DIGOS
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DIGOS, or Division of General Investigations and Special Operations (in Italian, Divisione Investigazioni Generali e Operazioni Speciali) is an Italian law enforcement agency charged with investigating sensitive cases relating to terrorism, organized crime and serious offenses such as kidnapping and extortion.
It is known for its role in several high-profile Mafia investigations, and for its prosecution of the so-called Imam Rapito affair, involving the kidnapping of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr on February 17, 2003.
Its main tasks nowadays are the monitoring of any political activity on Italian territory (e.g. demonstrations) and political (and "anti-terrorism") investigations. Therefore, agents of this department, not in uniform, are present at any possibly political public event. In demonstrations, for example, they register the ID of anyone particularly active, for example who takes photographs of the demonstration and the police activity. Thereby, they create an atmosphere of intimidation, also without directly menacing.
The role of the DIGOS in the period of Francesco Cossiga president of Italy is tragically famous: DIGOS-agents in a peaceful demonstrations threw stones and committed other violent acts in order to make the situation escalate, so that the police could violently stop the demonstration. The same things are said to have happened these days during the demonstrations in Rome against the new university-law. [1]
When a famous band in Italy, Elio e le storie tese, during a live-transmission on public TV in the 90s, unexpectedly did a political performance, singing nothing but facts about government and the criminal records of its members, the present DIGOS agents immediately removed the artists from the stage (Jim-Morrison-style).
The DIGOS is, therefore, a de-facto internal political secret service for political surveillance of public activities.
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