NEWS FROM THE PRISONERS IN GENOA
There are still 45 people in the prisons Alessandria, Marassi, oghera ad Ponte Decimo. The prisoners are in bigger groups in the prisons and have contact to each other.
The prisoners have either had their second hearings or will have them within te next days, wher it will be decided if they have to stay in prison until their court dates in about one ears time or not.
VISITS
The prisoners can now also be visited by friends and not only by family. Every prisoner can only have 4 visits per month (visit = max. 3 adults + 1 Baby for 1 hour) plus (theoretically) one "extra" visit. Some family members managed to get permissions for a few days in a row.
Permissions are now given by the courts fairly quickly, but the waiting period can still take several days.
By the end of the day all prisoners will have had at least one visit. We know of at least one prisoner from slovakia that after 16 days in jail has not been visited by a representative of the consulate.
CONDITIONS IN THE PRISONS
In all prisons it is near to impossible to use the phone. After a lot of struggle the women in Pontedecimo have managed to phone a few times in the evenings. There are accounts in all prisons where money can be given to all prisoners. It is possible to send letters and telegrams to all jails. Possibly packages arrive as well. Apart from in Marassi faxes usually don't arrive.
In some of the prisons the conditions are supposedly fairly relaxed. In Alessandria visiters could bring food, clothes, newspapers, books and now also articles from the internet. It is also possible to give packages with things and money without visiting. Other prisoners are in solidarity with the G8-prisoners. People are together in twoos and all are on the same aisle and see each other regularly. Considering the circumstances the prisoners are in good spirits especially after the solidarity demo outside of the prison.
In Pontedecimo the conditions also seem fairly good. The wommen are allowed to cook theyr own food and even have a taperecorder and musik (send tapes!). It is possible to bring clothes, books, fresh fruit inside. Sweets, stamps, toothpaste and playing cards are not let in though. The prisoners have accounts where money can be paid into during visits. From this money they can buy things in the prison shops. Things that you can buy in the shop can not be brought inside by visitors. For the men on the other hand it is a little harder. They often get their time outside in the yard denied and generally the impression was that their situation is worse than of the women.
Because Voghera is actually a mens prison the women there are isolated from the rest of the prisoners. Like a prison within the prison. Probably because of that they are in the starnge situation that the female guards, that often get harrassed by the males themselves, are in some sort of slight solidarity with the prisoners. The visiting regulations are a lot stricter than in Pontedecimo or Alessandria. Until now nobody managed to bring food inside. Despite all that the prisoners are fairly o.k..
Marassi is quite bad even though it is possible to bring food and food inside. The guards treat the prisoners like shit and the whole prison atmosphere seems a lot more repressive than in the other prisons. Now its slightly better (the visits by government officials had a positive effect on the conditions) but the "minor" harrassments continue (e.g. showers and time outside in the yard are often denied and the visiting times are during the time their allowed outside, so they have to decide for either). At least the other prisoners here show solidarity with them as well.
In all prisons there are problems with vegan and partly vegetarian food as well. Supposedly this can only be changed in long term with an official request (e.g. a notice from the prison doctors), but every demand is always again a big struggle, especially if the guards are assholes, like mostly. This is obviously very difficult to suuport this especially where food can not be brought inside.
ADDRESS TELEPHONE/FAX VISITING REGULATIONS
Pontedecimo
Casa circondariale
Via Coni Zugna 33
16164 Genova
Tel 010784320
Fax 010784323
9.00-11.30; 13.00-17.00
(according to lawyer 8.00-17.00)
Marassi
Casa circondariale di Marassi
Piazzale di Marassi Nr.2
16139 Genova
Tel 01084015
Fax 01078461090 (faxes arrive)
Mo.-Sa. 8.00-10.30
& 12.30-14.00
(according to lawyer 8.00-17.00)
Voghera
Casa circondolaria voghera
Viaprati nuovi 7
27058 Voghera
Tel 0383212222
Fax 0383367570
Mo., We., Fr.-Sa. 9.00-13.30
Alessandria
nuova casa di reclusione alessandria
san michele, strada stradale 31
15040 Alessandria
Tel 0131361781
Fax 0131361785 (faxes arrive)
Tu., Th., Fr., Sa. 9.00-13.00
CHARGES
Until recently a lot of the prisoners had little or no contact to lawyers or anyone else and didn't know anything about their charges. Often they weren't given dolmetchers, even though italian law requires this. This was also because of the lack of good dedicated lawyers, to many misunderstandings there were hardly any clear structures. Only about 6 or 7 completely overworked lawyers, that mainly worked for free and took on the cases of all the prisoners and at leat 221 other cases. Anyhow all prisoners now have lawyers (there are no state lawyers anymore). For some of them it is still unclear though which lawyers they have.
The charges against the prisoners (not all are charged with all of the paragraphs) are italian anti mafia- and anti terrorist law and therefore are connected with long prison sentences.
The charges are:
Paragraph 416 "Forming a criminal organisation"
- if three or more people gather to comitt a crime and for that sake lead, organise or build up structures in a group, sentence: 3-7 years, if they are only members of this group, sentence 1-5 years
- if these people carry weapons (in public spaces), sentence: 5-15 years
- the sentences are longer if the group is larger than 10 people
Paragraph 419 "looting and destruction"
- every person that organises or leads an action of looting or destruction, sentence: 8-15 years
- the sentence is longer if the looted or detroyed place is a storage for weapons, ammunition.
Paragraph 420 "attack on facilities of public use"
- damage and destruction, sentence: 1-4 years
- data, telecommunication, programmes, sentence: 3-8 years
DATES OF THE HEARINGS
(only to decide if the prisoners have to stay in jail up to the court date)
14 hearings were on the 08.08.. The No Border No Nation Caravan and three others will have their hearings on the 13.08.. Four hearings are still not clear.
The judges have up to 5 days time after the hearings to announce their decisions.
POSSIBILITY OF HOUSE ARREST
If people are mandated to stay in jail ip to their court dates there still is the possibility to request to change this to house arrest. This is also possible for foreigners. For this it is necessary to have families, organizations or communities (preferably religious) in Italy that are prepared to take people. IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE PLEASE LET US KNOW!
RESULTS OF THE HEARINGS
After their hearings on the 06.08. one italian is out and another is under house arrest. We don't know exactly under what conditions.
A german woman who also had her haering on the 06.08. will be deported today or tomorrow
An irish prisoner was deported yesterday
SOLIDARITY ACTIONS IN ITALY
Last week on wednesday there was a noisedemo with about 100 people outside of the prison Alessandria.
On saturday there was a rally with musik and speaches outside of Marassi. Ther weren't very many people (about 50) but still it was quite noisy for two hours.
During the hearings there are rallies near the court house organised by an italian scial centre.
On the 07.08. in the evening there was an action organised by liberals to emphasize what happened during the G8-Summit and the situation of the prisoners.
A rally in front of the prison in Voghera is planned.
Here in Italy despite the fact that it is holiday time a lot of groups very intensively care for the prisoners and provide them with money, clothes, food, letters.
More actions are planned and don't forget the planned global action day on the 20th of August!!!!!
DONATIONS
Of course we need money to be able to support the prisoners. Please give donations, if you can, to:
EA-Berlin
Sonderkonto Klaus Schmidt
Postgiro Berlin
Bankcode (BLZ) 100 100 00
Accountnr. (Ktnr.) 206 10-106
Code (Stichwort): Genua
or
Radio 2000 Blackout
Via Antinori 3
Torino
S.A.S. 36322105
WHAT ELSE CAN BE DONE
You can send protest faxes to the italian government.
Immediate release of the (G8)- prisoners!!!!!
Portavoce camera: 0039 06 679 14 07
Coordinamento della communicazione: 0039 677 938 6475
(Berlusconis government)
Ministries:
Giustizia/ Justice: 0039 06 688 91 493
Interni/ Internal affairs: 0039 06 465 95 99
Difesa/ Defense: 0039 06 488 57 56
By the way, we now moved back to the place where everything happened, to Genua.
Original: UPDATE FROM THE PRISONER SUPPORT GROUP MILANO (09.08.01)