>>>ANSA/Interior min condemns Acca Larentia Fascist salutes

(see related) (ANSA) - ROME, JAN 9 - Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said Tuesday the Fascist salutes made on Sunday by about a thousand participants at a ceremony commemorating the murder of two right-wing militants during Italy's 'Years of Lead' of political violence in the 1970s and 80s is cause for indignation.
    "There is no doubt" that what happened at the demonstration commemorating the 1978 Acca Larentia massacre in Rome "arouses indignation", Piantedosi told a hearing of the Senate's Extraordinary Commission against intolerance, racism, anti-Semitism and incitement to hatred and violence.
    "It is contrary to our acquired culture," he continued.
    "And the indignation is transversal," said the minister, adding however that "bans and non-observance" of demonstrations "is counterproductive and less fruitful".
    Earlier the centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) announced that it had filed a bill to better counter the promotion and glorification of fascist ideology and symbols, which is a crime in Italy.
    "As deputies and senators of the PD, we have filed a bill to make the repression of apology of fascism and neo-fascist subversive phenomena more effective," said PD lawmaker Andrea De Maria on X, formerly Twitter.
    "If the entire parliament supported it, it would clarify the existing legislation and strengthen it," he added.
    The PD on Monday led opposition outrage at Sunday's Fascist salutes episode during a ceremony recalling the Acca Larentia massacre in which two members of the youth wing of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), Franco Bigonzetti and Francesco Ciavatta, aged 13 and 17, were shot dead, allegedly by far left militants, outside the party's Rome headquarters in the street named after a Roman goddess.
    A third MSI youth wing member, Stefano Recchioni, 19, was fatally injured by a stray bullet during ensuing clashes by members of the youth wing, the Fronte della Gioventù, who rioted after the deaths, and police.
    Then Fronte della Gioventù leader Gianfranco Fini, later a foreign minister in Silvio Berlusconi's second government from 2001 to 2006, was wounded by a gas canister.
    European People's Party (EPP) President Manfred Weber also commented on the episode Tuesday, saying there is no place for the Fascist salute in Europe. "In Europe there is no place for the Fascist salute and we condemn it in the strongest terms," said Weber.
    "We fully agree with and welcome the clear position taken by Deputy Premier Antonio Tajani on this issue," he added.
    On Monday Tajani said his centre-right Forza Italia party, a member of the EPP, is "anti-fascist" and that "all demonstrations of support for dictatorships must be condemned".
    "There is a law stating that you cannot make an apology of fascism in our country, it is forbidden by law," he added.
    However, amid the furore, Senate Speaker Ignazio La Russa said Tuesday that making Fascist salutes is not necessarily always a crime.
    "The fact that there is uncertainty about whether certain gestures in commemoration cases (are considered criminal) does not help to resolve the issue," La Russa, a founding member of Premier Giorgia Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party whose roots go back to the MSI, told Italian dailies.
    He said there were "conflicting rulings" about whether such acts were criminal, adding that he was looking forward to an upcoming ruling by the Supreme Court of Cassation regarding the crime of apology of Fascism.
    He added that FdI had nothing to do with what happened at Sunday's ceremony.
    Vittoria Baldino, an MP for the opposition 5-Star Movement (M5S), blasted La Russa's comments in a Facebook post, describing them as "horrific".
    Several opposition politicians have called on Meloni to condemn what happened.
    The DIGOS special security and political police branch, meanwhile, have submitted an initial report to prosecutors on the Fascist salutes.
    Investigating officers have reportedly already identified some participants in the episode.
    The DIGOS is said to be using video surveillance footage to reconstruct what happened during the event where the salutes were made. (ANSA).