Everything's normal in Italy

Aldo Bianzino The police had entered his house looking for evidence of drug trafficking. They found only one family of a man, a woman, their son and her elderly mother, 30 euros in cash and some marijuana plants in the garden. In this world where there are murderers and dictators who never pay for their crimes and commit the most monstrous atrocities with the shield of power, cultivating a plant is a very serious offense.

Thus the man and the woman were taken to prison, interrogated and kept in isolation like two international drug traffickers. Then 36 hours later, the woman was told that her companion was dead. The first autopsy determined that the man had no heart diseases, but he had internal bleeding, injuries to the liver and brain, without signs of external trauma. The forensic experts considered the injuries consistent with the hypothesis of a murder by beating. Other inmates testified that they heard the man moan all night. The hypothesis is that he was savagely beaten, but carefully, so as to leave no obvious external signs. Then the man was left half-naked in his cell all night, without relief, until he died. Why? Perhaps there is not a reason. Maybe the guards were bored and wanted to pass time. Perhaps because he was a hippy, and therefore a communist, and thus deserving death. Although in reality he was only a carpenter, with a normal family and a normal life, who occasionally smoked a bit of marijuana. A plant that is demonized and called a narcotic, but which in reality is much less evil and far less dangerous than alcohol.
Police and prison guards of course denied any abuse. A month after a second autopsy was done, and this time the doctors concluded that the man died of natural causes, cerebral aneurysm, and the internal injuries were caused by "failed attempts of resuscitation."
It is not the Iran of Ahmadinejad, not one of the many dictatorships in the world, is the Italy of 2007, when the government was of the center-left. Aldo Bianzino died in prison at Perugia between 13 and 14 October 2007. His partner, Roberta Raciti, after having struggled to make the history of Aldo known, died that summer for a liver disease. Her elderly mother had died before. Rudra, the son of Aldo and Roberta, who is now 16 years old, was left alone, and now lives with an uncle. Beppe Grillo's blog this summer, after the death of his mother, had launched a subscription to help support the legal costs to know the truth about the death of his father.
But today, two years later, the judge at the request of the prosecutor, ordered the filing of the proceedings. For the judiciary there are no doubts, this is a natural death. Not completely natural, because a prison officer it's still on trial for neglicence, but no one will be accused of violence. The unanswered questions are many. For example, if a prison officer is accused of neglicence, how it is possible that the lesions on the body of Aldo have been caused by attempts of resuscitation?
Or how can a person accused only of having some plants die in prison for no reason? But we know that they are only rhetorical questions. Aldo's story is only one out of many.
"I expected that end, I am not at all surprised: I knew that the State would not have given itself the blame for what happened to my father. Right now I feel discouraged, I do not know how to carry on this fight to search for truth", said Rudra Bianzino. He's only 16 years old but already has understood from personal experience, that in Italy there is neither truth nor justice. It's normal. In Italy there are no culprits for massacres and bombs, nor for the train crashes, let alone for the deaths of prisoners and arrested. And thanks to a law such as the Fini-Giovanardi, it's very easy to end up in jail for drugs. And in prison, anything can happen.
Because in Italy it is normal to die in prison. In Italy if you wear a uniform you can do anything with impunity, is normal, because no one punishes abuses. Nobody care. Politicians don't care, it's normal. The TV does not mention it, few newspapers write about it, is normal. People do not care, it is normal. No one rebel, not even to defend the most basic civil rights because basically Italians think that human rights are not something that belongs to us but something that depends on the kindness of those who rule. Tomorrow it could happen to anyone of us, but that's normal.
Everything's normal in Italy.