They are called article 52, neighborhood control, patrioti network, rebirth and in many other ways with very different spirits: from the simple patrol of the roads to punitive shipments. “Ronde” are increasingly widespread in Italian cities as on social networks, due to the sense of insecurity accrued among people. But also …
Milan observes the phenomenon of the “anti-maranza” rondes of article 52. The name is a dedication to the constitutional card, but behind the reference to the duty to defend the homeland there is a group that has chosen to face the theme of urban security without intermediaries, in particular against violent young people or who commit crimes. Activists move between social and peripheral roads, spreading proclamations, addressed for example. The latest video, 51 seconds of brutality, turned on the spotlight on them: a young North African, suspected of a snatch, stopped in Darsena by four, perhaps five individuals, is pestiched.
The images bounce on social media. And the prosecutor opened a file, entrusted to the prosecutor Alessandro Gobbis, for criminal association and instigation to commit a crime for racial reasons. Digos men dig among social profiles, following digital traces. In confidential chats, new objectives are discussed and inspections are planned. A fundraising online, with payments on an account in Lithuania, aimed at the purchase of pepper spray and transceiver, but also to the coverage of legal costs. For many it is not a dangerous drift, but an extreme reaction to concrete security problems that too often the institutions cannot guarantee. Meanwhile, on social media, the group of article 52 has a boom in requests. “In Rome when?” Gregorio writes by relaunching the beating video.
In the capital the phenomenon is already widespread, even if it was born in different forms. Simone Cicalone, ex boxing and YouTuber, films the mariuoli in the subway. “They say we are shutters, fascists and squadristi, but it is not so,” he defends his commitment cycal: “People are exasperated by the handbags and I have thousands of requests from people who ask to come to the meter, so many to be able to organize an army, but we do not do the rondes, I document what happens and I show it to my followers”.
The other Simone who marches in the tunnels of the Roman metro of surname ago Carabella, the man who at every New Year dives into the Tiber and who on the weekend gives spray to the chili pepper to the women headed towards the turnstiles. The third black beast for the Roman Maranza is King Serpico, aka of Sergio Lignano, a bodyguard that depopulates on Tiktok, while his YouTube channel transmits the activities of the Ronde. The three every now and then are on duty together. And last February Carabella published a post that collected thousands of likes to celebrate the “trident” exit: «People thank us and it’s beautiful. Even today one hundred spray given. Spray it in the face ». In the metro they move with wide consensus. Especially to the stops considered more risky. Those of the bivouacs of foreigners and homeless. Or where the cricches of professional pickpockets are casually wandered.
At the work of the Roman suburbs, between Cassia and Portuense, there is also the “prince” Riccardo Scognamiglio: He created a company that aims at the Consortium between families and, thus, to cover the almost nine thousand euros per month, he explains, calculator in hand, for night control 300 families are enough by neighborhood willing to pay less than 30 euros, “a pizza eaten outside”.
Finally there is Giuseppe Basile, influencer who as a battle name chose “eighth king of Rome”: He contributed to the arrest of a Cuban boy who had snatched a Romanian seventy -year -old. The video, of course, immediately became viral.
The phenomenon, just do a research on social media to realize it, is now widespread. Although everyone has given road control operations a different name. In Monza, the anti-maranza vigilantes put them together the Renaissance, a cultural organization rooted among the Lombard provinces. Anti -tags jackets and small protections to avoid the worst. No violence, they assure. Only a bulwark between order and chaos, between citizens and those who, in the darkness of the suburbs, moves with predatory intent. To lead the project is Alessandro Sebastiano Porto, 25 years old, a man of theater. Culture and self -defense, words that rarely meet in the same speech. But the debate is already on. In Lodi, however, they call them “safety walks”. They have the martial step of propaganda and an animator: Ettore Sanzanni, famous for an evening on Goebbels in Pavia and for a birthday with themed cake. The group, which has been self -proclaimed “the network of patriots”, moves passing through the center, among the shaded shutters, the slopes and the shadows of a city that empties soon. In official channels the report has epic tones: «We crossed the main areas of degradation. To our sole presence, the assessments of non -EU citizens have disappeared ». Here too the lookouts filled a void.
Safety calls. As in Bologna, where they renamed him “walk of patriots”. The last, in response to the clashes that only a week earlier had devastated the historic center during a garrison organized in memory of Ramy Elgaml, dates back to January 19th. One of the promoters is Stefano Colato, a right -wing militant who leads a circle to Borgo Panigale. With his team he believed a shopping center. “The area,” explained the activists, “unfortunately it is known for episodes of petty crime by baby gang of second generation immigrants. Our presence certainly made an afternoon of tranquility to adults struggling with shopping and teenagers “. While on 8 February the patriots marched against degradation in the San Pio X district of Vicenza, claiming “the right to active defense of the territory and demanding the restoration of adequate security levels in an area at the mercy of skids, drug dealers and foreign criminals, who must not feel free to make life impossible to those who have always lived there”. In Rimini they have chosen a less evocative and more bureaucratic name: they call it “neighborhood control project”. Neutral, almost administrative, which however does not hide an urgency. The city is in alarm and safety is an increasingly current theme: the night blitz of the Ultrà del Rimini Calcio at the recreational center of Bellaria Monte, which cost a 13 -person daspo; a man robbed in broad daylight with an trick; a series of thefts disseminated for the territory; The body of an immigrant rented in the waters of the river use. Fragments of a mosaic that tells tension and fear.
The municipal administration collected the malaise and launched the initiative during the public meetings of the “let’s talk together” cycle. The message is clear: it is not a question of rondes, there are no uniforms or symbols, only citizens invited to become informal patrolling of the territory. One more eye on the roads ready to translate into reports to the local police and law enforcement officers. “Watch out,” they say in jargon, and the verb is done substance. The adhesions arrive numerous, spontaneous. A memorandum of understanding has already been signed in the L’Aquila between the prefect Giancarlo Di Vincenzo and the mayor Pierluigi Biondi. While in Avellino the prefect Rossana reflected blocked the initiative of the mayor of Bisaccia, who had hired sworn guards to patrol the territory. The prefect Francesco Esposito was also clear in Salerno: “No ronde or do-it-yourself justice.” But the pressure from the bottom is strong and rises from many municipalities in the province.
In Trento, the volunteers of the firefighters took to the field to counter the burst of thefts in Val Rendena. At the head of the ranks of the firefighters is Michele Cozzini, commander of the body: “We will carry on” he explains, “a control action passing through the flashing lights lit in the hours affected by the phenomenon”. While in Venice the “patrolling” against the pickpockets became catchphrase on Tiktok: “Attention, pickpocket!”, That is the battle cry of Monica Poli, 57 years old, who deserved the nickname of Lady Pickpocket, also ending up in a long article dedicated to her in the New York Times.
But for the degradation of some cities, that of the purses concerns the less serious aspect. And the intervention of citizens arrives for an exasperation corroborated both by the chronicles and by the data: in the first nine months of 2024, 44 percent of sexual violence was perpetrated by foreigners who are just 10 percent of the population. And the relative danger of irregular foreigners, says the Hume Foundation of the sociologist Luca Ricolfi, is about 50 times higher than that of community citizens (Italian and foreign). The sense of insecurity is concrete and one wonders where the law is over.
Vittorio Sgarbi had hypothesized a solution: “It would be necessary that these rondes were legitimate and not spontaneous.” But a question remains: who controls the controllers? For now everyone does as they like. City you go, Ronda you find.
