- Addiopizzo
Addiopizzo (Goodbye Pizzo) is a
grassroots movement established to build a community of businesses and consumers who refuse to pay "pizzo " –Mafia extortion money. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/08/wmafia108.xml Mafia-free supermarket defies mob extortion] , The Daily Telegraph, March 8, 2008] [http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jLjxsdQPEBu-zA-ytPbvYHUSyOZA To the Mafia's horror, pizzo-free shop opens Palermo doors] , AFP, March 8, 2008] It is a social conscious-motivated consumer movement analogous toFair Trade . The group operates in thePalermo metropolitan area, traditionally a Mafia stronghold.In 2004, Addiopizzo began by five graduates who wanted to open a bar in
Palermo . Realising they would be asked to pay a Mafiatithe , they decided instead to organise against the pizzo. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/28/wmafia28.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/28/ixworld.html We won't pay you protection, traders tell Mafia] , The Daily Telegraph, April 28, 2006] Frustrated with the Mafia's stranglehold on the local economy and political life, they peppered the city with stickers stating: "A people who pays the pizzo is a people without dignity." They organise manifestations wearing black T-shirts with the Addiopizzo logo, a broken circle with an X in the middle and the words "consumo critico" (critical consumption). [http://www.corriere.it/english/articoli/2006/05_Maggio/03/pizzo.shtml One Hundred Defiant Shopkeepers Say "We Don’t Pay Protection Money"] , Corriere della Sera, May 5, 2006] Addiopizzo made headlines around the world when it launched a pizzo-free supermarket Punto Pizzofree in Palermo that opened in March 2008. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/09/internationalcrime.italy Shopkeepers revolt against Sicilian Mafia] , The Observer, March 9, 2008]The Mafia extorts more than 160 million euro a year from shops and businesses in the Palermo region, with the island as a whole paying 10 times that figure, investigators estimate. Around 80 per cent of Sicilian businesses pay up a pizzo. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/23/wmafia123.xml Italy's biggest business: the Mafia] , The Daily Telegraph, October 24, 2007] According to Palermo University, the pizzo averages 457 euros (640 dollars) a month for retail traders and 578 for hotels and restaurants, but construction companies are asked to pay over 2,000 euros per month according to economic daily
Il Sole 24 Ore 's figures.One of the first to refuse to pay protection money in Palermo was
Libero Grassi , who could be considered a predecessor of the movement. In August 1991, he wrote an open letter to theGiornale di Sicilia , the local newspaper. Published on the front page, it was addressed to an anonymous "Dear Extortionist". It caused a uproar but, barely three weeks later, Grassi was dead. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7342106.stm Sicilians grow defiant of Mafia] , BBC News, April 11, 2008]References
External links
* [http://www.addiopizzo.org/english.asp Addiopizzo website]
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