Dateline: July 19

This week Dateline is in Sicily to hear from those who are speaking out on the Mafia -but not everything is as simple as it sounds.

Known locally as the Cosa Nostra, Sicily’s mafia is just as famous as its blood oranges, olives and freshly caught seafood; but for decades this Mediterranean island has lived through vendetta and brutal murder.

Sicilians remain caught in a struggle to break free of the mafia and its grip on everyday life. As many as 80% of business are believed to still pay the mafia ‘pizzo’ (protection money). Those who don’t, risk the consequences.

“[Translated] There were letters with death threats sent to me and my family. They made holes in the walls of my shop, possibly in order to inject flammable liquid directly into my kitchen. They wrote ‘death’ on the walls of the shop,” Alessandro Marsicano, a Sicilian pastry shop owner tells Dateline.

However, there is now a new wave of Sicilians who are speaking out.

This week on Dateline, Aela Callan travels to Sicily to meet those who have decided to stand up, breaking the mafia’s number one rule to never mention the mafia.

She meets 81-year-old Letizia Battaglia, a photojournalist who captured the mafia’s most infamous patriarchs and each of their bloody, brutal murders with her old black and white camera. Today her work is exposing the mafia’s lingering control of Sicily for a new generation.

Aela also meets Pino Maniaci, a journalist who works at his family run TV station called Telejato. He tries to expose the mafia’s stranglehold on Sicily one story at a time, with expletive-laden anti-mafia bulletins that can run for up to two hours at a time.

Speaking out makes Pino a target, and just like a scene from any Hollywood mafia film, his family’s beloved dogs were hanged outside the station last year.

“That’s a clear warning. Today the dogs, tomorrow you,” Pino tells Aela.

But in a twist, Pino Maniaci is accused of hypocrisy and hits the headlines himself. Not for fighting the mafia, but for allegedly extorting cash from the mayor of a nearby town. Something he exposes the mafia for each and every night.

The video, released by an Italian newspaper and shown in this week’s Dateline, allegedly shows him bullying the mayor with threats of negative news stories.

“[Translated] You think I’m joking, I told you before, I made it clear, I warned you, and you just go on making mistakes,” Pino allegedly tells the mayor in the video.

Tuesday 19 July at 9.30pm on SBS.