President Sergio Mattarella said
Monday that it is possible to defeat the mafia in his message
for the fifth national day of remembrance for the innocent
victims of organized crime syndicates.
"Defeating the mafias is possible," said the head of State,
whose older brother, former Sicilian governor Piersanti
Mattarella, who murdered by Cosa Nostra in 1980.
"This is shown by the results of the non-stop work of the police
forces, of the judiciary, of civil society.
"The mafias change their form, their business centres, their
organizational methods.
"They move into legal activities and any underestimation can
open doors to criminal penetration.
"Public institutions, economic and social bodies, territorial
communities and individual people are all called on to work to
combat it and defeat it".
Mattarella said it was necessary to take action in order honour
the victims of the mafia.
"Memory is action to honour those who paid with their life for
the dignity of being men, opposing the inhumanity of the mafias,
the violence, the subjugation of their families and of the
communities they lived in.
"Memory is an appeal against indifference, to show that fear is
defeated by the affirmation of legality.
"Combating the mafias means fulfilling the promise of liberty
that the life of the Republic is founded on".
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