The parliamentary commission for
combating intolerance, racism, anti-Semitism and instigation to
hatred and violence has decided to obtain footage from
undercover reports by news website Fanpage on alleged
neo-Fascist, neo-Nazi and antisemitic sentiment voiced by some
members of the youth wing of Premier Giorgia Meloni's Brothers
of Italy (FdI) party, sources said on Tuesday.
Two leading members of FdI youth wing Gioventù Nazionale
(National Youth, GN) resigned last week over the reports.
Meloni has said anti-Semitic sentiments are incompatible with
the right-wing FdI, while also blasting the methods used by
Fanpage, saying they were the stuff of a "regime".
The decision to obtain the footage by the commission, named
after Holocaust survivor and Life Senator Liliana Segre, who
pushed for it to be created, was backed by all the parliamentary
parties, the sources said.
The first GN official to quit, leader Flaminia Pace, allegedly
made antisemitic remarks about an FdI Senator and former
spokeswoman for the Rome Jewish community, Ester Mieli.
Pace also alleged said she would like to see centre-left
opposition Democratic Party (PD) leader Elly Schlein "impaled".
Schlein has Jewish roots.
The second GN member to resign was Elisa Segnini, secretary to
FdI's leader on the House budget committee, Ylenja Lucaselli,
after the probe recorded her saying she had "never stopped being
racist and Fascist".
The Fanpage exposé also allegedly caught GN members hailing
Mussolini and far-right terrorists who bombed Bologna train
station in 1980 killing 85 people, and chanting Duce and Sieg
Heil.
It also allegedly caught senior FdI members greeting each other
with 'gladiatorial" gripped forearm gestures that critics say
are Fascist but defenders claim are not.
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