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"Fight against fear, defend the neighborhood," read one of the banners that last Wednesday paraded through the streets of the Roman neighborhood of Centocelle, on the periphery of the Italian capital, a symbol of resistance during the German occupation transformed into a market of the drug Around a hundred neighbors toured the neighborhood to protest against degradation and the latest attacks on businesses in the area. Last night, an intentional fire destroyed La Pecora Elettrica, a popular cafeteria-bookshop that had become a reference center for anti-fascist groups. It was the second time it burned in just six months.

Everything was prepared this Thursday for the reopening of La Pecora Elettrica, after last April 25 - the day in which Italy celebrates the anniversary of the liberation of Nazism - the flames almost completely destroyed this small cafeteria-liberia located in a corner of Via delle Palme, in front of the Forte Prenestino, a park invaded by drug addicts and camels where until recently the children of the neighborhood played. After the flames devoured its interior six months ago, the neighbors mobilized and managed in record time to gather about 20,000 euros to help reopen the doors of the premises. Now, everything is ashes.

Although no one has claimed responsibility for the fires, the police do not rule out that far-right groups can find themselves behind the attacks. The mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, said on social media that the library fire was "extremely serious." The residents point instead to the traffickers' interest in intimidating the merchants in the area and point to local institutions as responsible for degrading the neighborhood. Three weeks ago, a pizzeria on the same street was also burned down. "Politicians have abandoned us," denounce several of the protesters. "We are all the Pecora Elettrica," they say.

The concentration started from the central Plaza dei Mirti to the door of the bookstore. A tour illuminated by mobile phones, because there is hardly a street lamp that works. "The attack on a place that is a center of socialization and culture is a very serious act. It is an attack on a city that is trying to resist speculation and a process of gentrification that has been ongoing for years," he assures EL MUNDO Irene Di Noto, spokesman for the anti-fascist association of East Rome, very active in Centocelle. "The demonstration is a sign of solidarity with Pecora Elettrica, but it is also a sign of defense of the neighborhood in all these processes," he says.

A neighborhood transformed by drugs and the mafia

The history of the municipality is similar to that of so many other peripheral neighborhoods of large cities. In recent years the neighborhood is immersed in a transformation process. Its wide extension favors that while one part of the neighborhood suffers the consequences of drug trapping, the other has become the object of desire of real estate speculators.

Residents blame the increase in rents upon arrival of the subway and the opening of nightclubs. "A very interesting business for the mafia that is transforming the neighborhood and expelling the neighbors from a lifetime," says Jack. This activist and resident in Centocelle for six years ensures that neighbors are organizing citizen rounds to protect the territory. "Today's self-defense walk is just the beginning. We will return to the streets to protect and defend our neighborhood," he tells this newspaper.

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