After over a year of reflection, the Federal Court in Lausanne has refused to grant conditional liberty to Marco, relying (as done by previous officials) on a political principle that, not dissociating Marco from his political position, the conditional release must be denied for him. The Supreme Court of Switzerland also reaffirms the political position of not to release him from prison.
Let’s take a quick look at the history of the applications presented, because Marco could get conditional release:
From May 2012 Marco could be released on probation having already served two thirds of his sentence. One question, the Office for the prison administration in Zurich, was dismissed on April 13, 2012. Against that decision was opposed the appeal, rejected first by the “Direction for justice and the interior of the canton of Zurich,” before “Court for the cantonal administration “rimandasse approve the appeal and the case to the Office for the prison administration place Feldstrasse in Zurich. It comes back to a hearing of Marco, but in February 2013, is prevented the exit out of prison on probation. The reason given is still in its denunciation of “chronic violence and worldview that promotes crime”, the meaning of which goes well understood and emphasizes why Marco is denied freedom. It would have been better (more frequently) that officials had been able to write simply that Marco is a revolutionary anarchist.
In the formulation given by the Federal Court about the release some other things are stated, with the same content. The reason why Marco cannot be released is the lack of “a waiver that is credible compared to the previous violence and of a clear distance from the use of violence as a means of political clash”. Now, given the global reality characterized by the crisis and by the tendency to war, it is an incredible naivete to do so, as if violence is not a political means or politically motivated. As in the Court there are not only naive judges, what remains is only the political reason. Marco does not have to go out, because it supports an integrate position, against violence of Power. Obviously this is not good for the justice, they clearly want to see him behind bars.
On one point, however, appears a contradiction between the “Office responsible for prisons” of Zurich and the “Control Authority of bourgeois justice” of Lausanne, about the benefits of punishment which, according to the Federal Court, are to ensure right away. Thus, the Federal Court wrote that the liberation is to estimate the maximum for May 2018. This would mean to give the full sentence to Marco, allusion not particularly strange about what the court thinks of a premature parole. Because now “goal of the prison” in Switzerland is that every prisoner at the end of penalty should be able to live unpunished and this includes a gradual approach to life outside prison, the court wrote that “now must be seriously verified the steps towards softening the conditions of detention”. The Office responsible for the prison administration has so far prevented the realization of every step in this direction, which goes to show what this ruling means for the prison conditions imposed on Marco.
Free Marco!
You can write to Marco at:
Marco Camenisch, PF 38, 6313 Menzingen, Switzerland
(Don’t forget to put your name and address on the envelope)