Left slams stamp for AS Roma founder and Fascist 'thug'

(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 7 - Italy's centre-left opposition on Friday slammed the Business and Made in Italy ministry's decision to have a postage stamp printed in honour of Italo Foschi, a Fascist thug leader who founded AS Roma, one of the Italian capital's two soccer clubs.
    "This is offensive and shameful, a stain on our Republic, a stain for those, Jews and political opponents, who were persecuted by Foschi," said centre-left Democratic Party Senator Francesco Verducci, deputy chair on the upper house's anti-discrimination panel.
    Leftwing populist 5-star Movement (M5S) Senator Sabrina Licheri, another member of the panel, said the decision by the ministry was "disgraceful and indescribable," coming as it does just a few days after the 100th anniversary of the 'death speech' by Socialist MP Giacomo Matteotti who was murdered after denouncing Fascist violence and electoral fraud in the 1924 general election that led to Mussolini's seizure of power.
    "Just a few days ago, Premier (Giorgia) Meloni praised the figure of Matteotti and now, instead, on the part of her government, comes the umpteenth declaration of their fascist roots", she said.
    Meloni's rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party has its roots in the neo-Fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), founded by Mussolini diehards at the end of World War Two.
    Business Minister Adolfo Urso is an FdI bigwig.
    Meloni has repeatedly condemned Fascism, which she says the Italian right has consigned to the dustbin of history for decades.
    Foschi, a leading Fascist gerarca or high-ranking official, and a squadrista or political gang leader also, founded Roma on June 7, 1927.
    The Giallorossi, as they are known, are one of Rome's two teams along with SS Lazio. (ANSA).