Elon Musk's condemnation of Rome
judges who nixed the detention of a second batch of migrants
subjected to Italy's controversial policy of taking migrants to
be processed in Albania on Tuesday split Italian politics into
supporters and critics of the world's richest man and top Trump
supporter's intervention.
As a result of the Rome judges' decision the seven migrants, who
are citizens of Egypt and Bangladesh, were brought to the
Italian port of Brindisi early on Tuesday.
On October 18, the same court failed to validate the detention
of 12 migrants who were part of the first group to be taken to
Albania under the government's controversial agreement to run
migrant-centres on Albanian territory.
"These judges need to go," said Tesla, X and SpaceX owner Musk
via X on a user's post on the news of the suspension of the
validation of the detention of seven migrants decided by the
immigration section of the Court of Rome, which also referred
the case to the European Court of Justice, which has ruled that
neither Egypt nor Bangladesh are wholly safe.
Musk was a big supporter of Donald Trump's successful US
Presidential election campaign and he looks set to hold a
powerful position in the new administration.
It is the second time the outspoken multi-billionaire has spoken
out on Italian migration.
Last year Musk slammed Germany's policy of helping charities
that rescue migrants and take them to Italy's shores.
Among those who welcomed Musk's apparent call for the judges to
be removed from their posts was rightwing League party leader,
Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini, who had on
Monday described the ruling as "another political sentence
against Italians," as he had characterised the previous similar
ruling as the work of allegedly politically motivated
"Communist" judges acting against the interests of Italians and
the safety of their borders.
Salvini, who is the subject of a Palermo trial in which he is
accused of kidnapping 147 migrants by refusing to let them off a
Spanish NGO run rescue ship in Lampedusa for 19 days five years
ago as part of his controversial closed ports policy a then
hardline interior minister, said Tuesday: "Elon Musk is right.
On December 20, I could receive a 6-year prison sentence for
having blocked, as Minister of the Interior, the landings of
illegal immigrants. Seen from abroad, all this seems even more
incredible."
But a minor ally of Premier Giorgia Meloni's rightwing Brothers
of Italy (FdI) party and the League, Maurizio Lupi of the We
Moderates group, said: "Elon Musk's words are inappropriate
because, even from abroad, they fuel a clash with the judiciary
that the Center-Right does not want."
FdI bigwig Fabio Rampelli said: "Judges who oppose our
repatriation policy are wrong. Both because they exceed their
duties, both because they politically interpret the ruling of
the European Court of Justice which says something completely
different, both because the States should speak to supranational
institutions and not the courts".
But he added: "However, we are equipped to defend ourselves. We
thank Elon Musk but we are not like the left, which drools to
amplify Italian critical issues at an international level,
ridiculing the nation. We will know how to make our reasons
prevail and this further attempt to favor immigration by the
left and certain magistrates will make us rise even further in
the consensus of Italians".
The centre left was predictably highly critical of the tech
tycoon's intervention.
MPs Angelo Bonelli of the Green-Left Alliance (AVS) and Andrea
Casu of the centre-left Dempcratic Party, the biggest opposition
group, asked Meloni to intervene.
"An unacceptable interference and a serious problem for
democracy," said Bonelli.
"The Prime Minister is called to defend the Constitution and
democracy attacked by Musk" who "is in fact Trump's right-hand
man".
"Musk's attack on Italian judges is an intolerable
interference," said Casu.
"It is essential that the Prime Minister intervene and
demonstrate whether she is defending national sovereignty or
whether she is silently accepting this attack".
Italian Left (SI) leader Nicola Fratoianni said "I don't know if
the government will worry about defending sovereignty and
borders from Musk's interference this time".
Meloni said after Trump's stunning comeback victory in which the
tycoon gave out a million dollars a day to prospective
supporters that Musk is "an added value and potential
interlocutor".
On September 23 Musk presented Meloni with the 'Global Citizen
Award 2024 from Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council,
praising her as "someone who is even more beautiful inside than
outside".
Musk said Meloni had done "an incredible job" as prime minister
with "record growth and employment".
"She is someone who is authentic, honest, truthful", added the
billionaire during a ceremony at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in
Manhattan.
Thanking Musk for his "precious genius", Meloni delivered a
passionate defence of Western values.
Pictures of the pair enjoying each other's company forced Musk
to deny suggestions they might be having an affair.
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