ITALIAN HOSTAGE’S RELEASE ERUPTS INTO CLASHES OVER ISLAM, RANSOM

When word surfaced last weekend that a kidnapped 24-yearold Italian aid worker had been released after 18 months in captivity in Africa, Italians were overjoyed after weeks of relentlessly gloomy coronavirus news.

But from the moment she stepped off an Italian government plane Sunday wearing a green jilbab — the full-length outer garment worn by some Muslim women — her welcome home became chillier, even outright hostile.

The conversion of the young woman, Silvia Romano, to Islam, along with rumors that Italy had paid a ransom for her release, opened the dam to a deluge of insults on social media. She has been met with threats, in an episode that has focused renewed attention on the anti-immigrant and anti-Islam commentary unleashed in Italy during the 15 months that Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League Party, served as the country’s interior minister until he was ousted last fall.

Romano, who has not spoken publicly since her return, reached out on her private Facebook page Thursday. “I ask you not to get mad to defend me. The worst has passed for me,” she wrote in a post visible only to friends.

Romano was kidnapped in November 2018 in the Kenyan city of Chakama, near the town where she was volunteering with Africa Milele, an Italian aid organization whose name includes the Swahili word for forever.

Italian newspapers, citing a deposition Romano gave to prosecutors after her return, said she had been abducted by a gang affiliated with the al-Shabab militant group.

From Kenya, Romano was taken — mostly on foot — to Somalia, a four-week journey during which she fell ill, news reports said. In Somalia, she was moved six times.

Italian news outlets, which said she had changed her first name to Aisha, reported this week that Romano had told prosecutors that she freely converted to Islam during her abduction. She denied rumors that she had been forced to marry one of her abductors and that she was pregnant, the reports said.

Romano’s conversion to Islam — and whether it was voluntary — held sway in the Italian news media for days.

The conversation also reached Parliament.

And while some members of Salvini’s party have been harsh in their condemnation of Romano, a line appeared to have been crossed Wednesday when Alessandro Pagano, a League lawmaker, described her as a “neo-terrorist” during a debate about Italy’s coronavirus lockdown.