After being found guilty on the grounds of the Rocco code and escaping to Brittany, Italy has requested that he be extradited. Activation of French people and intellectuals under the slogan "Arrest Us Too"
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| [Vincenzo Vecchi] |
Vincenzo Vecchi is one of the "ten of Genoa," the activists who have been condemned for the clashes that occurred during the anti-G8 demonstration that took place in 2001. Intellectuals, university professors, and the residents of a small village in the north of France are fighting to ensure that Vincenzo Vecchi does not end up in prison. On the basis of the rules of the Rocco code, which was created during Mussolini's reign, a judgement from 2009 determined that Vecchi should spend twelve and a half years in jail for "devastation and looting." This was based on the provisions of the code. According to the accusation, all that is required to be deemed guilty is for the defendant to have been present in an area where there was disruption, to have been photographed or identified, to have smiled or shown "empathy" for the events that were taking place. Therefore, all that is required to be arrested is physical presence at the protest.
After the judgement was handed out in the Italian court, Vecchi fled to France in order to avoid being arrested. It was requested that he be extradited by Italy. On the basis of an arrest warrant issued in Europe, he was taken into custody at that location in August of 2019. After that, he was freed based on the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Rennes, which concluded that there had been an error in the procedure. Following an appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court, the case was referred back to the Angers Court of Appeal, which found the reasoning for the punishment to be insufficiently specific. The protester was accused of vandalizing a car as well as a financial institution. However, the judges emphasized that even if Vecchi was "in the vicinity" for these two crimes, this did not prove cooperation since proximity alone cannot establish guilt. In addition, since the crime of "devastation and plunder" is not a crime that may be committed in France.
In spite of the fact that French court has decided in favor of the activist on two separate occasions, things may go from bad to worse for the Genoese in the future. The Court of Justice of the European Union has decided that France is unable to challenge the execution of the European arrest warrant. As a result, the matter has been sent back to the French Court of Cassation for a decision, which is scheduled to be made on October 11th.
The story is receiving significant media coverage in France, where activists, intellectuals, and the residents of Rochefort-en-Terre, a Breton village with 650 souls where Vecchi has lived since 2011, are fighting against the extradition of the Genoese. Vecchi is one of the Genoese men who is being sought for questioning in connection with the case. The former activist's friendships in Brittany proved to be quite beneficial. After he was taken into custody, his fellow villagers quickly put together a support group consisting of around sixty individuals. The group issued a statement in which it said that the court of Justice "expresses the political determination to repress and eradicate any kind of protest in its most fundamental form, the freedom to demonstrate." This kind of regulation, which undermines individual liberty, also makes it feasible to conceal state brutality, as was the case during the deadly suppression of the counter-summit that took place in Genoa in 2001.
In the most recent weeks, a number of different letters have been sent by members of civil society in addition to a series of rallies that have been organized in support of man. A letter that was written by numerous French academics and delivered to Le Monde states, "This statute of Mussolini provenance directly affects the freedom to demonstrate and represents a significant assault on the most essential values." According to the continuation of the letter, this regulation had one and only one goal: "to suppress any dissent to the dictatorship, authorizing the indiscriminate repression of protests."
"The institution of the crime of passive complicity, which allows demonstrators who they found themselves in the vicinity of the commission of a crime, without their participation having to be proven, is the distinguishing feature of this incrimination, destruction, and looting, whose very name is meant to strike fear into the hearts of listeners. This is a crime whose very name is intended to scare. The very fact that they are there counts as "moral support" for the cause ", says the paragraph.
An open letter written by more than a hundred Belgian and French attorneys, academics, artists, and trade unionists states, "A sentence based on a Mussolini legislation cannot be implemented in 2022." The letter was signed by these individuals. "We all committed the same crime as Vincenzo, and this must be stated in the clearest possible terms. If he is required to do twelve and a half years in jail for this, then we should also serve time for our involvement in the crime. The letter comes to a conclusion by saying, "We too risk this criticism."
Six hundred people were hurt, 360 people were arrested, damages totaled 25 million euros, and Carlo Giuliani was killed. What took place during the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001 was, in the opinion of Amnesty International, "the worst violation of human and democratic rights in a Western country since the Second World War." The European Court of Human Rights has reprimanded Italy on three separate occasions for its use of torture, as well as for its inhumane and degrading treatment of protesters, as well as for its failure to bring criminal charges against those responsible for the violent repression, namely law enforcement officers and their superior. Since the deadly conflicts that occurred during the G8 summit in Genoa, more than 20 years have passed. Even though more than 20 years have gone, some of the protesters are still dealing with the aftereffects of the sad events that took place during those years.