Italy and long lost freedom

Danaturner
3 min readFeb 18, 2021

It was unbelievable. After I posted my previous post about anti-Semitism and nazism in Italy, I received a lot of emails from my italian contacts, telling me I hit a sore spot.

From the testimonies collected, even old officers in italian carabinieri (a kind of local police I talk about in my previous post) told that they are disgusted how the corp evolved in the last decades.

Particularly, in the last years something went really wrong. There is not discipline anymore, a large number of carabinieri feel they have unlimited power to do whatever they want.

I’m still collecting chilling testimonies very detailed about an impressive amount of daily abuses, from sexual assault, bullying, drug dealing to blackmail, theft, frame people on commission. Many point out well-known links with mafia and local criminal organizations.

I’m really stunned: there are places, especially out of the cities, where entire local populations constantly live in fear. They are daily bullied and terrified by criminals and terrorists in uniform.

I can’t believe no judge or cop intervene to stop these criminals. Sometimes there are so many complaints that a judge cannot ignore them. But most of the times people are scared, isolated. As a matter of fact most of the normal, civilized Italians do not trust justice system. And judge Palamara proved them right, showing how deeply corrupted is the entire system, from top to bottom.

Just few days ago a court showed that a judge was chosen not on merit. And we’re talking about one of the most relevant positions in justice system.

It’s incredible how the italian press never talk about carabinieri crimes or even defend them (like in the rape of two american students). Of course, Italy it’s beyond the 40th position in the world about press freedom and it’s easy to understand why.

Many people report (even with videos on Youtube or other social platform) an increase of documented very serious crimes committed by carabinieri (and some rarely abuse by police or italian local police) during the Covid-19 lockdown .

What is disconcerting and worrying is that no magistrate has ever investigated these well documented crimes. This has led to a tangible climate of fear in the population. Of course, you will never read about this on italian newspapers: the most of them are too busy to follow orders than to do some serious journalism. Indipendent journalists are publicly opposed, isolated, persecuted, defamed.

Defame an innocent framed with fake evidence is one of the favorite and most used techniques by carabinieri. One convict on five is illegally detained (source: European Court) and Italy pay every year (with the money of the taxpayers) several millions of euro in compensations. In the last ten years Italy payed hundreds of millions. Of course we are talking about people who can afford a good attorney, so maybe the statistics are even greater.

They told me how it works: carabinieri frame an innocent guy. Then they defame him on newspaper and tv news without any chance of reply. Every right, starting from the right to defense, is denied. If they think it’s not enough, they also claim that he is mentally ill, so that its credibility is completely destroyed. How they can do that? Obviously with the complicity of “very distracted” magistrates.
For anyone who lives outside Italy it’s incredible, science fiction.

But it’s all real and proved. It happens every day. Remind that italian mass media were the ones who criticized United States for Guantanamo Bay detention camp and the violation of human rights. But they never talk about the daily violation of human rights in Italy. They do not talk about the crimes of carabinieri. Maybe they are too afraid to do their job of journalists, who knows.

I am in solidarity with those who suffer daily injustices. These stories cannot be silenced.

Too many people and their families were, and still are, ruined by these terrorists in uniform.

Raise your voices, write to me, report these crimes, let the world know what happens in Italy.

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