A leader of the Brothers of Italy, the far-right party favored to win in the Italian legislature on Sunday, drew ire on Wednesday after the publication of a video in which he is making the “Roman” salute, similar to a fascist ritual. .
Romano La Russa, brother of Fratelli d’Italia (FdI – Irmãos de Itália) co-founder Ignazio La Russa, appears in the video, which has since gone viral on social media, with his arm outstretched during a ceremony at a street in Milan (north), on the 19th of this month.
The security officer for the Lombardy region, of which Milan is the capital, was attending the funeral of a figure from the Italian neo-fascist right, Alberto Stabilini, who was also his brother-in-law.
For Romano La Russa, it was a “military tradition and not a fascist salute”.
“When you swear allegiance to the Italian Republic as a soldier, the oath obliges you to salute with outstretched arms. And are they all fascists? No. It’s the same thing,” he argued, stressing that the deceased had been a soldier.
“Fascism is dead and gone: communism remains,” concluded Romano La Russa, quoted by the Italian news agency ANSA.
For the president of the Lombardy Region, Attilio Fontana, a member of the League that contests the elections in coalition with the Brothers of Italy and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI), it is “behavior that is not part of the vision” of the three games
Center-left former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi condemned what he called a “totally reprehensible gesture”, admitting, however, that there was no risk of fascism returning to Italy.
Several political leaders have called for Romana La Russa’s action to be brought to justice under the charge of “apology of fascism”.
The Italian criminal code provides for the crime of apology, but recent jurisprudence maintains that the crime is not automatically constituted if the will for a structured reorganization of fascism is not manifested.
The administration of the Brothers of Italy has not yet ruled on the episode. On Tuesday, a Brethren of Italy parliamentary candidate was suspended from all internal duties after he praised Adolf Hitler on social media.
Source: TSF
