PM Meloni criticises methods used by leftwing investigative group Fanpage. The group highlighted alleged anti-semitic sentiments made by members of the FdI youth wing.
Anti-semitic sentiments are incompatible with the ruling right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, Premier Giorgia Meloni said Friday.
Two leading members of FdI youth wing Gioventù Nazionale (National Youth, GN) resigned on Thursday amid a row over alleged anti-semitic remarks against a Jewish FdI Senator. There were also threats allegedly against centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) leader Elly Schlein, who has Jewish roots.
“As I have already said many times, and I reiterate, I think that anyone who has racist, anti-semitic or nostalgic sentiments has simply got into the wrong house because these sentiments are incompatible with Brothers of Italy,” Meloni said after the EU summit in Brussels.
However, she criticised the methods used by leftwing investigative reporting group Fanpage.
“I take note that it is a new frontier of the political clash,” Meloni said. “From today it is possible to infiltrate political parties and trade unions, film the meetings, and publish the footage.
“It’s an instrument that can be used at 360 degrees.
“Infiltrating the meetings of political parties is a method that smacks of a regime”, said the right-wing premier. Meloni has repeatedly condemned Mussolini, Fascism and the “ignominious” racial laws against the Jews.
The opposition immediately branded Meloni’s own words against Fanpage as “regime-like”.
GN Members resign
Two leading GN members resigned on Thursday after being caught making allegedly neo-Fascist and anti-semitic remarks.
The first official, GN leader Flaminia Pace, allegedly made anti-semitic remarks about an FdI Senator and former spokeswoman for the Rome Jewish community, Ester Mieli.
Pace was allegedly caught on a hidden camera phone saying, “The best thing was yesterday taking the mickey about the swastikas, me who had issued the press statement of solidarity for Ester Mieli”.
FdI House Whip Tommaso Foto announced Pace’s resignation saying, “In FdI, those who err, pay”.
The second GN member, Elisa Segnini, secretary to FdI’s leader on the House budget committee, Ylenja Lucaselli, quit after the probe recorded her saying she had “never stopped being racist and Fascist”.
The Fanpage probe, titled ‘Melonian Youth’, has roiled Meloni’s party. The PM has been seeking to cement her reputation for moderation on the EU stage. She has been asserting the right-wing’s right to more European appointments after it made gains in the latest elections.
Meloni has repeatedly praised GN in the past as model political youngsters.
Second Fanpage probe into National Youth
In the video, Segnini also allegedly blasted Ilaria Salis, an antifascist then on trial in Hungary for allegedly attacking neo-Nazis. Salis has since been released due to her newly acquired parliamentary immunity after becoming an MEP for the Green/Left Alliance (AVS).
Segnini was recorded as saying, “I’ll go to Budapest and tell (Prime Minister Viktor) Orban that Ilaris Salis must rot in jail with the mice and rats eating her feet”.
Salis’s contentious detention conditions sparked protests in Italy, including from Meloni to her ally Orban.
The latest Fanpage probe was the second part of an investigation into National Youth. It again found members allegedly making Fascist, antisemitic and neo-Nazi comments.
In the first part, Fanpage recorded members hailing Mussolini and far right terrorists, and chanting Sieg Heil.
Senior party officials were also recorded attending the youth rallies. They allegedly gripped forearms in a ‘gladiatorial’ alleged Fascist greeting.
The co-head of FdI’s EU group, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), Nicola Procaccini, said he will sue the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) caucus leader Iratxe García Pérez of Spain for saying he made a Fascist salute in the exposé.
