The modern right needs strengthening without losing sight of its values, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni Sunday as anarchist protestors in the country call for the so-called ‘hard prison’ system imposed on dangerous criminals to be reformed.
On Sunday, Meloni spoke of a “modern right” that must become stronger without becoming a “different thing” and of an Italy that is impossible to isolate at an international level.
“There are those who say that Italy is isolated (…) but it is not possible to isolate Italy. It is a founder of the EU, NATO, in the G7, and one of the richest nations in the world. But now we are aware of its centrality”, Meloni said.
At the same time, the government is having to deal with internal turmoil that shows no sign of abating.
In the past several weeks, Italy has seen protests from anarchist groups who demand that Alfredo Cospito, currently in prison doing a hunger strike, be removed from the hard prison regime applied to mobsters and terrorists.
Cospito has been in prison for ten years for kneecapping Ansaldo Nuclare CEO Roberto Adinolfi and for being linked to a 2006 bomb attack on a police academy in Fossano.
He is the theorist of anarchist cells linked to the International Anarchist Federation (Fai) and the Fri, its international offshoot through which several acts of intimidation have been carried out against Italian diplomatic offices abroad and the private property of State officials. The group is considered to be an extremist and violent fringe group held responsible for more than 50 attacks throughout Europe and beyond.
The anarchists are calling for the abolition of the so-called ‘hard prison’ – a regime that restricts the freedoms of certain prisoners considered particularly dangerous to prevent them from communicating with the outside world. According to the Justice Ministry, Cospito sent messages from the prison to his ‘anarchist comrades’.
“The state must not deal with the mafia nor with those who threaten it”, said Meloni.
At the same time, however, a leading delegation of the Democratic Party (S&D) visited Cospito in prison on 12 January. While parliamentarians are free to visit prisons as they see fit, the right-wing wanted an explanation as Cospito had made it clear he was striking to have the hard prison rule revoked for him and his cell neighbours convicted of mafia offences.
While Meloni was in Rome for the convention, an event was held in Milan by Matteo Renzi’s Italia Viva e Carlo Calenda’s Azione (both in Renew), a political alliance also known as the Third Pole. Among the topics discussed was the reform of presidentialism, dear to the right and hated by the Third Pole, which provided an opportunity to talk about fascism again.
The Presidency of the Republic “is the only thing that works in this country (…) and that I have to explain it to a semi-fascist nationalist is depressing. Stop with the busts (of Mussolini) and (show) a bit of nationalism”, said Carlo Calenda referring to the historical relics of the twenty-year fascist period that Senate President Ignazio La Russa (Fdi/Ecr) keeps at home.
“It was a joke,” Calenda later wrote on Twitter.(Federica Pascale | EURACTIV.it)
Source: euractiv.com
