The Florentine charity Pantagruel has long been involved in work with other non-profit making organisations in relation to the application of life sentences in Italy. It is, in fact, actively engaged in trying to promote the abolishment of life detention and has become a reference institution in this field also by means of the creation of a permanent office working on the significant related topics.

Through the ‘Never Say Never’ campaign –which the charity not only supported but helped achieve-, about 300 Italian life detention prisoners came into action at the end of May 2007 by writing a letter to the president of the Italian republic where they expressed their will not to die a little by little but, if necessary, to die once and for all. In other words, they asked the president to change their life sentences into death sentences so as to provoke at least thought on what it means to be condemned for a whole lifetime.

On the first of December 2007 nearly 800 life detention prisoners and about 13.000 others –among which other prisoners, relatives, friends, people informed on the facts and voluntary workers belonging to various charities and organisations- began a hunger strike demanding that discussion on the topic of abolishment of the life sentence be brought on in parliament and that the proposal brought forward in this respect by Maria Luisa Boccia should also be discussed.

Now, the organisation is engaged in promoting the following:

•  publication of a book called ‘Never Say Never. The Awakening Of The Damned’. It is the a story of how life detention prisoners came to think it was necessary to go on hunger strike in 2007 and what happened during the strike itself. The book is completed by many poems, letters and thoughts written by the prisoners themselves during that period, referring obviously to life detention;
•  presenting the European Court on Human Rights in Strasburg with the formal requests signed by many Italian life detention prisoners demanding for it to pronounce itself against life detention as it is applied in Italy;
•  on the first of December 2008, life detention prisoners and all that share their conviction that it is wrong to keep someone in prison for life, will go on hunger strike once more. This time though, the strike will regard a different prison every week and will concern the entire nation.

A new organisation, which will be called ‘Liberarsi’ (to become free) will soon come into being. It’s goal will be involvement in fighting life detention as well as contrasting penitentiary differentiation both on a local, national and international scale.

Associazione Liberarsi c/o Associazione Pantagruel
Via Tavanti, 20 – 50134 – FIRENZE (Italia)
Tel/fax 00.39.055.47.30.70
e-mail: assliberarsi at tiscali.it