MILAN: Italian Premier Giorgia Melon i has admonished the youth wing of her far-right Brothers of Italy party after an Italian news outlet published videos showing some of its members glorifying fascism.
“I have said and repeated dozens of times, but perhaps I need to repeat it: There is no space in Brothers of Italy for racist or antisemitic positions, just as there is no space for nostalgics of totalitarianism of the 1900s, or for any other show of stupid folklore,’’ Meloni said in a letter to her party published by Italian media on Tuesday.
The online news outlet Fanpage released the videos last month filmed with a hidden camera by a journalist posing as an activist with Brothers of Italy’s youth wing. They showed members of the group praising the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, doing fascist salutes and yelling the Nazi cry “Sieg Heil.”
Meloni has decried the fascist regime’s anti-Jewish racial laws and the suppression of democracy, but critics have long said she has not done enough to distance herself from her party’s neo-fascist roots.
The Brothers of Italy has its origins in the Italian Social Movement, or MSI, which was founded in 1946 by former Mussolini officials and drew fascist sympathizers into its ranks. It remained a small far-right party until the 1990s, when it became the National Alliance and worked to distance itself from its neo-fascist past.
Meloni was a member of the youth branches of MSI and the National Alliance, and founded Brothers of Italy in 2012, keeping the tricolor flame symbol of the MSI in her party logo.
Liliana Segre, a 93-year-old senator for life and Holocaust survivor, told Italy’s La7 private television that such sentiments had always existed in Italy but that with the new far-right-led government “they don’t have shame in anything.”
She said the Nazi mottos had revived memories of being deported. “Now at my age, will I be forced from my country, as I was already once?”
Italian Premier Meloni rebukes the youth wing of her far-right party for glorifying fascism
https://arab.news/2z5gu
Italian Premier Meloni rebukes the youth wing of her far-right party for glorifying fascism
- “There is no space in Brothers of Italy for racist or antisemitic positions, just as there is no space for nostalgics of totalitarianism of the 1900s,’’ Meloni said
- Meloni has decried the fascist regime’s anti-Jewish racial laws and the suppression of democracy
Bangladesh’s religio-political party open to unity govt
- Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years
DHAKA: A once-banned Bangladeshi religio-political party, poised for its strongest electoral showing in February’s parliamentary vote, is open to joining a unity government and has held talks with several parties, its chief said.
Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years as it marks a return to mainstream politics in the predominantly Muslim nation of 175 million.
Jamaat last held power between 2001 and 2006 as a junior coalition partner with the BNP and is open to working with it again.
“We want to see a stable nation for at least five years. If the parties come together, we’ll run the government together,” Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman said in an interview at his office in a residential area in Dhaka, days after the party created a buzz by securing a tie-up with a Gen-Z party.
Rahman said anti-corruption must be a shared agenda for any unity government.
The prime minister will come from the party winning the most seats in the Feb. 12 election, he added. If Jamaat wins the most seats, the party will decide whether he himself would be a candidate, Rahman said.
The party’s resurgence follows the ousting of long-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a youth-led uprising in August 2024.
Rahman said Hasina’s continued stay in India after fleeing Dhaka was a concern, as ties between the two countries have hit their lowest point in decades since her downfall.
Asked about Jamaat’s historical closeness to Pakistan, Rahman said: “We maintain relations in a balanced way with all.”
He said any government that includes Jamaat would “not feel comfortable” with President Mohammed Shahabuddin, who was elected unopposed with the Awami League’s backing in 2023.
