Fascist salute marks anniversary of Mussolini’s execution

ROME — Dozens of people raised their arms in the fascist salute and shouted a fascist chant during ceremonies Sunday to honor Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on the 79th anniversary of his execution.

Dressed in black, the neofascist supporters marched through northern Italian towns where Mussolini was arrested and executed at the end of World War II, and also in Predappio, Mussolini’s birthplace and final resting place.

Mussolini was stopped by anti-fascist partisans in Dongo, on the shores of Lake Como, on April 27, 1945, as he tried to escape with his lover, Clara Petacci, after the Allied liberation of Italy.

On Sunday, a group of neo-fascists marched through Dongo and placed 15 roses in the lake in memory of the ministers and officials from the Mussolini government who were killed there, according to video by LaPresse news agency.

The partisans executed Mussolini and Petacci the following day in the nearby lakeside town of Mezzegra-Giulino, where commemorations were also held Sunday. After a rendition of taps, the leader of the commemorations shouted “Comrade Benito Mussolini,” and the crowd responded with a stiff-armed fascist salute and chant of “present.”

Police trucks separated the demonstrators in Dongo from hundreds of protesters who sang the famous partisan song “Bella Ciao” during the ceremony.

The anniversary of Mussolini’s execution fell on the same day that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was leading her far-right Brothers of Italy party in an election rally in the city of Pescara. Brothers of Italy traces its roots to the Italian Social Movement, or MSI, which was founded in 1946 by a chief of staff in Mussolini’s last government and drew fascist sympathizers and officials into its ranks after Mussolini’s fall.

Meloni, who joined the MSI’s youth branch as a teenager, has tried to distance her party from its neofascist roots. She has condemned fascism’s suppression of democracy and insisted that the Italian right handed fascism over to history decades ago. On Sunday, Meloni accused the left of being more of a totalitarian threat to Italy today.

She said Communist Party members had made a complaint about the tents put up on the Pescara beachfront to host the Brothers of Italy rally, during which Meloni announced she would head the party’s campaign before European Parliament elections in June. “I note that the Communist Party still exists, and I say so to show where the nostalgics for totalitarianism are in Italy today,” she said.