PRISONS FULL.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 288, 5 December 1929, Page 7

PRISONS FULL.

FASCISM UNPOPULAR. Opposition Ends In Cruel Tortures. REFUGEE'S ALLEGATIONS. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copjrigtit) (Received 10 a.m.) LONDON, December 4. The general situation in Italy is going from bad to worse, declares Professor Rosselli, a political refugee, who is at present visiting London. The best proof that the Fascist regime has not got the country's support is that Signor Mussolini cannot govern Avithout the terrible and exceptional laws passed in 1926. Rosselli asserts that the prisons throughout Italy, especially in the south, are full of people, their only crime being that they were not in sympathy with the regime. Thev are subjected to the most shocking tortures, he states, the latest being to C tie a prisoner to a chair and to strike him heavily and repeatedly over the heart with a rubber-covered hammer. Reprisals against the families of antiFascists has now become part of Italy s legal system. Thousands of Italian homes have been ransacked and the furniture destroyed in front of helpless women. A cable message from London on \ugust 13 reported the escape ot three redoubtable prisoners, who had been banished to the arid island of Lipan. They were Emiiio Lussu, Professor Rosselli, and Francesco Nitti, a nephew of a former Prime Minister, who is at present in exile in Paris. All three men were heroes in the war, but they opposed Fascism. They had been guarded on the island with the utmost care. At night sentries were on duty and motor boats were on patrol. Yet they managed to escape. Later details of the escape showed that it was due to their splendid powers as swimmers. They contrived to reach the beach at night while most of their guards were drinking in the cafes. They swam, fully clothed, to -the mainland, although searchlights were playing on the sea and on the shore. This was the first escape from "Italy's Devil's Island." There were 400 guards on the island for 500 prisoners.