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25 JANUARY 2019, L’AQUILA: IT CONCERNS US ALL!

On the 25th January 2019 at 12.30 at L’Aquila Tribunal, another trial will take place. The trial will is about our three comrades who will be held accountable for defamation, on charges pressed by Antonio Valentini, the lawyer from L’Aquila known by the feminists as being the lawyer who defended the rapist and soldier Francesco Tuccia.
On November 13, 2015, Antonio Valentini was invited to a seminar organized by the Ilaria Rambaldi Onlus from Lanciano at the international women’s house in Rome. The IWH is a place of symbolic value for women’s freedom. Many took action in response to this situation and eventually the International Women’s house informed the organization of the seminar that lawyer Valentini was banned from entering the women’s house because he was persona non grata. However Valentini did not rest on such terms and sued three women for defamation. The women are guilty of having shared the letter of a woman from L’Aquila who was trying to explain to women from Rome who Valentini really was.
The trial started in January 2018.
It is a difficult trial. The prosecutor’s office decides to pursue the defamation charges, charges based on very few elements, judge Garganella recused almost all of the witnesses of the defense whose strategy was aimed at showing the aggressive and violent attitude Valentini held in defending Francesco Tuccia from the charges of rape.
In that context Valentini defined the rape as a “consensual sexual act which ended badly”.
This was one of the reasons which drove the feminists to take action to prevent Valentini’s presence in the International Women’s house.
In the next hearings, all witnesses of both prosecution and defence will be heard. This is an important hearing, so we invite all comrades to take action and come numerous and thunderous to the hearing in L’Aquila on the 25th of January 2019.
Once again, IT’S CONCERNS US ALL!
Once again, WE GO AND COME BACK ALL TOGETHER!

To go to L’Aquila with us by coach please write us at: ciriguardatutte@inventati.org
To know more about it:

ON RAPE: DO NOT COUNT ON OUR SILENCE!

FACTS

L’Aquila (Italy), 12 February 2012, it is cold and there is snow. Although a year has passed since the earthquake, the city is still destroyed and with the hands of the military. That evening, “Rose” is violated outside a nightclub by Francesco Tuccia One of the military men of the operation of the “safe streets” and left wounded and dying in the parking -14 °.

A complaint is filed and the trial begins.
Antonio Valentini, a well-known local lawyer, defends the rapist Tuccia and bases his defense on the consent of “Rose”.

In court, hundreds of women of L’Aquila and other towns come to support “Rosa”. When the lawyer speaks the words “mutual consent”, we all massively leave the courtroom, Tuccia will be held guilty all charges.

November 13, 2015, Antonio Valentini is invited to speak at the seminar “to the cassation” by the Abruzzo association at the Casa Internazionale delle Donne (International House of Women) in Rome. The incident does not go unnoticed, the lawyer’s name is recognized and many women report the presence of the lawyer of the rapist Tuccia in a place dedicated to women’s policy. The international women’s house wrote a public letter in which they said that the lawyer will be denied entry to the house. The seminar is going as planned but without the lawyer.

May 18, 2016, following a defamation complaint filed by the lawyer of the rapist, the L’Aquila prosecutor sign an order of sequestration of the computer, I-pad and the mobile phone of a woman from Rome, who had broadcast via facebook, chat and mail a letter addressed to women of Aquila, Rome and the International House of women.

A letter can be read below, we invite you to read, sign, and ideally to become all the authors of this letter, because-she says nothing that we would not say.

We invite you to sign, because lawyers who defend rapists are seeking to prove that victims are the culprits, reinforce, perpetuate and reproduce a rape culture in which it is still said “we were asking for it”, “we wore jeans “,” we caused it, “” we liked it “,” we were wearing a mini skirt, “” we were alone, “and the trial turns into yet another act of extreme violence.

THIS IS THE Criminalized LETTER 

At the International Women’s House, I am from L’Aquila, I suffered the earthquake and I lost people, places and dear memories. I do not forget what happened in L’Aquila in 2009 and after, I do not forget the violence and militarization with which the state sought to hide its responsibilities and to monitor those who had experienced the earthquake and repress those who dared fight.
I do not forget the looting done on the backs of evacuated men and women by business-political mafia committees. I do not forget hyenas laughing, nor crying jackals who behind the tears, sharpened their knives.

The first time I saw and heard the lawyer Valentini was in a meeting in L’Aquila in the tents, he claimed he would have defended every evacuated aquilani (inhabitants of L’Aquila). I thought he was a brave man, but then I realized that it was not courage but only an exercise of power. With his strategy, he gained notoriety and in the administrative elections of 2017, if he runs he will get more votes than he received 2002 with his “italic League for Aquila “.

No, I have not forgotten what happened in L’Aquila in 2009 and after.

Approximately 70,000 military arrived from everywhere in Italy to monitor barely 35,000 evacuated men and women in tents. They were the masters of the territory and not the people of Aquila who experienced the earthquake.

When in a room full of audience Bertolaso appeared, I was the only one to challenge him, just about half the room turned against me and sent me to the cops, ” shut her up! ”

They were the bosses of the territory, not the evacuated aquilanis.

No, I have not forgotten what happened in Aquila in 2009 and after.

When on the night of February 12, 2012 at a nightclub in Pizzoli, a young woman of 20, “Rosa” was raped and her life was ended by military man Tuccia, along with two others, belonging to the 33rd Artillery Regiment ‘ Acqui “, employees of the operation ” safe streets “.

They are the masters of the country.

At this time, the lawyer Valentini must befriend the most powerful in the country, those in the armed arm of the state.

That’s how he volunteered to defend the rapist Francesco Tuccia.

During the first hearings, comrades and women came from all over Italy to quickly perceive that in Aquila, military rapists were in an environment that was favorable to them.

I remember the fascist threats addressed to “Rose’s” lawyer, Simona Giannangeli: “I will make you regret defending women …You always have to watch your back, from now on this place is no longer safe for you. ”

I distinctly remember the feeling of disgust and violence that was felt on our skin, when the lawyer said: “There was explicit consent. The practice of fisting assumes a special position of women, absolutely incompatible with small bruises we found on the girl and especially if we realize that she was wearing pants …. ”

Small bruises, lacerations of the genital and digestive system of “Rosa”! 48 stitches to only rebuild the internal damaged parts! We massively left the court in disgust, and indignation of the violent intervention of the lawyer, “friend of all.”

And I also remember that once there was an International House of Women.

A space for all women against gender violence, where they can really feel safe and where solidarity was not rhetoric or hypocrisy, you could feel it, you could squeeze it in your hand, like something precious. Savagery and cowardice of men, concerns all of us, savagery and cowardice of men who in a February night massacred the body and the life of a woman left dying in the snow.

It is clear that the entry of such an individual in a place like this is an insult, a threat to all women and a provocation: why in particular the women’s house? We, we bet our ovaries, that this idea was his, the lawyer, “friend of all.”

It concerns us all!

Thank you to sign individually or collectively this letter and return it to: ciriguardatutte (at) inventati.org “