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‘Investigate yourself’: Mayor of Naples slams ‘policeman’ Salvini

Naples Mayor hits out at Interior Minister's fondness for wearing police uniforms and tells him to investigate his own party's misuse of public money.

Published: 22 January 2019 10:17 CET
'Investigate yourself': Mayor of Naples slams ‘policeman’ Salvini
Mayor of Naples Luigi de Magistris. Photo: MARIO LAPORTA/AFP

The outspoken Mayor of Naples Luigi de Magistris yesterday attacked Interior Minister and Deputy PM Matteo Salvini's “great sense of opportunism” and accused him of exploiting the image of the police force.

“Minister Salvini recently loves to wear sweatshirts, jackets, and various badges of the State Police,” he wrote on Facebook.

“I’m not talking about occasionally wearing a hat, a uniform or a badge on an official state visit,” he added, accusing Salvini instead of “exploiting” the image of the police force.

Salvini’s habit of often wearing the jackets and even full uniforms of Italy’s emergency services for press conferences and photo opportunities has also drawn anger from the country’s fire brigade.

Salvini takes a selfie for social media wearing the uniform of the Italian fire brigade. Photo: Matteo Salvini/Twitter

“I don't rule out the hypothesis that, in Salvini's delusion of omnipotence, he really thinks he has become a policeman, a sort of political head of the police,” Mayor Luigi de Magistris wrote. “I could suggest some investigative paths for him to pursue.”

“Firstly, investigate yourself as the leader the League to find the 49 million euros that, according to the judiciary, were illegally taken away from the Italian people.”

He was referring to a case of fraudulent use of party funds in which Umberto Bossi, founder of the League (previously known as the Northern League) and the party's former treasurer were convicted and forced to step out of the public eye.

READ ALSO: Italy's League agrees to pay back missing millions, slowly

Naples’ mayor has been among the local politicians critical of Salvini and his party’s policies since the far-right League came to power last year, as part of a ruling coalition with the populist Five Star Movement.

The mayor, an anti-mafia prosecutor elected by the city in 2011, most recently clashed with the Interior Minister after he joined several other Italian mayors in refusing to implement parts of the government's controversial security decree, saying they were “unconstitutional”.

Naples also defied Salvini’s orders to close Italian ports to rescue ships, recently saying its port was open to Sea Watch, an NGO ship that had been stuck at sea and unable to dock with 32 migrants on board.

Salvini previously dismissed the mayors' criticism and insinuated that thse who disagreed with parts of his decree were benefiting from the migrant reception business, tweeting: “Certain mayors look back fondly on the good old times of immigration, but for them the party is over!”

Salvini continues to repeat that the ports are closed, claiming yesterday that closing ports saves lives.

The Mayor has a history of refusing to follow government orders after defying a 2014 ban on registering gay marriages that had taken place abroad. Italy today still does not legally recognise gay marriages.

De Magistris also accused Salvini of “political thought characterised by racial discrimination and xenophobia.”

He said that Salvini had a “great sense of opportunism which is used unscrupulously against the weakest.”

READ ALSO:


 

POLITICS

‘Worrying developments’: NGOs warn of growing pressure on Italian media freedom

Media freedom in Italy has come increasingly under pressure since Giorgia Meloni's hard-right government took office, a group of European NGOs warned on Friday following an urgent fact-finding summit.

Published: 17 May 2024 17:40 CEST
‘Worrying developments’: NGOs warn of growing pressure on Italian media freedom

They highlighted among their concerns the continued criminalisation of defamation – a law Meloni herself has used against a high-profile journalist – and the proposed takeover of a major news agency by a right-wing MP.

The two-day mission, led by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), was planned for the autumn but brought forward due to “worrying developments”, Andreas Lamm of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) told a press conference.

The ECPMF’s monitoring project, which records incidents affecting media freedom such as legal action, editorial interference and physical attacks, recorded a spike in Italy’s numbers from 46 in 2022 to 80 in 2023.

There have been 49 so far this year.

Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, took office as head of a hard-right coalition government in October 2022.

A key concern of the NGOs is the increased political influence over the RAI public broadcaster, which triggered a strike by its journalists this month.

READ ALSO: Italy’s press freedom ranking drops amid fears of government ‘censorship’

“We know RAI was always politicised…but now we are at another level,” said Renate Schroeder, director of the Brussels-based EFJ.

The NGO representatives – who will write up a formal report in the coming weeks – recommended the appointment of fully independent directors to RAI, among other measures.

They also raised concerns about the failure of repeated Italian governments to decriminalise defamation, despite calls for reform by the country’s Constitutional Court.

Meloni herself successfully sued journalist Roberto Saviano last year for criticising her attitude to migrants.

“In a European democracy a prime minister does not respond to criticism by legally intimidating writers like Saviano,” said David Diaz-Jogeix of London-based Article 19.

He said that a proposed reform being debated in parliament, which would replace imprisonment with fines of up to 50,000 euros, “does not meet the bare minimum of international and European standards of freedom of expression”.

The experts also warned about the mooted takeover of the AGI news agency by a group owned by a member of parliament with Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party – a proposal that also triggered journalist strikes.

READ ALSO: How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

Beatrice Chioccioli of the International Press Institute said it posed a “significant risk for the editorial independence” of the agency.

The so-called Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) consortium expressed disappointment that no member of Meloni’s coalition responded to requests to meet with them.

They said that, as things stand, Italy is likely to be in breach of a new EU media freedom law, introduced partly because of fears of deteriorating standards in countries such as Hungary and Poland.

Schroeder said next month’s European Parliament elections could be a “turning point”, warning that an increase in power of the far-right across the bloc “will have an influence also on media freedom”.

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