
Antonio Negri Imprisoned In Italy
Many on the left will have come across Antonio Negri's
writings on Marxist theory and related topics. His involvement in
Italian politics during the 1970s led to him spending fourteen
years in exile - a particularly dramatic version of an experience
shared with many politically active academics in the 60s and 70s.
What is more unusual about Negri's situation is that he chose to
go back after a decade and a half, as an act of support for those
who are still in prison or in exile.
The petition at the end of this message calls on the
Italian state to introduce an amnesty for all political prisoners
from the period and to abrogate the emergency laws under which
they were tried. There's an E-mail address for signatures.
Laurence Cox,
An Caorthann
-----
Freedom For Toni Negri! - PETITION
FREEDOM FOR TONI NEGRI
PUTTING AN END TO THE "YEARS OF LEAD" IN ITALY
Toni Negri has been in prison in Rome since July 1, 1997. He
has been sentenced to more than 13 years in prison, not counting
another conviction that is now in the appeal process. After
residing in France in exile since 1983, he returned to Italy
voluntarily in the hope that his action would contribute to the
resolution of the problem of the exiles and prisoners who are
wanted or convicted for the political activities of the 1970s in
Italy, the so-called "years of lead". About 180 people are still
in Italian prisons under these charges and about 150 are in exile,
the majority of them in France.
Toni Negri was a professor at the University of Padua and
his writings are well-known throughout the world. He was arrested
on April 7, 1979 and accused of "armed insurrection against the
powers of the State". To support this accusation, his accusers
presented him as the secret leader of the Red Brigades, the
armed group that had kidnapped and assassinated Aldo Moro,
President of the Christian Democratic Party. Negri has always
denied this absurd accusation and he was later formally acquitted
of this charge. Charges against him were modified numerous times.
After four and a half years of preventive detention, he was
elected to parliament as a representative of the Radical Party
and was consequently released from prison. When the Chamber of
Deputies subsequently voted by a narrow margin to strip him of
his parliamentary immunity and send him back to prison, he fled
to France. The court procedures against him continued in his
absence and led to convictions under several charges and in
several different trials. At the time, Amnesty International
denounced the serious legal irregularities of Negri's trial and
those of his colleagues at the University of Padua. During his
exile, Toni Negri worked in France as a teacher at the University
of Paris VIII, at the College International de Philosophie, and
as a social science researcher. He published numerous books
during this period.
Due to his notoriety Negri has become the emblematic figure
of the Italian radical Left of the 1970s. Beginning in the Autumn
of 1969 there began in Italy a period of intense social conflicts
that were exacerbated by the very ambiguous role of certain State
agencies in what was called a "strategy of tension", in other
words, the manipulation of the neo-fascist groups responsible for
a deadly bombing campaign at such sites as Piazza Fontana and the
Bologna train station. The radicalization of the Italian
extra-parliamentary Left and the social movements led a large
number of activists toward the path of wide-spread political
violence and a few of them toward armed struggle. Between 1976
and 1980, tens of thousands of activists were pursued by the
police and more than five thousand arrested. Hundreds of
long-term sentences were handed out on the basis of emergency
laws that are still in effect, including principally the
so-called law of the "repentants". This law makes the testimony
of accused persons who have "repented" the sufficient basis for
the conviction of others, and allows for them to be set free in
return for having turned State's evidence. Another emergency
measure allows for preventive detention to extend retroactively
up to twelve years. This measure is radically incompatible with
the principles of the rule of law and the basic rules of penal
procedure as they are defined by articles 5 and 6 of the
European Convention of Human Rights and protected by the European
Court of Human Rights. One can assume that the highly contestable
nature of such legislation is what has led Italy's democratic
neighbors such as France and Great Britain to have serious doubts
about these cases and not to act on the majority of the more than
seventy requests for extradition presented by Italian
authorities, regardless of the political party in power. For the
same reason, undoubtedly, the over five hundred refugees who have
been accepted in France over these years have never been
disturbed or harassed. These refugees have integrated into French
society, finding work and building families. Now they do not want
to risk their futures and the lives they have constructed in
order to resolve twenty-five-year old sentences that were handed
down in such dubious emergency conditions.
The object of this appeal should not be interpreted in any
way to condone the real or supposed activities of those pursued
and convicted for their activities during the "years of lead".
The refugees have declared unambiguously that the "war" is over.
"That period has ended." A democracy worthy of that name must be
able to turn the page. Today these nearly four hundred exiles and
prisoners are excluded from Italian society. A problem of this
order cannot be resolved on a case by case basis, but must be
addressed with a general solution.
A bill for an "indulto" (a reduction of sentences by a vote
of parliament) was introduced nine years ago but has not yet come
up for a vote. Such a bill would have positive effects, but it
would not resolve the refugees' problems. The only solution for
Toni Negri and his unfortunate companions would be an amnesty.
The only amnesty that has been passed in Italy was in 1946, which
Togliatti supported with regard to the fascists. On the other
hand, for the activities linked to France's war in Algeria and
concerning actions of a gravity more or less equivalent to those
committed in the 1970s in Italy, France granted an amnesty to
both the deserting soldiers and the members of the OAS.
Since we support the principles of the rule of law and the
re-establishment of human rights everywhere for everyone, as
Italy prepares for integration into the new Europe, we ask
urgently that the Italian members of parliament respond favorably
to this appeal for clemency by passing an amnesty law as soon as
possible. We also ask the representatives of the European Union
to take appropriate measures to insure the swift release of Toni
Negri. If he symbolized one era, then his release will symbolize
another, calmer one. Finally, by repealing the series of
exceptional measures that are incompatible with the European
Convention of Human Rights, Italy would live up to its central
role in the new Europe.
-------------------------------------------
PETITION
Having understood the circumstances, we support the appeal
in favor of the release of Toni Negri in order to put an end to
the "years of lead" in Italy.
Toni Negri was in France for fourteen years. He sought
refuge there in 1983 after serving four and a half years of
preventive detention in Italy. He has now returned voluntarily to
Italy where he has been sentenced to prison for eminently
political reasons on the basis of an arsenal of emergency
measures (such as convictions based solely on the testimony of
"repentants" and extended preventive detention) that are
incompatible with the European Convention of Human
Rights.
He has been in prison since July 1, 1997 and his release
(which will likely be only a work release) has still not come
about. Four hundred people are excluded from Italian society on
the basis of political activity conducted twenty years ago. The
more than 150 refugees in France do not want to destroy the lives
they have constructed in order to address these sentences based
on emergency measures. European authorities on the Right and the
Left have not extradited the refugees back to Italy, and they
have thus expressed sotto voce their disdain for the Italian
procedures.
The wide-spread political violence of the Italian social
struggles, which has been conflated under the label of Italian
"terrorism," is something that ended long ago. Can a democracy
apply to those accused of political crimes (twenty years after
the fact) measures more severe than those used in common criminal
cases?
The release of Toni Negri must finally lead toward an
amnesty that has been too long in coming. Only the abrogation of
the emergency measures and the parliamentary passage of an
amnesty bill can finally put an end to the "years of lead". As
long as these conditions are not met, we urge the countries of
the European Union to guarantee the residency of the Italian
exiles. We ask finally that the members of parliament of the
other countries of the Union and those of the Strasbourg Assembly
do all they can to resolve these problems.
Please send signatures to Yann Moulier Boutang by fax or e-mail.
fax: +331.45.41.53.91
E-mail: Yann.M.Boutang@wanadoo.fr
(Include your name or title, address, and telephone, fax, or
e-mail address.)