The Askatasuna social center was evicted "after 30 years of illegality and violence," and Saturday's demonstration had been organized in advance and was a "showdown with the state."

This was stated by Matteo Piantedosi in a briefing to the Chamber of Deputies on the clashes in Turin. The Interior Minister praised the "great work done," which "prevented the much more serious damage that the protesters had planned." The ministry "had ordered the deployment of a significant reinforcement force—approximately 1,000 police officers—and, at the same time, implemented careful territorial control and monitoring measures at train stations, the airport, highway toll booths, and border crossings, specifically to intercept, with the support of intelligence gathering by the police authorities at the points of departure, the arrival of individuals known for specific criminal records."

Saturday's initiative "had been preceded and announced, on January 17, by a meeting called by Askatasuna at the University of Turin, attended by around 750 people, including numerous activists from various branches of the national antagonism, members of grassroots trade unions, the No Tav movement and environmental groups, representatives of the CGIL, the Alliance of the Greens and the Left party, and the local Islamic community."

And on that occasion, Piantedosi reconstructed, "in relaunching the appointment for the national demonstration in solidarity with Askatasuna, it was emphasized—and I quote—that the march would constitute 'a showdown with the democratic state,' as the eviction of Askatasuna raises the bar of the conflict."

Again: "We are faced with a strategy that aims to raise the level of conflict with the institutions and which, through disorder and violence, aims to consolidate the anarcho-antagonist galaxy and galvanize its adherents." The minister speaks of a "raising of the level of conflict which, in some ways and albeit with variations, recalls the squadrist and terrorist dynamics that have characterized certain phases of our past."

Saturday's riots, the minister emphasized, "confirm the true face of the antagonists hosted in illegally occupied social centers, sometimes even thanks to clearly identifiable political fronts. I believe that those who march end up offering them the prospect of impunity."

With the new security decree (tomorrow's Council of Ministers, ed.), "we are working to introduce specific measures aimed at making screening and prevention even more effective, such as police detention of potentially dangerous individuals whose intentions and behaviors are already known. Similar tools, after all, exist in some European legal systems without anyone crying foul of an attack on democracy."

(Unioneonline/L)

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