The Italian writer and anti-mafia Roberto Saviano, stressing that it was “very serious in Italy,” said Tuesday that it “would not be intimidated” by the minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini, who has threatened to withdraw its police escort.

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“I remain serene. I continue to do what I do. I will continue to tell what happens, I will not let myself not be intimidated by the threats that routinely made the minister of the Interior Italian”, said Roberto Saviano, who was speaking at the press conference for the film La paranza dei bambini ( Piranha ), Claudio Giovannesi, on youth gangs in Naples. In competition at the Berlin film festival, this film, of which the writer is co-writer, is adapted from one of his books.

trailer for La Paranza dei bambini (Italian)

Matteo Salvini, who is also the patron of the League (far right), had stated in June that it would be useful to assess if Roberto Saviano, author of the book Gomorrah on the mafia of naples, was still in need of police protection. It was awarded in 2006 after the release of the book and the death threats of a clan of the Camorra, the mafia of naples.

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“there are dozens of journalists who are under protection in Italy and Europe (…) Europe is a territory safe for those who describe what is happening”

Roberto Salvini

“we must try to understand what is happening in this moment in Italy. There are about very serious things happening there,” pointed out Roberto Saviano in Berlin. “We removed the protection to another journalist, Sandro Ruotolo. And me I’m committed, and I was not alone, many others also have committed this journalist is to be protected once again, and this is what has been done”.

“beyond the question of my personal safety, it is a drama of having to be escorted and not a privilege, he developed. There are dozens of journalists who are under protection in Italy and Europe (…) Europe is a territory safe for those who describe what is happening”.

Roberto Saviano, very critical against the leader of the extreme right and its migration policy, has also taken to the fact that Matteo Salvini appears almost always with a jacket from police, a subject on which he had already attacked in January. “It really is an assault to democracy. He is the only one in Europe to do that,” he pointed out.

The tension is strong between the two men. Last June, the writer had accused, among other things, Matteo Salvini of being in the pay of the mafia. The minister of the Interior has filed a complaint for defamation: “The minister of the Mala Vita (the bad life, one of the nicknames of the mafia) has decided to lodge a complaint (…). I will not stop in front of a power that has the fear of critical voices. At the court, Matteo Salvini, will be called to tell the truth, a new experience for him,” one reacted Roberto Saviano.