Hate crime in Italy surges ahead of national elections
When hundreds of hardcore fans of Italy’s Hellas Verona Seria A soccer club chanted “Adolf Hitler is my friend” and sang that their team embraced the swastika, at a festive gathering in the summer, Italian Jewish communities complained – and waited.
Local officials initially dismissed the video as a “prank,” and condemnation only came several months later, after another video from the same event, profaning Christian objects, also began circulating on social media.
“These episodes should absolutely not be dismissed,” said Bruno Carmi, the head of Verona’s tiny Jewish community of about 100, speaking in an interview at the Verona synagogue, which is flanked by two armed police patrols. “In my opinion, whoever draws a simple swastika on the wall knows what it means. And we know very well where that swastika brought us.”
Racist and anti-semitic expressions have been growing more bold, widespread and violent in Italy. Antimigrant rhetoric is playing an unprecedented role in shaping the campaign for the 4 March national elections, which many say is worsening tensions and even encouraging violence.
Hate crimes motivated by racial or religious bias in Italy have risen more than tenfold, from 71 incidents in 2012 to 803 in 2016. Last weekend, a right-wing extremist shot and wounded six African immigrants in the small central Italian city of Macerata.
Police said the suspect claims to have been acting out of revenge after a Nigerian immigrant was accused of dismembering an 18-yearold teen whose remains were found three days earlier. The shooting drew widespread, but not universal, condemnation. The attack also had a political element. The alleged gunman, Luca Traini, was a failed candidate for the rightwing, anti-migrant Northern League last year and had previously flirted with more extreme neo-fascist movements. Police seized Nazi and white supremacist propaganda from his bedroom.
The night before the shooting, Northern League leader Matteo Salvini had cited the teen’s murder in a campaign appearance in Verona, pledging to send home 150,000 migrants if elected. Former premier Silvio Berlusconi, who is competing with Salvini for leadership of the centreright coalition, significantly upped the political ante after the shooting. He claimed that 600,000 migrants were in Italy illegally.
“The facts of Macerata in some ways show that in recent years there has been a process of cultural, social and political legitimisation of racism that is creating enormous damage, most of all at the expense of people’s lives,” said Grazia Naletto, president of Lunaria, a Rome-based non-governmental agency that compiles a database of racist incidents.
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