Pianist Dženifere Rumpāne is under house arrest in Rome. Will Latvia help her?
Young pianist and singer Dženifere Rumpāne has now been released from an Italian prison and is under house arrest in preparation for an appeals court. Six years ago, she took a bus. As her mother Vija Rumpāne told Neatkarīgā, her daughter had not been fare-dodging – she had a ticket, but at the moment when the controllers asked her to show it, she could not find it immediately - she searched her pockets, her bag and panicked. When asked her name and where she lived, Dženifere said the first name that came to mind because she was very stressed about the situation she was in. She showed the passport to the police and was released and told not to do that again. The musician could not imagine the horrific consequences of her violation.
Six years later, he was suddenly detained and placed in the same cell as a criminal who thrashed, tried attacking the prison guards, attempted suicide, and was subsequently stopped by Dženifere.
After that, the conditions were somewhat better. She has also given concerts to other prisoners, singing in both Italian and other languages and gaining great response with "Pūt, vējiņi" in Latvian. Thanks to the desperate efforts of friends and relatives, the musician is currently released from prison, but forced under house arrest. So nothing is over and the thriller continues. Rumpāne is now provided with quality legal aid, but it costs quite a lot.
Neither driving without a ticket nor defying the ticket controller is an activity for which a reasonable sentence could be a year of imprisonment. So there are some circumstances that have caused such a situation. It seems that in Italy, too, the authorities tend to be very indifferent to the fate of people - and especially if these people are from abroad and even more if it is from some place called Latvia, the location of which is not really known. If it were Russia or America, then maybe they would behave with more restraint. It has not been heard that Italian prisons are full of Americans who have not told their carabinieri their real name. The foreigner Rumpāne, who six years ago did not yet speak Italian and English very well, and was panicking, was an ideal victim of the arbitrariness of the authorities. Any papers could be given to sign, her words could be written down in any way. It is possible that due to the language barrier, the woman did not understand when and where she had to go, where to apply in order to avoid a higher penalty. However, no matter how it was and no matter how guilty Rumpāne herself is, the severity of the punishment is not proprotionate with the size of the offense.