Analysis
Italy’s emergency response, not to climate change but to climate protests
Beyond complaints and fines for various protest actions across the country, never before has any prosecutor gone so far as to speculate that Ultima Generazione is actually a criminal conspiracy, thus equating it with organized crime.
From “ecovandals” to “ecocriminals” was a very short step to take for the Prosecutor’s Office of Padua, which has placed 12 activists of Ultima Generazione, aged between 21 and 57, on the register of suspects for criminal conspiracy.
The decision was made by prosecutor Benedetto Roberti, who chose to pursue the investigation launched by DIGOS in 2020 after posters against the “destructive big business” of clothing chains were found on the city’s walls.
What happened next, according to investigators, was a series of “organized flash mobs, discussed and vetted” by what they consider to be a real organization. Hence the charge of criminal conspiracy, which came with a search of the home of the young man identified as the leader of the criminal gang. Roberti’s theory casts Last Generation as a local cell of an international organization, Extinction Rebellion.
The other crimes alleged are interruption of public services, obstruction of free movement, defacement of cultural property and defacement of places. The list of alleged offenses ranges from blocking traffic to passive resistance, from writing on walls to unauthorized demonstrations, including the September 21, 2022 “performance” in which the young demonstrators, playing the roles of then-Energy Transition Minister Cingolani and Lega Secretary Salvini, acted out murdering a little girl by burying her in coal.
Two weeks earlier, the carabinieri – brought in “to protect the confidentiality of the investigation” – stopped a number of militants as they attempted to spray paint the League’s headquarters in Noventa Padovana during the election campaign. “The youths were stopped with the instruments ready for use,” read the statement from the police headquarters.
“In certain circumstances,” DIGOS claims, “only the immediate intervention of state police personnel and the ability of the local police of Padua to manage traffic emergencies prevented both the occurrence of violent episodes as a result of reactions of protest by motorists and more serious repercussions on city rush hour traffic.”
This investigation is a first since climate activists appeared on the scene: beyond complaints and fines for various protest actions across the country, never before has any prosecutor gone so far as to speculate that Ultima Generazione is actually a criminal conspiracy, thus equating it with organized crime. Also, one cannot overlook the fact that the investigation is being pushed forward at the same time as the government is approving fines of up to €60,000 for those who deface cultural property. And the latter ended up more reasonable than expected, at least taking into account that the bill first proposed by Fratelli d’Italia included jail time.
It’s an all-out war on what the government considers to be an emergency: not the coming climate catastrophe, but young people demanding urgent action and making demonstrative protests to try to draw attention to the issue. News reports in recent months have often spoken of blockades in the streets and paint being thrown at buildings and works of art, from black dye on Bernini’s Barcaccia in Rome to spray painting the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.
In any case, the Prosecutor’s Office in Padua had already shown itself to be very amenable to the government’s demands just five days ago, when it requested from the municipality the records related to the residency registration of 32 children, all of same-sex couples.
“The repression continues,” reads Ultima Generazione’s Facebook page. “Nonviolent citizens treated as if they were mafiosi.” According to the environmental movement, “people who had not directly participated in the action” were also lumped in with the others. “And one of them was arbitrarily deemed the leader. This is the law of the Wild West, not the law of a democratic state.”
Green Left Alliance House group leader Luana Zanella expressed solidarity, while the Lega praised the “excellent work” of the Paduan investigators.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/padova-allarme-spray-la-procura-si-scatena-contro-gli-ecoattivisti on 2023-04-16