“We must overthrow the system”: why the murder of student Giulia Cecchettin shakes Italy

Italy is not losing its temper. Giulia Cecchettin, a 22-year-old student, missing since November 11, was finally found a week later, at the bottom of a ravine near Lake Barcis, north of Venice. His face and neck had been lacerated with stab wounds. In total, the forensic experts counted 26. According to the reconstructions, the killer left the body of the young woman at the side of the road before letting it slide down a cliff, reports the Italian media Il Sole 24 Ora.

The next day, on November 19, her ex-boyfriend, who is the main suspect in the case, was found and arrested in Germany, near Leipzig. This arrest ended a week on the run, but did not succeed in appeasing the anger of the Italians.

The story began on Saturday, November 11. That day, the two young people vanished and gave no news to their loved ones. Alerted, the Italian police ended up discovering surveillance videos of an industrial zone in the Riviera del Brenta, dating from the evening of Saturday, November 11. We can see a scene of extreme violence between the two young students, reports the Italian daily Le Corriere della sera. In his pre-trial detention order, the judge describes a 22-minute sequence of “unprecedented ferocity”, indicates Ouest-France.

And for good reason. The young man hits the young student several times, to the point of making her fall to the ground, inert. He then puts it in his trunk, before the car leaves the field. Earlier in the evening, the two students had also been seen by a neighbor: “I saw them arguing next to a black car. She told him “leave me. He grabbed her by the arm and forced her to get into the car,” he told our Italian colleagues.

For more than a week, media coverage of this affair was very intense. So much so that political figures also reacted. On November 19, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni spoke about the macabre discovery on X: “We all hoped these days that Giulia was alive,” she wrote. Before adding: “Unfortunately, our greatest fears have come true. Killed. I feel infinite sadness when I see the smiling photos of this young girl and, alongside this sadness, great anger.”

Matteo Salvini, vice-president of the Council of Ministers, also said harshly: “For murderers, life imprisonment, with compulsory labor. For rapists and pedophiles – whatever their nationality, skin color and social status – chemical castration and prison,” he asserted. Before deciding: “This is what the League has always proposed, we hope that others will finally support us and follow us.” The Italian elected official accompanied his message with a photo of the two young people smiling.

And the media and the political sphere were not the only ones to react to the dramatic event. In reaction and in shock, the victim's sister, Elena Cecchettin, also wanted to speak out. She published a letter in Corriere della sera, this Monday, November 20, in which she firmly refuses the usual “minute of silence” to pay tribute to the missing person. Above all, she invited Italians to “overthrow the system” and “burn everything”, which was followed by hundreds of students who demonstrated.

Also read: An emblematic feminicide returned to justice

In question ? An entire society that led to Giulia's death accuses the sister of the young student who died. “Femicide is state murder, because the state does not protect us. “Femicide is not a crime of passion, it is a crime of power,” she denounced. Elena Cecchettin believes that her sister's death was not caused by a “crazy” act but by “patriarchal society” and “rape culture”. So, Filippo is not a “monster,” Elena repeated. The young boy was also described by those around him as a rather calm and homely person. The two young people had met three years earlier, at university. After a first separation, Giulia decided to definitively end their relationship last August. But according to the girl's friends, Filippo refused to accept her and cherished their moment together.

It was therefore with anger that Elena Cecchettin called on men to educate each other in this same letter: “It is up to men, given their privileges and their power, to educate and challenge their friends and colleagues as soon as they hear the slightest allusion to gender-based violence,” she insists. “Tell it to this friend who controls his girlfriend’s phone, tell it to this colleague who harasses passers-by, be hostile to these behaviors accepted by society which are nothing other than the prelude to femicide,” he said. she added. Also proposing ideas for Italian society: “We need widespread sexual and emotional education, we must teach that love is not a possession.”