ROME: Italy’s parliament descended into uproar after a right-wing politician described a young Italian woman who converted to Islam while held hostage in Somalia as a “neo-terrorist.”
Opposition League Party MP Alessandro Pagano was reprimanded by fellow politicians and the Vatican after directing his remarks at Silvia Romano, a 25-year-old aid worker who was held for 18 months by Somali Islamist militants.
Romano was freed last weekend after a joint operation by Italian, Turkish and Somali intelligence services.
House Speaker Roberto Fico accused Pagano of using “unacceptable words of hatred,” while the ruling center-left Democratic Party called on the League to apologize.
The Vatican daily newspaper L’Osservatore said that the attack on Romano had shown a “inhuman gaze.”
“This story is full of pain — all you have to do is look,” it said.
Police in Milan are investigating an online hate campaign against Romano and are patrolling the residential street where she lives.
A bottle was thrown against the window of her parent’s flat after she returned from 18 months as a captive of the Somali Al-Shabab group.
The aid worker was passed on to the militants by a kidnapping gang who snatched her in November 2018 in Kenya. At the time she was a volunteer at an Italian-run orphanage near the tourist resort of Malindi.
Romano’s conversion to Islam has drawn social media attacks and claims that she has failed to condemn Al-Shabab.
She has also been accused of traveling to a terror hotspot without proper protection and inadvertently funding terrorism.
Italy’s Foreign Minister, Luigi Di Maio, said that “spine-chilling things have been said about Romano, they have gone beyond any acceptable limit.”
He rejected media claims that a €4 million ($4.3 million) ransom was paid to Al-Shabab to secure Romano’s release, adding that he felt “deep embarrassment” over Pagano’s words in parliament.
“The choice of doing volunteer work cannot become a cause for a personal attack,” Di Maio said.
European Parliament President David Sassoli described the threats against Romano as “disgraceful and unacceptable.”
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte called on Romano’s critics to “reflect on what it is like to be a 25-year-old abducted in Kenya and marched through the jungle on foot by gunmen and taken to four different hideouts.”
In an online post, Romano said: “I really ask you not to get angry in defending me. The worst is over, now let’s enjoy the moment. I always followed my heart.”
League leader Matteo Salvini refused to apologize for Pagano’s comments in Parliament, but said he had spoken to the MP in private.
“Silvia Romano isn’t the problem, fanatical Islam is,” Salvini wrote on Twitter.