vittorio arrigoni

 

 

 

 

Born               4 February 1975    Besana in Brianza

 

                                         Died               15 April 2011 (aged 36)     Gaza Strip 

                                                                Nationality         Italian                                                     

        Occupation      International Solidarity Movement  activist,   

                                                      journalist, blogger                               




Vittorio Arrigoni (4 February 1975 – 15 April 2011) was an Italian reporter, writer, pacifist and activist.Arrigoni worked with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the Gaza Strip, from 2008 until his death. Arrigoni maintained a website, Guerrilla Radio, and published a book of his experiences in Gaza during the 2008–09 Gaza War between Hamas and Israel. He was kidnapped and murdered by who he protessted against. Arrigoni was the first foreigner kidnapped in Gaza since BBC journalist Alan Johnston's abduction in 2007.

                                                    



Biography

Arrigoni was born in the town of Besana in Brianza, near Milan, Italy on 4 February 1975. He claimed that it was in his blood to fight for freedom as his grandfathers fought against the former fascist regime in Italy. He had the Arabic word for resistance (muqawama) tattooed on his right arm. Once he passed his maturità exams in Italy, he left his hometown of Bulciago, a small village near lake Como,and began working as a volunteer around the world (East Europe, South America, Africa and Middle East). In 2002, he visited Jerusalem which according to his mother was the "moment he understood his work would be concentrated there." His mother, Egidia Beretta, is the mayor of Bulciago.

 

                                                                                                    

Political Activism

 

Arrigoni was credited as one of the many activists who revived the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian group that works in the Palestinian territories. In August 2008, he participated in the Free Gaza mission that aimed to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. He was on the first boat that arrived in the Port of Gaza, describing that moment as "one of the happiest and most emotional" of his lifetime."

 

 

                                                         

 

While volunteering to act as a human shield for a Palestinian fisherman off Gaza's coast in September 2008, Arrigoni was injured by flying glass after the Israeli Navy used a water cannon to deter the vessel. In November, he was arrested by Israeli authorities after again acting as a human shield for fishermen  off gaza's coast.                                                                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

He returned to Gaza prior to the Israeli military offensive Operation Cast Lead, which lasted from December 2008 to January 2009. Arrigoni was one of the few foreign journalists in Gaza during the war, he worked with Radio Popolare and as reporter for the Italian newspaper Il manifesto. He later published a book, Restiamo umani (en: Gaza, Stay Human), a collection of his reportage from Gaza. It is translated into English, Spanish, German, and French.

Political views


Arrigoni was described as having a "fervent commitment to the Palestinian cause." Arrigoni described four Palestinians who died in a tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border as "martyrs". One of his last posts on Guerrilla Radio, which he wrote hours before he was kidnapped and killed, praised Palestinian efforts to smuggle goods into Gaza via underground tunnels as an "invisible battle for survival."

 

 

 

 

 

 

In his website, guerrilla Radio, and Facebook page, Arrigoni described the government of Israel as one of the worst apartheid regimes in the world. He said the Israeli blockade on Gaza was criminal and villainous.    

Kipnapping and Murder

Arrigoni was kidnapped on 14 April 2011.An autopsy revealed that Arrigoni had been strangled with a plastic cord, but journalists were not allowed to see the body and no independent confirmation of the cause of death was possible.

 

 

                                               

International response

The foreign ministry of Italy expressed "deep horror over the barbaric murder," calling it an "act of vile and senseless violence committed  who are indifferent to the value of human life."UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon pressed the Gaza government to bring to justice "the perpetrators of this appalling crime.


                                                 


German politician Inge Höger said that both Arrigoni and Israeli actor Juliano Mer-Khamis, who was shot dead by masked gunmen in Jenin eleven days before Arrigoni's murder, were actually killed by Israelis. In her website, Höger wrote that "The question one must pose is: Who profits from this terrible crime? First of all, now two of the activists most 'dangerous' for Israel, because they were the most engaged, well known and noted, are eliminated."


According to The Guardian's correspondent in Italy, Arrigoni was "first and foremost a pacifist."Khaleel Shaheen of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, a friend of Arrigoni, described him as a "hero of Palestine". Max Ajl, a friend of Arrigoni's and fellow ISM activist, eulogized Arrigoni as a courageous and dedicated opponent of the Israeli occupation and advocate of resistance to oppression in the Middle East and around the world.

 

 

 

I walked a few years on this earth and i stood up for sometin very close to my heart...

 you win some and you  loose some,

i won the hearts of my fellow palestinians and i lost my life to this cause .

the oppressors have only destroyed my physical body but my soul and spirit is spread like the rays of the sun amoung my loved ones ..my pride my innocent people of palestine ....