Nigerian and from Gargano mafias send death threats via FB

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The sociologist and author Leonardo Palmisano had written in Corriere del Mezzogiorno an article about the prostitution business. He then received threatening messages on Facebook sent by five fake profiles. He has made a formal complaint. Solidarity has been expressed by FNSI (the Italian National Press Federation) and Assostampa (the press association).

On the 29th May 2018 the sociologist and author Leonardo Palmisano received death threats on the private message page of his Facebook profile. The most serious was “We kill you”. The messages appear to have been sent by five fake profiles of young Nigerian women. Palmisano had published on the 24th April 2018 in Corriere del Mezzogiorno an article about the ghetto of Borgo Mezzanone, a shanty town, where the Nigerian mafia and the mafia of the Gargano peninsula allegedly manage prostitution and drug dealing.

Subsequently on the 28th May 2018 Goffredo Buccini of Corriere della Sera published an article about the same ghetto. Buccini’s article included the statements of Palmisano who had accompanied him to the ghetto to prepare the article. The day after, the 29th May, Palmisano received the threats. The sociologist had made a formal complaint about the intimidating messages at the beginning of September to the postal police of Bari. “With my lawyers – Palmisano explained – we are considering requesting access to Facebook to retrieve the messages”. The sociologist, in fact, has explained to Osservatorio that in the attempt to view the fake profiles from whom he received the messages he was no longer able to view the messages themselves. If the recovery proves impossible, Palmisano, together with his lawyers, is considering the hypothesis of summoning Facebook before the court.

FNSI and Assostampa of Puglia have expressed solidarity with the sociologist who has for years been concerned with these themes and has highlighted the critical issues and the criminal infiltration in that area of Puglia. Ossigeno has already been involved with him in 2016 when he was threatened along with Yvan Sagnet, an iconic activist in the struggle over labour hiring in Italy, after the publication of Ghetto Italia. This book, edited by Fandango dealt with the question of the hiring of manual workers , the organisation of the work of farm labourers and on the conditions in which foreign workers are forced to live in the Italian countryside from North to South.

RDM