A priest and six handicapped people in a building confiscated from a local crime clan are challenging the mafia's power in a southern Italian town, said a report on ninemsn.
Father Giacomo Panizza's placid exterior hides an inner tenacity that has helped him face up to death threats from the powerful 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate and become the face of civil society's resistance to the mafia.
The challenge "comes from weak people, some of them in wheelchairs, from unarmed people who have showed themselves stronger than others," Fr Panizza told AFP in an interview in a nondescript block in the town of Lamezia Terme.
The four-storey building, which used to house a gambling arcade that served as a cover for a drug-trafficking operation, has become a symbol of Fr Panizza's struggle ever since a handicapped community he helped set up moved in in 2004.
The building now hosts the offices of Fr Panizza's association, Progetto Sud, the apartment for handicapped people, several non-governmental organisations, an ethical bank and a women's farming cooperative.
"We told Don Panizza: 'If you accept this challenge we are behind you,'" said Nunzia Coppede, a paraplegic in a wheelchair who was among the first to move in and is one of six handicapped people now living here.
But she admitted: "At the beginning we were a bit scared."
The Italian government began confiscating assets from the mafia 30 years ago in Sicily and around Naples in a bid to cut off financing for organised crime.
That process has been more slow-moving in the southern Italian region of Calabria, where the tight-knit structure of the 'Ndrangheta has proved difficult for police to infiltrate.
Since taking over the building, Fr Panizza has received numerous threats — some of them brazenly pronounced in front of police officers.
The priest has written about his experiences in a book, the foreword of which was written by Roberto Saviano, the author of an important work on the Camorra crime syndicate in Naples that was turned into an award-winning film.
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