Silvia Baraldini

Italian activist (born 1947)

Silvia Baraldini (December 12, 1947) is an Italian political activist. From the age of 12, she lived in the United States and became a student radical. She joined the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee and the May 19th Communist Organization, groups which aimed to support Black Power and Puerto Rican independence movements. In 1977, Baraldini acted as spokesperson for the protestors outside the court during the trial of Assata Shakur and two years later, she helped to break Shakur out of jail, driving a getaway car. In 1982, she was arrested and imprisoned on a 43 year sentence under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for conspiring to commit armed robberies. Baraldini was held in a purpose built High Security Unit (HSU) in the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky which also housed two other women, Susan Rosenberg and Alejandrina Torres. Conditions in the unit were criticized by Amnesty International and it was closed by judicial order. Whilst incarcerated, she had cancer twice. After being transferred to Italy in 1999 to serve the remainder of her sentence, she was released into house arrest in 2001 and pardoned five years later by Minister of Justice Clemente Mastella. Her life has been the subject of the documentaries Ore d'aria – La vita di Silvia Baraldini (Hours outside: The life of Silvia Baraldini) in 2002 and Freeing Silvia Baraldini.

Silvia Pia Baraldini was born on December 12, 1947, in Rome, Italy. When she was 12, her parents moved the family to the USA, first to the Bronx in New York City and then to Washington, D. C Baraldini attended the Woodrow Wilson High School and then enrolled at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1965. She became a student radical, joining Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). After university, Baraldini continued her political activism, participating in the Panther 21 defense committee and joining the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. At the retrial of Assata Shakur, also in 1977, Baraldini acted as spokesperson for the protestors outside the court. Human rights activists objected to the length of Baraldini's sentence. She also received publicity when she was placed alongside Susan Rosenberg and Alejandrina Torres (a FALN member) in a purpose built underground prison called the High Security Unit (HSU) at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky. The prisoners were kept shackled, monitored by CCTV, repeatedly strip searched, permitted little reading material, saw no daylight and had restricted time with vistors. Amnesty International condemned the SHU and called for it to be shut down. The women were told by the prison officers that unless they renounced their politics, they would stay in the unit indefinitely. Baraldini was held in the SHU for almost two years, until it was declared illegal by a judge and closed. She developed uterine cancer there, which was later treated in a prison in Minnesota. Afterwards she was moved to a control unit at the Federal Correctional Institution, Marianna in Florida.

Italy first requested that Baraldini serve the rest of her sentence in her country of birth in 1989. It made further submissions ito the US in 1992, 1993, 1995, and 1997. The US refused to consider the requests on the grounds that she showed no remorse for her crimes. She was visited in 1991 at Marianna prison by the Italian judge Giovanni Falcone. In Italy, pressure grew for her repatriation. President Francesco Cossiga and Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti both addressed the issue with President George H. W. Bush, then Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema spoke to Bill Clinton. Baraldini was pardoned in 2006 by Minister of Justice Clemente Mastella. Antonio Bellia released a documentary entitled Ore d'aria – La vita di Silvia Baraldini (Hours outside: The life of Silvia Baraldini) in 2002, then Margo Pelletier and Lisa Thomas released the film Freeing Silvia Baraldini in 2009. The newspaper La Stampa reported in 2011 that she was living quietly in Rome, working in support of migrants through the Associazione Ricreativa e Culturale Italiana (ARCI).