Operation Ritrovo

During the night of May 13, 2020, seven anarchists were arrested between Bologna, Milan and Tuscany, five others were required to reside in the municipality of residence and the anarchist documentation space Il Tribolo in Bologna was searched. The repressive operation, called 'Ritrovo', was coordinated by the public prosecutor Stefano Dambruoso and the Carabinieri of the ROS (Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale), who carried out the arrests and searches jointly with the provincial command of the Carabinieri of Bologna.

The seven arrested are charged with article 270bis of the penal code (subversive association with the purpose of terrorism or subversion of the democratic order), the other charges relate to articles 414 (incitement to commit a crime), 639 (defacement and soiling) and 635 (damage). One person is accused of article 423 (fire) for the incendiary attack of December 16, 2018, against some telecommunications antennas located in San Donato in Bologna and intended for the transmission of national and local television networks. On the site was left the writing "Turn off the antennas, awaken consciences. Solidarity with the anarchists detained and under surveillance."

The repressive forces affirm that the arrested anarchists are accused of having created a subversive-terrorist association having "the objective of affirming and spreading the anarchic-insurrectionalist ideology, as well as instigating, with the diffusion of propaganda material, the commission of acts of violence against the institutions." Furthermore, the public prosecutor's office of Bologna, with the help of the regime's media, underlined that the precautionary measures assume a «strategic preventive value aimed at avoiding that in any further moments of social tension, arising from the particular emergency situation [linked to the coronavirus epidemic], other moments of more general anti-State struggle campaign can take place."

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Italy