Meloni like Trump over rape video says Letta

(ANSA) - ROME, AUG 24 - Conservative leader Giorgia Meloni, on track to become Italy's first women premier, is like Donald Trump in suffering "huge" reputational damage after a vodeo of a migrant raping a woman was taken down by social media platforms just like the US ex-president was removed over lies, centre-left Democratic Party (PD) leader and ex-premier Enrico Letta said Wednesday.
    On Tuesday Twitter, Facebook and Instagram removed the video of a 27-year-old Guinean asylum seeker raping a 55-year-old Ukrainian woman in the northern town of Piacenza.
    Brothers of Italy (FdI) leader Meloni had been accused of shameless electioneering in re-posting the video Monday and calling for a crackdown on crime.
    Letta said Wednesday that "the sanction of public opinion and reputation is huge, and it is extremely serious that Meloni is trying to get out of it pretending that nothing happened".
    After Letta called the posting of the video "indecent", Meloni retorted that "the indecency lies in the rape" and reaffirmed longstanding right-wing charges that the left does little to curb illegal immigration.
    Letta continued: "Twitter, Facebook and Instagram did the same thing with Trump when he went beyond the limits of decency: Meloni is on the same line as Trump".
    Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter on Tuesday removed the video of the Guinean asylum seeker raping a Ukrainian woman in Piacenza Monday, which had been controversially re-posted by Meloni in a post vowing to boost law and order in Italy if the centre right takes power in elections next month, as it is currently forecast to do by all major opinion polls.
    The video of the 27-year-old man, Seko Souware, raping the unnamed 55-year-old woman was shot by a man in an overlooking window in the northern city, who had been told by police not to intervene but to keep filming evidence of the alleged crime.
    Meloni was widely criticised for alleged electioneering in re-publishing the video, with Letta saying the victim had been turned into an election football.
    Meloni retorted that the indecency lay in the rape and not her posting the video.
    After removing the video, Twitter said it had breached its rules. Facebook parent company Meta said it had broken norms relating to the sexual exploitation of adults.
    FdI Senator and bigwig Ignazio la Russa said politicians like Letta who "got indignant at Meloni rather than at the rape are looking at the finger rather than the moon." He said "they are doing so, perhaps, to hide the lack of interventions by the left on clandestine immigration, often (but not always) at the origin of this full blown emergency from which women are suffering".
    Meloni's chief ally, League leader Matteo Salvini, has often publicised cases of migrant crime, instantly spreading news of the most serious ones.
    The Piacenza rape victim reportedly told investigators Tuesday she was "desperate" because she had been recognized in the video. She has not been named.
    Souware, the alleged rapist, has been in Italy since January 2014 and had an application for international protection rejected by an asylum committee in Trieste in June, sources said Tuesday. (ANSA).