Rome, october 2, 1997

An Italian law allots public money to the political parties: 160 billion Lire for 1997, 110 billion Lire starting from 1998.

This law was promulgated on January 2 1997, despite the clear result of a referendum promoted by the Radical Party, and held on April 18 1993: 90,3% of the voting citizens wanted the abrogation of a law, effective since 1974, and almost identical to the one newly reintroduced.

For this reason, the "Lista Pannella" - the only Italian political movement opposing the promulgation of this Law - had recourse to the penal, civil, accounting and constitutional jurisdiction, but, for the time being, all the "magistrates" have not inspected the appeals, by declaring themselves "incompetent".

Therefore, the "Lista Pannella" started paying back part of this money to the citizens on July 7 in Treviso (a Northern Italian town), and again on August 15 in Rome. As a whole, the "Lista Pannella" has distributed 553 million Lire of the 2.7 billion Lire received by the State for the year 1997 to 11.76 people.

This is going to happen again in Rome, in the wonderful scenario of Piazza Campidoglio, behind the Fori Imperiali on October 8, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The payment modalities are very simple: all citizens willing to be refunded will need an identification card and will be able to collect 50.000 Lire (5 10.000 Lire banknotes), with the following sentence stamped on them:

"This banknote is part of the loot stolen from all Italian citizens by the State through the law for the public financing of the political parties. The 'Lista Pannella' has decided to pay back this money to those who have been robbed. Please, use it properly!"