Moro: over 500 signatures to release the Persichetti archive

“Whoever seizes an archive attacks the freedom of research”. In a few days he collected over 500 signatures for the petition on Change.org to ask for the release of the archive of the former Br Paolo Persichetti, now a historical researcher, author of books and studies on the Red Brigades and the Moro case, investigated for subversive association and aiding and abetting for having, according to the Rome prosecutor’s office, disclosed confidential material of the Moro Commission. Among the signatories, over 60 historians, researchers, university professors and journalists – from Angelo d’Orsi, director of ‘Historia magistra’, to the editorial staff of ‘Zapruder stories in movement’ – who underline the need to “manifest a firm civil response , strong and indignant against what happened “, given, it is argued, that this is not an isolated case but rather only the latest in a series of events” which demonstrates the attack on the freedom of historical research “. “Just think – it is emphasized – of the bill that would introduce the crime of denial on the issue of Foibe, against which several scholars and many associations have been expressing themselves for several months. Again, it is necessary to remember the threats to the historian Eric Gobetti, author of a book also on Foibe or the incredible story of the researcher Roberta Chiroli, first convicted and then fortunately acquitted for having written a thesis on the No-Tav movement “. In the petition, in Italian, French and English, the story of the search of Persichetti and the seizure of “archival material collected after years of patient and painstaking research” and one wonders, given that “according to the prosecutor’s office for 5 years a subversive organization has been active in Italy, but the name of which is not yet known , programs, texts and public proclamations and above all concrete actions (and violent, above all, because without them the 270 bis could not configu rarsi) “, if the reference to 270 bis” was an expedient to allow a more facilitated use of invasive and intimidating investigation tools (stalking, wiretapping, searches and kidnappings), in the presence of less protections for the suspect “. the signatories, it is “all too easy” to play on the biography of Paolo Persichetti, “involved in the season of political violence in Italy and who for this reason has ‘settled his accounts with justice’ and is now an established researcher”, but, they underline, “here it is not a question of personalizing a cause, nor of sanctifying anyone, but of taking a step forward and grasping the serious general significance of this event”. “On the 1970s (and, we add, on any other ‘uncomfortable’ period ), we can and must do historical research “:” the time has come to close a ‘tradition’, dominant in public and political discourse, which considers that period, now 50 years old, as a taboo, untouchable and unmentionable, or can only be narrated with you ndo the mainstream vulgate. For this reason, the seizure of archive material assumes a character of enormous gravity “. To date, the petition continues,” a fellow researcher no longer has his archive built with years of patient and hard work, collected by studying the funds available at the Central State Archives; the historical archive of the Senate; the Library of the Chamber of Deputies; the Library of modern and contemporary history; the State Exchange; the Archives of the Court of Appeal of Rome “or even with” documents found in open sources, institutional online portals, oral testimonies, life experiences, biographical paths, and notes, diagrams, notes and materials with which he was preparing books and research projects, also together with other scholars and scholars “.” What happens to our colleague Paolo Persichetti concerns us all closely: it is a very serious intimidation that must alert us all, especially those who work in research history on the 70s, but also in all the research “.