Vittorio Arrigoni

Vittorio " Vik " Arrigoni ( born February 4, 1975 in Besana in Brianza, † April 15, 2011 in Gaza ) was an Italian pro-Palestinian activist and reporter.

Activism

As a member of the International Solidarity Movement, he reported from the Gaza Strip since 2008. In 2009 he published a collection of his reportage from Gaza in the form of a book with the title Restiamo umani, which was among others also translated into German.

Kidnapping and murder

Arrigoni was kidnapped by the Palestinian Islamist Salafist group Tawhid wal- Jihad ( " Tawheed and Jihad " ) on April 14, 2011; a day later his body was found in a vacant house. The group had from the Gaza controlling likewise Islamist Hamas called for the release of their leader Hisham Saidani, who had been detained in early March. The result of their ultimatum, the group had not waited for.

Arrigoni publisher in Germany, Giuseppe Zambon suspected after the discovery of the corpse Israel of being behind the murder. The same suspicion expressed the Member of Parliament ( The Left ) Inge Hoeger. Henryk M. Broder described these remarks as anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. The Hamas government in the Gaza Strip could identify as perpetrators palästinsische Salafists: Two of them were killed during the arrest, sentenced two others to life imprisonment. Two accomplices were given long prison sentences.

Reception

Peter Blastenbrei was in the TITLE - culture magazine of the Arrigoni written as the main author and published by Zambon band Palestine - Ethnic cleansing and resistance " over long distances ... confused and riddled with small to large errors in kind ". He criticized this Unbalanciertheit, by avoiding use political and economic analysis, and the almost complete absence of verifiable source of information even at extremely controversial issues.

Works

• Vittorio Arrigoni: GAZA - man stay: December 2008 - July 2009 With a preface by Ilan Pappe. . 1st edition. Zambon, Frankfurt am Main 2009 ( Original title: Restiamo Umani ), ISBN 978-3-88975-157-7.
• Vittorio Arrigoni: Palestine - Ethnic cleansing and resistance, publisher Giuseppe Zambon, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 9783889751560