Italy doesn’t need Islamic courts like Britain, says far-right leader
ISLAM is incompatible with Italy’s values and freedoms, the leader of the hard-right League party warned, as he stepped up aggressive campaigning ahead of the country’s election.
Matteo Salvini, who hopes to become prime minister after elections next month, said Italy should not go down the same path as the UK where, he claimed, Islamist courts had superseded the secular, common law justice system.
“I don’t want to end up like Great Britain, which has Islamic courts instead of British courts,” he said.
He appeared to be referring to sharia councils, tribunals that seek to apply Islamic laws to everything from financial disputes to marital conflicts. They are unregulated, dominated by men and have been accused of being discriminatory towards Muslim women.
Sharia councils have been operating in the UK, in parallel to the British legal system, since the early Eighties. The informal councils have no legal powers and cannot impose any penalties.
Mr Salvini made the remarks in Umbria, throwing his support behind efforts by local League activists to block the construction of an Islamic cultural centre in the town of Umbertide.
“The fundamental cultural question is whether Islam, as in the literal application of the sayings of Mohamed, is today compatible with our values, our liberty and our constitution. I have very grave doubts,” he said.
The League, formerly known as the Northern League, is in an alliance with the Forza Italia party of Silvio Berlusconi and a small far-right party called Brothers of Italy. Together they need to garner at least 40 per cent of the vote to win the election on March 4.
Mr Salvini would only have a chance of becoming premier if the League wins more votes than Forza Italia, which seems unlikely at the moment. Polls show that Forza Italia is likely to attract 16 per cent of the vote against the League’s 14 per cent. If, as indicated by polling, the centre-right bloc wins only 35-37 per cent of the vote, then it would have to do a deal with an opposition party to form a government.
But Mr Salvini is staunchly opposed to any such deal, meaning there could be weeks of messy horse-trading to forge a workable government – or even a fresh election.
The election campaign has become increasingly dominated by immigration and security after a Nigerian alleged drug dealer was accused last week of murdering and dismembering an 18-year-old Italian woman.
Innocent Oseghale allegedly cut the woman’s body into pieces with a cleaver, stuffed them into suitcases and dumped them in the countryside.
In retaliation, a 28-year-old Italian man with far-right sympathies drove around the nearby hilltop town of Macerata, shooting six African migrants, although none fatally.
“The problem with Islam is that it is a law, not a religion,” said Mr Salvini. “The fact is that in the literal interpretation of the Koran, which is not a text to be interpreted but is considered the word of the prophet, women are worth less than men and Islamic law is worth more than Italian law. I don’t want people to come to Italy who believe women are worth less than men.”