MONDRAGONE, Italy: An angry crowd greeted Italy’s far-right leader Matteo Salvini during a visit to a town in the Naples region Monday, with some heckling and pelting him with eggs and water.
The confrontation took place when Salvini visited a neighborhood of Mondragone, the scene of tensions last week between some residents and foreign workers, some of whom have been infected by the coronavirus.
When Salvini arrived an hour later than scheduled there was a hostile crowd waiting for him, many of them shouting insults.
Salvini, wearing a face mask in the colors of the Italian flag, quickly lowered it to begin his speech, but could scarcely be heard over the heckling.
“Salvini is worse than the Covid,” some shouted, with others calling him a “jackal” or a “clown” and telling him to leave.
Salvini, as he tried to continue his speech from behind a police line, was forced to dodge eggs and water thrown from the crowd.
In brief comments to television crews at the scene, he denounced what he said were agitators who had come in from outside,
“We have to guarantee the rights of Italians, and expel foreigners without papers,” he told AFPTV.
“We need to invest more in the Naples region, in resources and in the forces of order,” he added.
He left the scene after half an hour, but promised to return at a later date.
Last Friday, riot police had to be sent to the town to restore order.
Around 700 foreign workers, most of them Bulgarian farm laborers, are squatting a group of five buildings there.
They have been under lockdown for a week after 43 people among them tested positive for the coronavirus, while medical staff carry out tests throughout the neighborhood.
But last Thursday, several dozen people broke the quarantine to stage a protest march in the town, leading to scuffles with local people who threw stones at them.
Television footage also showed several vehicles belonging to Bulgarians damaged, their windscreens smashed and the Bulgarian registered plates taken as trophies.
Salvini, the leader of the far-right League party, served as interior minister and deputy prime minister in the last coalition government, pursuing hard-line policies that were hostile to immigrants.
With the collapse of that administration last year and the coronavirus crisis this year his profile — and his standing in the opinion polls — has fallen.
Crowd heckles Italy’s far-right leader Salvini
https://arab.news/6agv9
Crowd heckles Italy’s far-right leader Salvini
- Salvini, as he tried to continue his speech from behind a police line, was forced to dodge eggs and water thrown from the crowd
- Around 700 foreign workers, most of them Bulgarian farm laborers, are squatting a group of five buildings in Mondragone
‘A den of bandits’: Rwanda closes thousands of evangelical churches
- A 2018 law introduced new rules on health, safety, and financial disclosures, and requires all preachers to have theological training
- Observers say the real reason for the closures comes down to control, noting that even those who complied with the law had been shut down
- President Kagame has described the church as a relic of the colonial period, a chapter of its history with which the country is still grappling
KIGALI: Grace Room Ministries once filled giant stadiums in Rwanda three times a week before the evangelical organization was shut down in May.
It is one of the 10,000 churches reportedly closed by the government for failing to comply with a 2018 law designed to regulate places of worship.
The law introduced new rules on health, safety, and financial disclosures, and requires all preachers to have theological training.
President Paul Kagame has been vocal in his criticisms of the evangelical churches that have sprouted across the small country in Africa’s Great Lakes region.
“If it were up to me I wouldn’t even reopen a single church,” Kagame told a news briefing last month.
“In all the development challenges we are dealing with, the wars... our country’s survival — what is the role of these churches? Are they also providing jobs? Many are just thieving... some churches are just a den of bandits,” he said.
The vast majority of Rwandans are Christian according to a 2024 census, with many now traveling long and costly distances to find places to pray.
Observers say the real reason for the closures comes down to control.
Kagame’s government is saying “there’s no rival in terms of influence,” Louis Gitinywa, a lawyer and political analyst based in Kigali, told AFP.
The ruling party “bristles when an organization or individual gains influence,” he said, a view also expressed to AFP by an anonymous government official.
‘Deceived’
The 2018 law requires churches to submit annual action plans stating how they align with “national values.” All donations must be channelled through registered accounts.
Pastor Sam Rugira, whose two church branches were shut down last year for failing to meet fire safety regulations, said the rules mostly affected new evangelical churches that have “mushroomed” in recent years.
But Kagame has described the church as a relic of the colonial period, a chapter of its history with which the country is still grappling.
“You have been deceived by the colonizers and you let yourself be deceived,” he said in November.
The closure of Grace Room Ministries came as a shock to many across the country.
Pastor Julienne Kabanda, had been drawing massive crowds to the shiny new BK Arena in Kigali when the church’s license was revoked.
The government had cited unauthorized evangelical activities and a failure to submit “annual activity and financial reports.”
AFP was unable to reach Kabanda for comment.
‘Open disdain, disgust’
A church leader in Kigali, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the president’s “open disdain and disgust” for churches “spells tough times ahead.”
“It is unfair that even those that fulfilled all requirements are still closed,” he added.
But some say the clampdown on places of worship is linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which around 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were slaughtered.
Ismael Buchanan a political science lecturer at the National University of Rwanda, told AFP the church could sometimes act as “a conduit of recruitment” for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the Hutu militia formed in exile in DR Congo by those who committed the genocide.
“I agree religion and faith have played a key role in healing Rwandans from the emotional and psychological wounds after the genocide, but it also makes no sense to have a church every two kilometers instead of hospitals and schools,” he said.
Pastor Rugira meanwhile suggested the government is “regulating what it doesn’t understand.”
It should instead work with churches to weed out “bad apples” and help them meet requirements, especially when it comes to the donations they rely on to survive, he said.
