Solidarity with Autistici/Inventati.

On August 26, the US Departments of State and the Treasury designated the Autistici/Inventati collective as a “global terrorist organization,” imposing sanctions on it. The collective has published a statement on its blog.

We express our full solidarity with Autistici/Inventati.

For more than twenty years, Autistici/Inventati has provided the kinds of free and safe communication spaces where we came of age: among email accounts, mailing lists, and collectively run web spaces, we learned the skills that would serve us, met the communities we grew up with, and discovered that another way of doing technology — without owners, without profit, based on trust and mutual help — is possible.

The designation is baseless: not a measure against terrorism, but an attempt to strike at the support structures of antifascism. It targets independent infrastructure run by volunteers, used by people and grassroots communities to organize, defend themselves and their rights, and communicate safely. It is an attack on self-determination and the right to associate.

We stand with the friends and comrades of Autistici/Inventati. To anyone unfamiliar with their story, we recommend the collective’s book, +kaos, an essential text for understanding media activism and self-organizing, and this article on their history and the campaign in their defense.