A viral video of more than 150 men, clad in black and raising their right arms in a fascist salute in central Rome,\u00a0has caused a stir everywhere but in the office of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. <\/p>\n
The event, now under investigation by Rome\u2019s special anti-fascism police unit, took place on the evening of January 7 to mark the 46th\u00a0anniversary of the Acca Larentia massacre, <\/strong>when three young neo-fascist militants\u00a0<\/strong>from the\u00a0Italian Social Movement (MSI) were killed\u00a0on the street of that name. <\/p>\n Two, Franco Bigonzetti and Francesco Ciavatta, were murdered by suspected left-wing activists on the street in front of the MSI party headquarters and the third, Stefano Recchioni,\u00a0by a police officer responding to riots against the first killings. <\/p>\n No one has ever been charged with the\u00a01978\u00a0murders. <\/p>\n In the videos shot by onlookers last weekend, the saluting men can be clearly heard yelling \u201cpresent\u201d three times as they raise their right arms. <\/p>\n One\u00a0then shouts a common\u00a0neo-fascist battle cry: \u201cFor all fallen comrades.\u201d <\/p>\n A commemoration of their deaths\u00a0takes place every January 7, with police providing security\u00a0under both left and right-wing administrations. It is consistently attended by members of both extremes of the political spectrum,\u00a0who lay wreaths on a monument to the young men. <\/p>\n The MSI party grew from the ashes of Benito Mussolini\u2019s National Fascist Party after it was dismantled at the end of World War II when the dictator was deposed and killed. <\/p>\n It\u00a0is the party through which Meloni first entered politics;\u00a0she led the MSI\u00a0before melding\u00a0it\u00a0into her own more moderate Brothers of Italy party, which won snap elections in 2022. <\/p>\n Meloni has attended the commemoration on the Via Acca Larentia many times in the past, according to her own social media, but never as prime minister. <\/p>\n Italy\u2019s opposition, including Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein, have called on Meloni to ban neo-fascist groups. <\/p>\n While the Italian constitution bans fascist ideology, all over the country\u00a0<\/strong>monuments to Italy\u2019s fascist past\u00a0remain, such as an obelisk bearing <\/strong>Mussolini\u2019s name\u00a0in front of Rome\u2019s Olympic Stadium. <\/p>\n It is a complicated area and the law \u2013 like many in Italy \u2013 is ambiguous.\u00a0Being \u201capologetic\u201d to old-style fascism is a crime in Italy, but neo-fascist groups are not illegal: such groups are often careful not to adopt overtly fascist ideology in their constitutions. <\/p>\n Nor are fascist memorabilia or gestures like the fascist salute illegal, something that critics say must change. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is Rome, 7 January 2024. It seems like 1924,\u201d Schlein wrote on social media with an image of the salute.\u00a0\u201cWhat happened is unacceptable. Neo-fascist groups must be disbanded.\u201d <\/p>\n Calling for the government to condemn the salute, Noemi Di Segna, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, said laws should be tightened, calling such acts \u201cdangerous nostalgia.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cFor a very long time, we have been calling for the regulations concerning the nostalgia for neo-fascism to be strengthened,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n The episode was also condemned by Meloni\u2019s deputy\u00a0and foreign minister,\u00a0Antonio Tajani \u2013 now head of the Forza Italia party after the death of Silvio Berlusconi\u00a0\u2013\u00a0who said\u00a0his party was anti-fascist, and that no party should celebrate dictatorships. <\/p>\n Meloni wasn\u2019t at the commemoration Sunday night, and she has only addressed the uproar by\u00a0<\/strong>branding <\/strong>the backlash and the calls for her to ban neo-fascist groups \u201cattacks\u201d on her government. <\/p>\n \u201cThis government continues to respond to the gratuitous attacks and exploitative controversies of recent days by certain opposition parties with facts and results,\u201d she wrote on Facebook. <\/p>\n A spokesperson for Meloni said the prime minister would\u00a0<\/strong>likely\u00a0not comment further. <\/p>\n This stands in contrast to other countries like Germany, which have zero tolerance to other forms of fascism. Berizzi said that \u201cin this moment neo-fascist groups feel protected by Meloni\u2019s silence, her ambiguity. Meloni\u00a0is not able to cut the cord with her past. In some ways she is hostage to her past.\u201d <\/p>\n Rome\u2019s main prosecutor has opened an investigation into the event, to determine if anyone broke the \u201capology for fascism\u201d law with the fascist salute. <\/p>\n Italy\u2019s General Investigations and Special Operations Division (DIGOS)\u00a0has identified 150 participants, all men, of whom nine are known right-wing militants with previous fascism-related criminal charges against them,\u00a0according\u00a0a spokesperson for the agency. <\/p>\n In her first year of power, Meloni proved her promise that she had distanced herself from her neo-fascist upbringing by becoming one of the most moderate leaders in Europe, where she has been praised for her leadership on issues ranging from Ukraine to migration. But her silence on the domestic issue now shaking the country may change all that. <\/p>\n On Tuesday, the European Parliament in Strasbourg will take up the case when it debates the resurgence of neo-fascism in Europe. Ewan MacPhee, spokesperson for the Social Democrats in the European Parliament, warned they plan to take the debate seriously. <\/p>\n \u201cWe find the prime minister\u2019s silence even more disconcerting, and we wonder why she didn\u2019t condemn the events of January 7,\u201d MacPhee said ahead of the Tuesday meeting, according to the Italian media. \u201cThe debate becomes necessary and it is important that Parliament does what Meloni seems unable to do: that is, condemn what happened.\u201d <\/p>\n\n A viral video of more than 150 men, clad in black and raising their right arms in a fascist salute in central Rome,\u00a0has caused a stir everywhere but in the office of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The event, now under investigation by Rome\u2019s special anti-fascism police unit, took place on the evening of January <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13989,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}