Free Trieste

Roberto Giurastante addresses the citizens in front of Trieste’s Palace of the Government during a sit-in.

Friday, July 17th, 2015. One more sit-in in front of Trieste’s Palace of the Government. The palace hosts the Commissioner of the Italian Government. This authority is in charge of the present-day Free Territory of Trieste’s local, civilian Government. Her name is Francesca Adelaide Garufi.

Today we lodged the new signature of Trieste citizens who support Free Trieste’s “Charter of Rights“.

The document was first presented on May 20th, 2015, with the first 19 signatures: citizens and enterprises are requesting the Commissioner of the Italian Government to protect them. Indeed, the other local authorities simulate Italian sovereignty over the Free Territory of Trieste, depriving its people of their rights, including representation, and forcing them, even in breach of Italian laws, to pay undue Italian taxes.

Since May, more than 500 citizens signed the “Charter of Rights” to protect the rights of the people of the Free Territory of Trieste. We requested to present the signatures to the Commissioner directly, to stress how urgent her intervention is. If she does nothing, the very social stability of a land is at stake, because the local system of corruption only cares about plundering it.

The people are suffering, and the silence of Italian Government’s top representative in unbearable. While the local, pro-Italian parties prepares the 2016 election, attempting to divide the people of Trieste and to silence Question Trieste once again, the international Free Port of Trieste must withstand the final attack.

Italy wants to close “case” Trieste within the earliest months of 2016, cancelling the Free Territory and the rights of its citizens.

“Free Territory of Trieste. Our right and your duty”.

The Commissar of Government, from the highs of her “special” powers, refused to meet us. Locked in the Palace of the Government, she who should protect Trieste from abuses committed in the name of Italy, a third State, declines her responsibility. She choses silence over duly answers, requested to her in the name of the Law.

Speaking of the law. What law does this officer respond to? At the entrance of her office there is a sign about the monumental palace, built in the Austria Empire era. According to the sign, the building belongs to Italy under the 1919 Treaty of Saint Germaine.

Too bad for (for Italy) that Trieste was only annexed in 1920, well after WWI, with the Treaty of Rapallo. And too bad (for the 1948 Republic) that in 1947 all of the Kingdom of Italy’s assets within the city were transferred, by virtue of the Italian Peace Treaty, to another, new sovereign State: the Free Territory of Trieste.

Denying justice to people who stand for legality. Denying the law and the validity of international treaties. Governing, against the law, in the name of a nationalistic Italian lobby. All of this against the Free Territory of Trieste and its citizens. In a land without law, the anger of the oppressed folk is smoldering beneath the ashes.

Translated from blog “Ambiente e Legalità” – “Environment and Legality” by Roberto Giurastante

Translation note: this is the plate about the ownership of public properties in Trieste