Mafia-by-the-sea in Italy’s Ostia, where silence is safe

The resort town of Ostia, on Italy’s west coast, is a magnet for tourists in the summer but is also mafia territory where clans carve up the drugs and extortion business. “If you don’t see anything, hear anything or say anything, then you can live to be 100 here,” a sexagenarian resident of Ostia, near Rome, said. “But if you want to change things, then you are going to have some major problems ahead,” he added. Ostia, a town with a population of 85,000, where many live on impoverished estates, has been in the media spotlight since Tuesday when the brother of a mafia boss violently assaulted a journalist.

Roberto Spada was filmed headbutting TV reporter Daniele Piervincenzi, before attacking him with a baton.

Piervincenzi had been investigating Spada’s alleged links to the far-right CasaPound movement.

In Ostia on Friday dozens of Italian journalists protested in defence of freedom of speech after the attack on their colleague.

Piervincenzi was questioning Spada for a report for national broadcaster Rai about municipal elections, two years after the local council was dissolved due to mafia infiltration.

CasaPound, suspected of links to organised crime in the area, won eight per cent of the first round votes.

Italian police arrested Spada on Thursday for assault, with prosecutors saying his behaviour was typical of methods used by organised crime groups to control territory. While no one in the town openly talks about the mafia, its influence is all pervasive.

“Look at that beach. Not long ago the beach huts, towels, life guards were all abusively managed by the clan,” one resident said.

“The municipality decided to seek tenders for the management, but no one has bid,” he added, smiling knowingly. The attack on Piervincenzi didn’t just upset fellow journalists. Ostia residents also turned out to defend freedom of expression.

Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi, of the populist Five Star Movement, was one of the first politicians to react to the attack, calling the violence unacceptable and pledging a crackdown on crime.

“Spada’s arrest is proof that there are no lawless areas in Italy,” the interior ministry said in a statement.

CasaPound came fourth in Sunday’s first round voting of municipal elections; it hopes to do better in the second round on November 19. It is calling on voters to kick out Raggi who it claims “hasn’t even managed to move an abandoned mattress in 18 months”.