A state failing to prevent foreign sanctions from restricting the freedom of association of its citizens is certainly a breach of article 11. It doesn't matter whether it's caused by a foreign state, the duty of Italy is clearly to ensure freedom of association in practice.
I’m not saying it’s good or that you shouldn’t fight back, only it’s like looking for a court ruling when your neighbour is invading you. They’ll invade you with or without a court ruling.
You could argue that all the nations that have signed up to the ICC have a duty to protect its officers from American sanctions and that is clearly not happening.
It's on them to prosecute people who cooperate with sanctions and the like to retaliate against the judges or lawyers or others working for the court, and they can do that any time they like.
Literally, they can write a warrant for the president of their bank, or the highest Microsoft rep in Europe, or anybody involved in any way, and the ICC-signatory country they're in must hand them over.
They have the authority.
Even if they do win in court, it will be far too late for their thousands of @autistici.org emails. And even with a court victory, there's no guarantee technical intermediaries may ignore US sanctions (despite what EU ruling says). The only real solution is to get rid of US hegemony over the DNS, the banking system, the global military balance, etc.
Nobody is expecting them to win in Italy. The point of the ECHR is you go there after you lose multiple times in your own country and you think your local laws or court system are so unjust that it violates human rights.
> it will be far too late for their thousands of @autistici.org emails
They can accept cash and crypto donations, like any Russian pirate site but easier because the organization itself is still legal in Italy. Getting debanked is always hard but they don't need to give up and shut down everything. Running services at A/I scale is not that expensive, and even if they have to shut down they would let all users know ahead of time so they can archive their data.
"Autistici/Inventati is a Tuscan collective that develops independent IT services and provides email addresses, websites, blogs, and newsletters to other activists and collectives."
«A substantial monopoly by US operators»: very strong words, very important words: those "US operators" are the part that is responsible for having destroyed monetics in the eu - the part that forced NFC on bank cards.
Of course the problem should have been solved immediately. now we have banks with crippled services here.
But in this case, it seems fairly clear that A/I was providing services to organizations listed as Terrorist Organizations by the US, UK, and Canada. Seems like the best way around this is... don't do business with terrorists? I'd understand more if these were ONLY deemed by the US, but this is an international group.
> Banca Etica strongly condemns the use of counterterrorism tools to target political opponents. Evaluations are underway to prevent the closure of the bank account following A/I's inclusion on the US list of terrorist organizations.
This isn't the usual debanking as a political statement, but rather the bank trying not to be sanctioned by the US, a country already bleeding all its soft power and veering heavily into hard power and coercion.
The sanctioning of the ICC prosecutor already showed beyond any doubt the level of moral bankruptcy. The beatings will continue until morale improves.
They can order anyone who impedes them seized and handed over for judgement to the ICC, including bank CEOs and the like participating in retaliatory measures against them. They haven't done this, presumably for political reasons, but they can.
Does someone who works for A/I have to drive to Italy and pick up a briefcase full of cash? Or does the money stay in the bank, inaccessible to A/I, until A/I proves they aren't terrorists? Which could be...forever, since it's basically impossible to improve you're not a terrorist once you're formally included on The Big List Of Terrorists? How do you hire a lawyer to argue your case if the money you would use to pay them has already been taken away?
Except... Deposits still go through! It is intentional to the design that all operations around taking in money be left enabled. Also, it is strictly forbidden to inform someone that the reason for the declining of outgoing transactions is because one is on the SDN.
In short, the goal of imposing sanctions is to lock down the maximum assets possible of a sanctioned entity within the influence of the U.S. financial system.
Your observations about the problematic nature of OFAC are quite astute. You are added at the whims of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government. They won't go out of their way to tell you you are on it, and they don't let anyone else tell you either. There is in theory a process to petition to get off it, but gooooood luck with that.
https://sanctionslawyers.net/ofac-lawyers/how-to-get-off-ofa...
A/I intentionally selects politically aligned groups, provides them with encrypted communications, hosting, anonymity and other infrastructure, and among the groups receiving those services was the PKK.
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/4a3850cc-9186...
Do you have any evidence for that apart from a US executive order, the same that Banca Etica condemns for political motives?
Now their opponents use it and it gets very little press coverage.
It needs to stop. I would not do well in this autistici.org group and they'd probably kick me out on some CoC grounds with their draconian rules and social pressure, but I still cannot get over the fact that you can just destroy a service provider with very little evidence.
All parties need to stop this.
Let's take the UK as example. The organisation mentioned, Palestine Action, was indeed banned under terrorism laws. But on 13 February 2026, the UK High Court has ruled that the ban of Palestine Action under terrorism legislation is unlawful [1]. Why is that ‘fairly clear’ then?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/15/ban-on-pales...
Given that the US governement consider that you are a terrorist if you are not a facist, any good person is considered a terrorist by the US government. UK being the US ball licking state, same.
I don't know which org hosted by A/I is considered terrorist by Canada but I'd like to have sources of actual terrorist attacks perpetuated by these org if they really exist before going deeper in that discussion. Most government now use terrorist word for orgs that act in a total peaceful way. Chaining yourself to a tree might be stupid, but it is not bringing terror anywhere for example yet many gov now label environmental activists as terrorists to discredite them and continue destroying the climate out of greed.
Do you do any business with the US government? Potentially even supporting them financially through taxes? Why are you doing business with terrorists?
It isn't fairly clear, there's no due process, there are no proofs or clues, only Trump's and Shideler's word on that.
That's irrelevant and unrealistic in this case. None of this factored into the US reaching for the sanctions hammer with more and more despicable intentions, like supporting war crimes even of other countries.
An informative note: Banca Etica did protest against that.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/emergencies-act-banks-ottaw... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60383385 https://www.businessinsider.com/trudeau-canada-freeze-bank-a... https://www.newsweek.com/banks-have-begun-freezing-accounts-... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/world/americas/canada-pro...
Maybe we have different ideas of what the mainstream press is? These all seem pretty normal articles, most note what critics are saying of the measures.
It may be apparent to some that some of us browse lots of news: we can say that the more powerful ones are not the most visible. You have to check carefully, to find the "historic milestones" ones.
> they'd probably kick me out
Many of us know they would not accepted given some possible inerpretation of their rules, but we really do not know - who tried?
> you can just destroy a service provider with very little evidence
The whole banking system of a State, and a State itself, some say.
That is such a platitude that I'm not sure if you're serious or you're just attempting Reddit humor.
But if you're serious, at least try to justify what A/I is doing by saying things like terrorism is in the eye of the beholder like Piker does.
Secondly, the truckers opposed forced vaccination despite the fact that they were solitary in their cabins while keeping the economy afloat so that bureaucrats like Trudeau could eat.
Thirdly, I find it worrisome that the GP is downvoted and an indication that autistici.org is a radical org that does not tolerate the slightest dissent. So I guess I have to live with the fact that we either have left wing or right wing nonsense and that autistici.org would also ban anyone if they had power.
Thanks for the reality check.
Sure, but what about users not receiving email? I mean some operators like Riseup could hardcode autistici.org to a new domain to resolve, but not every email operator is going to do this. Or is my understanding that they provide @autistici.org mailboxes wrong?
So if a US person has operated in the territory of a signatory, and committed something suspected to be a covered crime, and there is no US attempt to prosecute them, they can be prosecuted.
The US militarily can't intervene. They don't have the capacity to fight the Dutch, or French or the like, and the political cost of attacking other NATO countries is of course enormous-- it would be the end of the US as a superpower and lead to an actual EU-US war which would probably last for decades. There's a reason the US Servicemen Protection Act has an out, that it doesn't require any action. Think of it, not as a real policy, but as a dog making sure there's a fence between it and another dog before it starts barking.
Offences against the administration of justice
[...]
(c) Corruptly influencing a witness, obstructing or interfering with the attendance or testimony of a witness, retaliating against a witness for giving testimony or destroying, tampering with or interfering with the collection of evidence;
(d) Impeding, intimidating or corruptly influencing an official of the Court for the purpose of forcing or persuading the official not to perform, or to perform improperly, his or her duties;
(e) Retaliating against an official of the Court on account of duties performed by that or another official;"
So I'd say 70 (e) covers the sanctions imposed on those court officials. They are clearly officials of the court, and the sanctions are clearly part of retaliation against them. Consequently it stands to reason that anyone who participates in their enforcement or drafting or really in any way can in principle be prosecuted.
This is so trivially true that it's not worth bringing up in discussoon with anyone who can be taken seriously. It's true for any politically charged word, and terrorism is one of the most political words in the English language.
You don’t want to opt in? No problem. In return the US will apply a punitive fee of, can’t quite remember, 30-50% to all USD transactions you touch. No sanctions, no extraterritorial laws needed. No serious financial institution outside of North Korea can really afford this.
I’d imagine that’s what happened here. The consequences of not complying with the US sanctions would likely be terminal for the bank, and no European court can really contest it. The US’s stranglehold on the global financial ecosystem is incredibly powerful.
You can bring attention all you like. The point is that the US has so much raw power in this kind of food fight that they will just cover you with burger buns and walk past, hardly noticing you were there.
Imagining the law as punishment (or worse, vengeance) is what people did thousands of years ago, and it never ended well. An eye for an eye etc etc.
Surprisingly enough among EU countries, Austria gets relatively close to adherence. Canada is likely the best at it globally (and yes, that takes into account "notwithstanding").
EU countries have different systems, lots of countries in the rest of the world are ICC members have independent court systems?
I think people here often forget that most of the world is neither the US or the EU.