To all comrades and to those who signed the original letter
We are writing to you after the termination of the first instance of the trial for defamation in Aquila which began in January 2018, in which three comrades were taken to court after the letter we all signed. The Court of L’Aquila opened a trial for three feminist activists called to answer for aggravated defamation against Valentini, the lawyer of the former soldier Francesco Tuccia. According to the letter written by the feminist activists who attended the trial hearings, every level of the judgement exposed the young woman to new and further humiliations. Valentini was invited at the International women’s house in Rome for another event related to the earthquake of Aquila. The group of feminists wrote this letter explicitly describing what happened and who Valentini was and asking not to allow him in such a symbolic and important place for women in Rome).
The trial was very fast and ended during summer 2019, after only two judicial hearings. Three comrades were convicted of “defamation without any aggravating circumstance of intentionality”. All the phases that this story has gone through over the past few years are described in our blog ciriguardatutte.noblogs.org . During the trial they didn’t accept the defense texts that that would have given account of the circumstances and the political background in which the letter was written, or context from the city of Aquila where certain information about the lawyer Valentini was already common knowledge. This situation was explained during the hearing and the Judge himself has admitted that the dissemination of the letter was very limited, i.e. to a closed mailing list, with very few subscribers, a cc between friends, a chat on messenger. These aspects can give you a hint of the orientation of Aquila court, that certainly did not absolve a independent feminist group that pushed another feminist organisation such us “La casa internazionale delle donne” – “The international women house of Rome” not to let in the lawyer Valentini.
The justice of the court does not judge circumstances and context where the facts take place, but rather the political and social personality of who the person who has carried out the alleged crime, it’s a political fact that we know very well, but we tend to forget it. Another aspect that we have previously underlined it was the use of alleged crimes of defamation against feminist solidarity groups within rape trials, linked to how it is used against the women who go through violence and report it. Even the political use of defamation crimes should not surprise us, but rather pushing us to reflect on the inability of the penal code to be neutral or rather to be critical. During these years we discuss the different political points, but we did not succeed in resolving this contradiction: we don’t want to deal with patriarchal justice, but it watches over us all.
Today, we have to pay a huge amount of (2.000 euro for each of us) because the sentences of the three comrades is security for the damage and offense caused to the lawyer Valentini, as well as the trial expenses of (3.500 euro). This is an advanced payment for the compensation request of lawyer Valentini. What struck us most is that Valentini wants to donate the sum of 6.000 euro to “Telefono Rosa” (telephone number for women victims of violence. What a joke!). This pink washing action is obviously a provocation by the lawyer Valentini, but we are sure that women will be able to answer to this situation in the right way. We ask all of you that have supported us during these years to continue your solidarity through this financialstage.
Once again we would like to show that the three comrades are not alone and they represent all of us. So they will not deal personally with this financial sentence.
Perché ci riguarda tutte, perché se toccano una toccano tutte!
It concerns all women/all of us, because if it affects one it affects all of us. if it affects one it affects all of us.
If you want contribute send an email to
ciriguardatutte@inventati.org
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