Tag: Fascism

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Fighting fascist repression: Free Askatasuna! (article published in Effimera, ITA)

On Thursday, 18th December, the police evicted and closed down one of the most important social centres in Italy: the Askatasuna, in Turin, where I live. Aska was (and still is!) an important infrastructure for the city and for many of us. I took part in public debates there, listened to concerts, did my own music, and many have used the space to think, to organise, and to provide public services to the neighbourhood of Vanchiglia and to the city.

I took part in the demonstrations that followed on the night of the eviction, as well as on Saturday, the 20th. The police attacked us with teargas and water cannons, militarising the entire city centre for two full days. We are going to continue our fight. It is not just about Aska, which has been closed following the upsurge of struggles against the military, and for Palestine, in Turin in the last two years. It is about our collective capacity to stay together, alive and in a meaningful way.

I wrote an article in the magazine Effimera discussing the events and the hate (from the right, the centre and the left) fueling the eviction of a place like Aska.

The piece can be read, in Italian, here: https://effimera.org/askatasuna-e-il-controllo-violento-della-violenza-di-michele-lancione/

On my Instagram profile, I’ve also documented the violence of the Police.

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Against the intromission of the far-right in our Universities – interview with il Manifesto

Today, the journalist Luciana Cimino wrote a piece for Il Manifesto on how the Italian government is strengthening control over universities. The problems are twofold. On the one hand, there is the proposal of inserting someone appointed by the Government into the board of directors of every Italian academic institution. On the other hand, the government will directly appoint the director of the Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research System.

These are troubling developments, which are related to the willingness of the far-right Meloni’s government to control academic life and freedom of expression at its roots. Such a willingness takes the form both of direct intervention into the governance of the University sector, but also through the violent repression by police forces of students organising. These include, as I have indicated previously, practices of intimidation and espionage directed against student-led movements (recently, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Education has invited university rectors to keep student protests “under control”).

In my interview with Luciana, whom I thank for her investigative work, I stated:

The measures concerning ANVUR and university governance are part of a reform process that began under Berlusconi’s right-wing government, but there has been a change of pace under Meloni’s government, explained Michele Lancione, professor at the Polytechnic University of Turin, to Il Manifesto. “They are no longer content with the corporatisation of universities, but want to give research an ideological slant and a political mandate”. “There is certainly a relentless drive,” Lancione notes, “beyond the desire to put universities at the service of the country’s military-industrial complex, there is also a desire to gag them. We must mobilise with students to defend the university space as a public good.”

Il Manifesto, 17 October 2025
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Antifascist University Alliance – a new initiative in Turin

Today, we had our first meeting in Turin of our new antifascist university alliance.

This is a renewed form of activism that links our anti-fascist praxis to anti-militarism and the need to defend the terrain of our universities in order to fight inside and outside them. It comes out of the increased militarization and policing of our University spaces, as well as to fight the far-right acceleration of the political and societal spheres in Italy.

In our first public meeting, we talked about foibe (for a brief intro on the topic see here) with Eric Gobetti and Bruno Maida.

If you work in the university world in Turin, you can sign up and read our Manifesto here (in Italian): https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSenJkDVdA3i7h8FUqCUo2S-oG_uoICo4FY-TO4rReTSA1phbA/viewform?usp=sf_link

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In memory of Moussa Balde

Today I am turning 38, and all I can think about is that the city I have chosen to live in, the city where my life is continuing and extending, is the same place where last Sunday Moussa Balde had to take his life as the only possible choice, the only possible way forward.

For the international friends, here we are talking about a 23 years old young Guinean man, who travelled across deserts and sea to reach this place – where he got jailed, then beaten up by fascists on the streets, then incarcerated again in one of the ‘centres for repatriation’ (Cpr).

The silencing of the potential of his life – the shutting down of all possible reverberations of his becoming – is a violent act that came before Moussa’s decision to commit suicide in the CPR’s cell where he was locked in. It is ingrained in European migration politics, in its Italian implementation, and in the everyday life of a city that does not simply ‘turn its back’ away, but it fires against, its so-defined ‘other’.

What kind of inhabitation is this? What kind of home?

Rest in power, Moussa Balde.