March 1999

Repression and the "Musti Affair"

A few days ago, in the morning, one of my roommates answered the phone and an unknown female voice said: 'There's a package for Mr. [my real surname], nay, for Luther Blissett... It's on your floor's landing, at your neighbor's door". I went out and ran into a smelly card-board box. I opened it carefully and found a severed pig head.
It's just one of the several threats we've gotten from someone who isn't pleased with our "Children of Satan" campaign. Of course these people know that I'm one of our collective Spiderman's Peter Parkers. Well, we've got some plausible suspicions, those clowns will get the fucking thing up their sorry asses before they can say "ehm...".
This update is about our libel court case and other related events. Those of you who are yet unaware of the case (which originated from our book *Lasciate Che I Bimbi: "Pedofilia", un pretesto per la caccia alle streghe* [Let The Children...: "Pedophilia" as a Pretext for a Witch Hunt], 1997) can have a look at
<http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/6812/ramp2.html>. This website badly needs to be updated and revised, I'll do it myself ASAP. All the same, it contains a fairly good account from the publication of the book to Summer 98.
Luckily, the book wasn't banned, there was no preventive seizure of the copies. The next hearing is scheduled for 11 November 1999. In the meanwhile, Deputy District Attorney Lucia Musti filed an appeal against the full acquittal of the Children of Satan, putting in a 250-pages-long, groundless objection to the sentence. As always, her text didn't make references to any evidence or reliable testimony. Moreover, she's looking for some other nark to lie in court and slander the defendants. To make things worse, a few copycat McMartin-like trials are going on in other Italian towns...
The tangly events that have unfolded since the fateful day we decided to write the book inspired a thicker and more scholarly essay entitled *Nemici Dello Stato: Criminali, "Mostri" e Leggi Speciali nella Società di Controllo* [Enemies of the State: Criminals, "Monsters" and Special Laws in the Society of Control], which will be available in Italian bookstores on March 12th.
And now, the latest stunts and coups-de-theatre.

From La Repubblica-Bologna, 15 January 1999, Thursday, p.V:

SATAN AND THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR COME ON THE SCENE

Dimitri-Musti Clash Becomes A Play - Black Mass Court Trial To Be Staged at Teatro Polivalente Occupato

by Luigi Spezia

The "Dimitri affair" became a theatrical performance, as happened to the "Sofri affair" staged by Dario Fo. Indeed, this performance focuses on the magistrate that ordered the detention of the president of the Children of Satan, thereby the title is "Il caso Musti" [The Musti Affair]. The Bolognese Satan's judicial misadventure will be staged on January 30th at TPO ("teatro polivalente occupato") in via Irnerio [a notorious squatted building, t.n.], a place patronized by Luther Blissett, the collective agent of alternative counter-information who assailed Deputy DA Musti's inquiry on black masses. The magistrate refused to comment on the latest "provocation".
*Il Caso Musti* is authored by Riccardo Paccosi, an actor and playwright belonging to Amorevole Compagnia Pneumatica [...] It will be performed in the context of a benefit show to raise funds for Luther Blissett's court costs. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Musti brought a libel suit against Blissett after the publication of the book *Lasciate che i bimbi*, which bitterly criticized the Dimitri inquiry.
*La Repubblica* contacted a spokesperson for Luther Blissett's "Permanent Workshop on Censorship and Repression", which might also be described as "the producer" of *Il Caso Musti*. He stated: 'Dimitri will get some money too. He's completely pennyless since his release from prison. IACP [Council Housing Institute, t.n.] is about to evict him. Although he was innocent, he's got such a wrecked reputation that nobody is giving him any job'.
On January 30th, the performance will be staged twice during a Latin/tropical dancing party. TPO, that was squatted three years ago [...], will turn into a sort of sauna, given that the temperature will rise up to 35 deg. C, 'in order to escape from this bleak Inquisition winter'.
Marco Dimitri gave some advice for the performance: 'Last Summer [...] these guys asked for my authorization, which I was very glad to give them. I didn't see the rehearsals nor did I read the script, but I provided them with first-hand accounts of the case. I support this work because people must be aware of how risky is the judiciary [...]'.As to Luther Blissett, he declared that Marco Dimitri's judicial mishap 'is theatrically appealing. The case is an Odissey, and the magistrate is an interesting character as well'. Nobody asked the latter's authorization though. It seems that Luther Blissett doesn't fear another suit by Mrs. Musti [...] Riccardo Paccosi is a young author. He took part to the "Luther Blissett Situationautic Theater', now disbanded, which was devoted to street rioting [...] He describes himself as 'an actor who tries to turn art into ethics and then into politics'. [...] 'The play's targets are three: the Catholic Church that backed the inquiry, the judiciary and the media'.

From *Il Resto del Carlino* [Bologna right-wing daily paper], 24 January 1999:

VIA IRNERIO THEATER TO BE EVACUATED

Illegal performances in spite of safety irregularities - The DA Office informs the City Hall - A Show on Prosecutor Musti?

by Biagio Marsiglia

In the Local Magistrate's Court the rumor is official [bullshit! If it's a rumor, then it cannot be official; if it's official, then it insn't a rumor. T.n.]. The Teatro Polivalente Occupato in via Irnerio could be evacuated by the police by the end of next week. This situation, which has been tolerated for a long time (at least two years), suddenly became an urgent question.
In fact, [...] after the news informed that next Saturday night the illegal theater will host a show entitled *Il caso Musti* (i.e. Lucia Musti, the magistrate who handled the investigations on the sect called "Children of Satan"), the DA office sent an official report, directed to the City Hall's Engineers' Office. Now TPO is an "affair" itself, and nobody can pretend not to know what happens in there [...]

[This is a press release issued by TPO and other squats, Leftist groups and alternative media. The content is provokingly "liberal", in order to piss off Musti and show her that those fucking Autonomists are far from being juridically unprovided.]

THE HIGH BOARD OF THE JUDICIARY MUST SUSPEND LUCIA MUSTI FROM HER OFFICE AND HER SALARY

Bologna, 25 January 1999

[...] [Lucia Musti's move] striked us as an attempt at interfering in the hazardous negotiation between occupied clubs and the City Hall, to make the latter lay an iron hand on the guilty of *crimen lesae majestatis* [lese-majesty crime]. This is an extremely irresponsible behavior, susceptible of provoking tension and make this problem even worse. We are facing an intolerable, hideous preventive censorship of a cultural manifestation whose content is yet unknown. By a groundless pretext (safety), freedom of information and satire is injured, in obvious contradiction with the 21st Article of the Constitution ("Everyone has a right to freely express their thoughts by speech, writing and any other means of propagation"). Should an entire community be forced to (literally!) pay for the private grudges of a touchy magistrate? Let's break through the enemy's lines, and take the field of knowledge that - presumably - pertains to Musti. In this case, we find sufficient grounds to charge her with 'abuse of official duties' and 'pursuit of private interest in public function'. The substance of the offence invalidates the reliability of both this magistrate and this District Attorney Office. Musti is not new to infringements and violations: her behavior during the inquiry on the Children of Satan striked us as contrary to virtually every fundamental principle of the Constitution [...] and many articles of the Declaration of Human Rights [...] Musti is not new to the intrusion of her personal opinions into his investigations, either: a few weeks ago, she announced an inquiry on the Animal Liberation Front and stated: 'I'm crazy for furs. I used my first salary as a judge to buy myself a mink coat'. A magistrate who declares his/her preconceptions towards the people subject to preliminary inquiry acts in violation of the Code of Penal Procedure, whose art. 326 obliges public prosecutors to 'ascertain any fact and circumstance that can exculpate the person subject to preliminary inquiry'.
All this considered, we urge the Disciplinary Section of the High Board of the Judiciary to intervene and suspend Musti from her duties and her salaries, in all cases granting food checks not exceeding the terms of law. Alternatively, we ask for official censure and removal to another court.

Coordinamento "2001 Odissea negli spazi"

(Teatro Polivalente Occupato, Luther Blissett Project, Link, Livello 57, il Covo, Sottotetto, Grafton 9, Zero in condotta, Radio K Centrale, Coordinamento gruppi teatrali, Bambini di Satana)

The sensation caused by our reaction forced the City Hall to officially state that TPO wouldn't be evacuated. On 30 January, about 800 people attended *Il caso Musti*.

F.P. Belletati, Bologna, Italy