Members of the youth of the Brothers of Italy, the party of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, have appeared in videos in which they utter racist and anti-Semitic insults and in which they launch fascist proclamations prohibited by law. The revelation of these images puts the leader of the far-right party and head of the Italian Government in trouble, since since she came to power she has tried to soften her image.
The digital portal Fanpage has revealed the content of several chat conversations and images in which members of Juventud Nacional, the youth group of Meloni’s party, appear, openly declaring themselves to be “fascists and racists,” mocking Jews, whom they accuse of “living off the Holocaust,” chanting hymns in favor of the dictator Benito Mussolini, whom they address as “Uncle Benito,” or shouting Nazi slogans.
Many of the current leaders of Brothers of Italy have trained in politics in the party’s youth organization. Currently, some members of the formation’s youth work as assistants to Meloni’s deputies.
This is the case of Elisa Segnini, chief secretary of deputy Ylenia Lucaselli, who in the videos boasts, without being aware that the camera is recording her, that she has not stopped being “racist and fascist.”
Flaminia Pace, president of the National Youth section of Pinciano, a neighborhood in Rome, mocks the senator of her same party, Ester Mieli, for being Jewish and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. In the recording she mocks having signed several statements in solidarity with her Jewish comrade, “while with her friends he joked about swastikas.”
Shortly after the images were published, Pace announced his resignation for “personal reasons.” Some members of the Brothers of Italy have expressed their solidarity with Senator Mieli and condemned the comments of the party’s cubs. The opposition, on the other hand, has disgraced the prime minister that she has remained silent and has not immediately condemned her insults.
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“Unacceptable sentences”
The president of the Senate, Ignazio La Russa, a member of the Brothers of Italy and very close to Meloni, described the attacks on Mieli as “unacceptable sentences by some militants of the National Youth.” And he condemned the grievances on his social networks: “Phrases that go against the values of our party, firmly rooted in the principles of democracy, freedom and respect for human dignity. “I express a total and firm condemnation of all forms of racism and anti-Semitism that have always been at the antipodes of the values that have inspired my political commitment.”
The organizational director of Brothers of Italy, Giovanni Donzelli, also expressed in a statement that in the far-right formation “there is no room for racists, extremists and anti-Semites.” “The phrases heard in videos broadcast that show members of our party using language that is incompatible with the reference values of our political movement are unacceptable, despite the ways in which they were captured and disseminated,” Donzelli added.
The spokesman in the Senate of the Democratic Party (PD), Francesco Boccia, demanded that Meloni clarify his position and stressed that “it is not possible that there is room, in the party that represents the head of the Italian Government, for those who refer to the Duce [el dictador Benito Mussolini], to anti-Semitism and racism.” And he assessed that the journalistic investigation “shows that within the Brothers of Italy they have not distanced themselves from an underground world that exists and is linked to models and references of the extreme right.”
Simona Malpezzi, leader of the PD group in the Extraordinary Commission for the fight against the phenomena of intolerance, racism, anti-Semitism and incitement to hatred and violence, also called for the Prime Minister to intervene: “Donzelli’s timid and stammering words are not enough: clear and unambiguous statements are needed from Giorgia Meloni,” who is asked not only to censure, but also to expel extremist, racist and fascist fringes within the National Youth.
The 5 Star Movement, through its spokesperson in the Chamber of Deputies, Francesco Silvestri, has condemned that “Meloni’s silence on the young people of the Brothers of Italy who exude anti-Semitism and fascism clearly says that she knew it.” And she added: “At the end of the day, how has she not realized? And how can we think that she will scare away these characters when she herself has done nothing but talk for years about the worst of the country? He has also denounced “the complicity of those who hold positions in Parliament and hire these people, who, therefore, are paid with public money.”
Riccardo Magi, secretary of +Europe, has also criticized Meloni’s silence. “Fanpage’s investigation has opened Pandora’s box of fascism that lives in the underworld of the Brothers of Italy. Homophobia, racism, nostalgia for Benito Mussolini, sympathies for Adolf Hitler and Nazism, anti-Semitism that even leads them to attack one of their undersecretaries: Giorgia Meloni’s silence until now has been deafening and now it becomes a real assent”, he wrote on his social networks.
Matteo Renzi, from Italia Viva, also denounced that “the growing climate of anti-Semitism that is emerging throughout Europe within extremist groups is a cause for great concern.”
Fanpage has highlighted that its research “has shown a movement infected by neofascism from head to toe.” And he has specified: “We are not talking about bad apples within the National Youth, but—at the very least—of a rotten movement within the Brothers of Italy.”
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