Banca Etica Suspends A/I's Account While Condemning the Sanctions Behind It
sabot.mediaI think what's needed here is for A/I to go the ECHR.
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.
US will just sanction Italy and/or ECHR. They already sanctioned ICC iirc.
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.
US sanctions become worthless if they try to sanction a member of the EU, so... mission accomplished? Your analogy doesn't make any sense. The entire point is to bring the attention to state-level conflict where it will be resolved diplomatically as a matter between states rather than allowing a foreign state to bully individual citizens who have no power to confront it.
Not at all. US already holds most of financial world hostage. Financial firms all over the world are invited to opt in to provide information on assets held by US citizens. Many a non-US citizen have been baffled when opening accounts away from the US, yet being asked if they are, by the by, a US citizen.
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.
This is why building serious financial infrastructure alternatives should be n.1 on the EU agenda. From payment processors to clearing, Europe must wrangle control of their own money from the US.
How is Italy going to do that?
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.
The ICC already has the authority to punish people who interfere with its operations.
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.
In theory, but I do not convinced countries are actually going to start handing over bank CEOs for doing something they were forced to do.
I don't see how they could legally intervene. Most EU countries have very independent court systems. Once the warrant is sent to the states, it will be enforced.
At some point, someone must be held to account for "just following order". We know what happens otherwise.
"A/I" = "Austistici/Inventati" Collective
"Autistici/Inventati is a Tuscan collective that develops independent IT services and provides email addresses, websites, blogs, and newsletters to other activists and collectives."
> an Italian bank maintaining relationships with an OFAC-listed entity could be subject to "secondary sanctions" that would involve the cessation of all services provided by US intermediaries. This would mean that all Banca Etica customers would be unable to use credit and debit cards (which currently rely on a substantial monopoly by US operators)
«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.
Ok I agree that de-banking is not a good thing overall from a political perspective.
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.
> it seems fairly clear that A/I was providing services to organizations listed as Terrorist Organizations by the US, UK, and Canada
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?
This is outdated:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/15/ban-on-pales...
Reminds me of when Cloudflare used to provide DDOS protection for ISIS and Al-Qaeda linked websites, Matthew Prince used to defend it by saying providing services is not an endorsement https://www.theregister.com/off-prem/2015/11/18/cloudflare-c...
Because anything the US, UK, and Canada doesn’t like becomes terrorism, including (for Palestine Action in the UK) retroactively. It’s not something the US should be able to decide for the world.
Is Italy in that list?
> it seems fairly clear that A/I was providing services to organizations listed as Terrorist Organizations by the US, UK, and Canada.
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.
So...what happens to the money in the account? AFAIK normally when your account is closed, your bank gives you a cashier's check which you can use to open an account at another bank. But given that they're in OFAC, what if no other bank will have them?
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?
Great question! Here's the answer: an entity on the SDN (Specially Designated Nationals) List, basically has all financial operations withdrawing or moving funds out of an account denied. There is no "closing" allowed. Those assets are, for all intents and purposes, frozen.
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...
> The Italian bank says A/I’s account showed no previous anti-money-laundering concerns—but fears U.S. secondary sanctions could endanger services for 130,000 customers and members.
> 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.
The ICC has tools for countering this kind of thing though.
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.
It would be good if they could, but the U.S. never consented to the court's authority, and the U.S. government maintains that the ICC has no jurisdiction over American citizens or personnel. We are living a multi-tier world, where there are entities that can be held accountable, and others not so.
They don't need to go after Americans. They could go after the head of their bank in Belgium, or wherever, for not providing service.
Not only this, the US maintains a credible standing commitment to invade any country that arrests one of its operatives for human rights violations.
Well, that is not the court's position, or the position of any of the signatories the Rome Statute.
Anyone from a nation that signed the Statute of Rome. Guess what, USA not only hasn't joined the ICJ but has historical laws in place that will make them intervene even with military force to free a US citizen in the hands of the ICJ.
*ICC(International Criminal Court aka Hague established 1998/2002) not the ICJ(International Court of Justice aka World Court established 1946) they are different entities , hence the Hague Invasion Act from the US.
They haven't done it because their power would collapse if they try to do something and be ineffective at it.
Anyone can order anyone to do anything. What matters is whether you have the power to enforce it. If a court in my country orders me to do something and I do not I will be fined or imprisoned. What can the ICC do? Countries are not going to arrest bank CEOs for something they are forced to do by the US.
Sources? When I look at the law and their mandate, it sure looks like they can't. That's not part of their soft powers. They can excusively go after a very narrow band of criminal acts.
"Article 70 - Offences against the administration of justice
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.
> The ICC has tools for countering this kind of thing though.
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.
> The sanctioning of the
An informative note: Banca Etica did protest against that.
Italy can protest but their actions in Africa and Iran seem very close with russias. Italian oil and gas firms still operate in Iran as well as Italian soldiers in Niger post Russian takeover.
I don't think I've seen a worse whataboutist post in the last 5 years.
It _looks_ like A/I was providing services to the PKK.
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.
It's thoughtcrime and it wasn't even the PKK.
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/4a3850cc-9186...
> among the groups receiving those services was the PKK
Do you have any evidence for that apart from a US executive order, the same that Banca Etica condemns for political motives?
So?
Can you use your bank account to buy crypto currency? Liability shifting is one feature of crypto.
A/I chose to avoid cryptocurrency on ideological grounds and did not accept cryptocurrency donations.
The supposed "land of the free" is suppressing political speech at home and abroad.
This ironically is a place where the EU needs to make draconian rules.
If only there was some technology they could have used for uncensorable transacting
Ironically, this is what could actually push them to adopt more opaque financial tools, making it harder to track for actual law enforcement.
if only Monero didn't exist..
Ethical Bank? Isn't that an oxymoron?
Established in 1998, Banca Etica has a long history of ethical stewardship in their finance. It is a differentiator and selling point for their account holders. For more (in Italian) https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banca_Popolare_Etica
Since you made no effort to point out the supposed oxymoron: no.
The ground works for debanking were laid when all of the mainstream press cheered on the debanking of Canadian truckers.
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.
I often read things like this, and then I go look and don't quite see the cheering:
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.
Why do you think the "mainstream press" and "A/I" are in the same side? Because I don't see two parties here, but rather governments using the financial system to suppress opposition.
> very little press coverage
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.
The difference is that the Canadian truckers were doing bad things and A/I were doing good things, obviously, just in case anyone is confused here.
But that's the challenge: a true belief in the principles of law must include defending "bad guys" when they are targeted with illegal or immoral means. Miranda was a bad guy; going all the way back, Cain was a bad guy. Presumption of innocence and right to a fair trial should apply to everyone, including people we don't like.
> Canadian truckers were doing bad things and A/I were doing good things
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.
First if all, doing bad things should not be a reason for debanking.
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.