The requests were presented in Brusselles at the European Parliament on the 4th of November and tomorrow, 1st of December, a hunger strike will be initiated which will involve prisoners –both lifers and common prisoners- throughout Italy and in many cases Europe.

Italy is the only European state – and maybe the only one in the whole world - where you can really pass a lifetime in prison. The emergency laws passed in the time and after the killing of judges Falcone and Borsellino have been in use now for more than twenty years and often this has given way to the enforcement of strictly repressive detention verging on torture –as in the case of the sadly well known 41 bis regime.
It is significant that at the time the Italian state declared that ‘the young shall grow old in prison and the old shall end their life there’ as this is really what is happening.
As the number of suicides linked to the ‘no hope allowed’ detention system rise daily, men who were arrested when they were under twenty and are know 40 or over claim a right to some sort of a new beginning or ask that their life-long penalty be exchanged into execution.
Killing time with them one discovers that clichés and stereotypes often linked to ‘supposedly Mafia’ bosses and mobsters are often far from the real characters of these men who though willing to admit they have ‘fallen’ and ‘made mistakes’ cannot consider the only choice offered by the government to gain back freedom, that is ‘collaboration’ or, to use the Italian word, to become a ‘pentito’; a category sadly famous for destroying reputations and people by trying to buy pity from judges by telling them all they –supposedly- know about ex-associates and their doings – and it is significant that many life sentences have been decided on the basis not of evidence but of declarations by these gentlemen -.
The 739 are now looking for a group of legal advisors, preferably known for their engagement in supporting human rights, who will have the delicate job of following up the requests for legal review of procedures as well as looking into some queries such as why some prisoners effectively made it impossible for inmates to present a request and often operate a systematic loss of letters forwarded to prisoners as well as rendering life for them intolerable.

Recently, a European commission reported on the fact that Italian prisons are among the most crowded, un-healthy and violently repressive establishments of their kind and it is a well known fact even in legal environments that there is an actual clash of interest between the life sentence as it is applied here and what stated in Article 27 of the Italian Constitution which declares that any penalty inflicted on an offender must tend towards rehabilitation end reinsertion into society of that individual.
Personally, both in my role of one of the funding members of the ‘Liberarsi’ organisation –which is supporting the struggle- and as person designed by the 739 as recipient of many of their letters, I have the impression the life sentence as it is today in Italy is not only a solid reminder of justice as applied in the middle ages, but often the excuse for the construction of careers and positions which should not be. Children have grown up seeing fathers and brothers sporadically and beyond thick glass, wives have grown old awaiting the return of a long lost love, sucked in by Italian history even more than by his doings and while Berlusconi, the wonderful show-man, manages to put into place laws which save his self from prosecution –the law in Italy is now the same for everybody except the 4 most important people in the country!- people see even their dreams collapse against the cement and iron of high security prisons from which there is virtually no way out.
Maybe it is because I am privileged in having gained the friendship of some of these men who are struggling in the dark and have had time and time again occasion to notice their humanity, as well as loyalty and kindness, but I feel something should be done or one can truly say that Italy is the land where wolves run free dressed up as lambs while someone else pays for every mistake they make. To learn more about all this, to write directly to one of the 739 or let us know your views or support the action in any way, please visit www.informacarcere.it and check up what’s going on in the ‘Mai Dire Mai’. - Never Say Never! - Section of the website, or, for queries in English, French or Spanish, male  clareholme@yahoo.it