Thursday, September 8, 2005
Hunger strikers' news
This is the last day in the first week of our hunger strike. We are still in good shape and receive a lot of solidarity.Prodi should speak out. We gave a statement to the press yesterday about our request to meet Romano Prodi, in order to ask him to openly express his mind about the refusal of the visa. Fini's decision to refuse the visa is very serious because it implies the end of even a show of national sovereignity and because it is a violation of the constitutional right to the free expression of thought. A clear position is therefore required from everybody, the more so from a person campaigning to rule the country.
The hunger strike is also aimed at opening an honest and public debate about the future Italian policies on Iraq and about the defence of democratic liberties in our country endangered by the US attempt to impose its imperial claims all over the world.
The letter from Iraq. In the same statement we informed the press about the task we have been given as organizers of the international conference to hand over a letter to Romano Prodi written by 26 Iraqi personalities and organizations representing a very large section of forces opposing the military occupation.
The signatory persons address Prodi directly in view of "a real chance to launch a constructive and fundamental dialogue within the political elite about the moral responsibility of your country following the ongoing Iraqi tragedy, which is a consequence of the American occupation". The Italian press chose today not to write about this letter (the only exception is the PRC daily Liberazione where an article was for the first time devoted to our struggle today). We believe that this silence is the sign of widespread political embarrassment.
Statement by Claudio Martini. The president of the Toscana region, Claudio Martini, released some declarations on the international conference and the refusal of the visa. Martini says that the government should "state the reasons for refusing the visa to the Iraqi speakers" and clear the table "from any suspicion of preemptive censorship or limitation of the right of information".
These are in our opinion clear words aimed at stopping the attack to the conference led in Toscana by Forza Italia. Martini declared also that the request made to him by Forza Italia (in a motion at the Regional Council) to prohibit the conference was unacceptable.
Greetings to everybody from the comrades in hunger strike.
