Sonia Alfano
Sonia Alfano (born October 15, 1971 in Messina ) is an Italian anti-mafia activist and non-party politician. She is the daughter of journalist Beppe Alfano, who was murdered by the Mafia in 1993 . In the European elections in 2009 she was elected to the list of the liberal party Italia dei Valori as a member of the European Parliament .
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After attending school in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto , Alfano began studying law at the University of Palermo , which she dropped out after her father Beppe Alfano was murdered by the mafia on January 8, 1993 for his journalistic activities . Due to a regulation in favor of the relatives of innocent Mafia victims, Alfano was given a civil defense post in the Autonomous Region of Sicily , where she was responsible for coordinating disaster and emergency aid. She was also active in the ALBA union.
After the death of her father, Alfano began to get involved in the anti-mafia fight and carried out his own investigations to uncover who had commissioned the murder. In 2003, she filed a complaint about delays in the official investigation, stating that Italian intelligence agencies were implicated in the murder. Your explanations generated a great public response. A few days later, the Antimafia Public Prosecutor's Office ( Direzione Distrettuale Antimafia ) of Messina announced a reopening of the investigation. In the following years she also campaigned for the clarification of other suspected mafia murders and tried in vain to enforce the dissolution of the local administration of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, which, according to her, had been infiltrated by the mafia. From March to August 2006, she received personal protection from the Guardia di Finanza after receiving multiple death threats.
In 2006, Alfano also publicly criticized the organizational problems of the Sicilian civil defense in her trade union office, which employed workers for up to 15 years in precarious employment. The following year she wrote a letter to the Italian President Giorgio Napolitano , who announced an investigation into the matter. In the following period there was a partial improvement in the situation. Through their activities, Alfano gained national recognition.
In 2007, Alfano and Salvatore Borsellino , the brother of the murdered anti-mafia judge Paolo Borsellino , wrote a letter to Napolitano for the dismissal of the Italian Minister of Justice, Clemente Mastella . He had previously requested the transfer of the public prosecutor Luigi de Magistris in order to withdraw him from the investigation in the so-called Why not case, in which Mastella was involved, among other things. Together with the anti-mafia association Ammazzateci tutti , Alfano led an intensive public campaign for De Magistris. Ultimately, De Magistris was nevertheless withdrawn because of bias, but the allegation of bias was refuted in later proceedings.
From 2007 to 2009 Alfano was the regional coordinator of Ammazzateci tutti in Sicily and carried out various publicity campaigns. Among other things, she successfully advocated that the Sicilian regional government must appear as civil plaintiff in all lawsuits for favoring the Mafia in order to sue the public authorities for the financial losses incurred as a result of the favoring. In February 2008, Alfano and forty other people founded the Association Associazione Nazionale dei Familiari delle Vittime della Mafia (National Association of Family Members of Mafia Victims) and was unanimously elected its chairman.
In the Sicilian regional elections in 2008, Alfano was the top candidate in the list Amici di Beppe Grillo con Sonia Alfano Presidente (Friends of Beppe Grillo with Sonia Alfano as President) and received 2.4 percent of the votes. In the European elections in Italy in 2009 she entered - as did Luigi de Magistris, among others - as an independent on the list of the liberal party Italia dei Valori (IdV) and was elected to the European Parliament . Like the IdV members, she belongs to the ALDE parliamentary group and sits on the committee for civil liberties, justice and home affairs . She is also a delegate in the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly .
On April 18, 2012, she became chair of the newly constituted Special Committee against Organized Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering of the European Parliament, which worked until the end of October 2013. During that time she was also a member of the Conference of Committee Chairs .
Publications
Alfano has published several books. In 2004 Filippo Basile, un dirigente regional prematuramente scomparso (Filippo Basile, a regional politician who passed away too early), 2005 Solidarietà ad Personam, le vittime scelte (Solidarity ad personam - The selected victims) and Ammazzate Beppe Alfano (Murdered Beppe Alfano). In addition, part of the book Misteri d'Italia (Secrets of Italy) by Carlo Lucarelli consists of interviews with Alfano.
Individual evidence
- ↑ La Repubblica , March 30, 2006: Assegnata la scorta a Sonia Alfano dopo i due episodi di intimidazione (Italian).
- ↑ La Stampa , October 20, 2007: La Procura generale di Catanzaro avoca l'inchiesta di De Magistris ( Memento of the original from October 22, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Italian).
- ^ La Repubblica , February 23, 2009: De Magistris? Non sapeva nulla di Mastella (Italian).
- ^ Mafia: presidenza Commissione antimafia Ue a Sonia Alfano . ANSA April 18, 2012, accessed November 17, 2012
- ^ Website of the European Parliament
Web links
- official homepage
- Entry for Sonia Alfano in the database of the European Parliament
- VoteWatch.eu: Sonia Alfano's voting behavior in the European Parliament
- Interview with Alfano in Spiegel-Online, November 19, 2012
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Alfano, Sonia |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian politician, MEP |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 15th October 1971 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Messina |