Marching for Justice: Remembering Don Peppe Diana 30 Years On

The colorful and noisy march of students for the thirtieth anniversary of the killing of Don Peppe Diana kicked off from Piazza Villa in Casal di Principe. The procession winds through the narrow city streets, with a now traditional passage - also made by the scouts in the march on Sunday, March 17 - under the house of Don Peppe, where until a few years ago mother Iolanda (who died in January 2020) used to appear, and ends in the Cemetery Square, where the final event will take place, with the reading of the names of the innocent victims of organized crime and with the speech by Don Luigi Ciotti. Today marks the thirtieth anniversary of the killing of Don Peppe Diana, the priest murdered by the Camorra on March 19, 1994. His memory, years later, is still alive and serves as a warning to continue the fight against violence and crime. It is our duty to honor the story of a righteous man who made legality his life's flag. May Don Diana continue to be an example, for our territory and beyond, of integrity, legality, and be the guiding principle for all young people so that they learn to face life with courage, loyalty, and fight for individual and community freedom. This was stated by Deputy Marco Cerreto during the ongoing celebrations in Casal di Principe. From France to Casal di Principe to learn about 'the good practices on the reuse of goods confiscated from the Camorra', clearly visible in the town of Don Peppe Diana: there are about thirty people, including journalists, volunteers from two anti-mafia collectives, relatives of victims of organized crime - eight victims of the Marseille drug trafficking clans and one from the organized crime of Corsica plus a former mayor of a Corsican commune who was threatened - who are today at the march for the thirtieth anniversary of the priest's killing and who have been guided for days by Fabrice Rizzoli, professor of Geography of Organized Crime at the French School of Advanced Studies on International Studies and Policies 'Heip', are in Casal di Principe to 'learn' about the practices on reuse but also those related to the protection of innocent victims of organized crime. 'Our presence here in Casal di Principe,' explains Rizzoli, 'is to demonstrate that as a movement of people and an anti-mafia system has been created in Italy, it can also be done in France. Because in our country,' Rizzoli, of Italian origin, explains, 'only since 2021 we have a law on reuse, and at the moment there are five confiscated properties reused in France while there is completely lacking a normative concept of innocent victims.'