Thursday September 3 2009 / Citizenship
Women against Mafia
Women against Mafia gathers three courageous and passionate women who each have contributed in their unique ways to the struggle against organized crime, in the impoverished land of Sicily as well as in Western Europe. Across Europe and the entire world organized criminal organizations rely on silence and passiveness to maintain their control and power over our political and economical institutions; only by raising awareness and exposing the harsh truth of their involvement at every level of society we have the opportunity to disrupt and eventually topple their unjust and ruthless empire.
In her books German journalist and writer Petra Reski (Mafia, Rita Atria) reports her search for evidence in matters pertaining to the ‘honorable society' and makes startling revelations about a phenomenon that is no longer exclusively Italian.
During the eighties Letizia Battaglia photographed countless crime scenes for the left-wing daily paper L'Ora, as the city of Palermo went through one of the bloodiest period in its history. Her images played a central part in the anti-Mafia campaign, and some were used as evidence of corruption against Giulio Andreotti, seven times prime minister and the most powerful politician in Italy.
After the Duisburg mafia killing in August 2007, Laura Garavini founded the movement "Mafia? Nein danke!", together with Italian restaurant-owners in Germany. Thanks to "Mafia? Nein danke!", 44 Italian restaurant-owners reported a demand of protection money, thereby helping German police arrest the blackmailers in December 2007. This has been the greatest rebellion against the pizzo outside Italy so far.
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