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Facebook shuts down Italian neo-fascist parties’ accounts

The official accounts of dozens of Italian far-right activists and the neo-fascist parties CasaPound and Forza Nuova were shut down on Monday for violating hate speech policies.

Published: 10 September 2019 11:03 CEST
Facebook shuts down Italian neo-fascist parties' accounts
Members of Italian far-right political movement "Forza Nuova" at a demonstration in 2017. Photo: AFP

The parties have also been kicked off Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.

“People and organizations that spread hatred or attack others based on who they are, have no place on Facebook and Instagram,” Facebook said in a statement.

Rome-based CasaPound’s official Facebook page had almost 240,000 followers.

The Facebook and Instagram accounts of dozens of activists belonging to both far-right groups were also reportedly blocked.

 

CasaPound's Facebook page is history. Screenshot: Facebook

It’s not the first time the two groups have had accounts closed down, Italian news agency Ansa reports. Last April, shortly before the European elections, Facebook closed down the profiles of several high-profile members of both movements.

Both groups' Twitter accounts remain active.

The parties' chiefs – who also had their personal accounts shut – slammed the move as anti-democratic.

Gianluca Iannone, president of CasaPound, protested that the move was “an unprecedented attack”, telling Ansa the group would be filing an “urgent class action law suit against an act of disgraceful prevarication.”

The move was hailed as “exemplary” and “a correct and courageous choice” by the leader of Italy’s Democratic Party, Nicola Zingaretti.

“We must share and spread these important words to put an end to the season of hatred,” he told local media. “These are people who would deny others the right to exist.”

“Apology for fascism in Italy is not an opinion. It is a crime.”

On Monday, activists from both groups took part in a demonstration, alongside the League and Brothers of Italy, against the new left-leaning and pro-European government

In front of parliament, where Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte was giving a speech, they could be heard chanting “Duce! Duce!” – the title fascists used to address 20th-century dictator Benito Mussolini – and were seen performing the fascist salute.

Italy’s prime minister Giuseppe Conte on Monday called on the political class and Italian citizens to
moderate their tone – particularly on social networks – following 14 months of a populist government which has fomented hate and division, particularly via the internet.

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EUROPEAN UNION

Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Sunday she would stand in upcoming European Parliament elections, a move apparently calculated to boost her far-right party, although she would be forced to resign immediately.

Published: 28 April 2024 15:54 CEST
Italian PM Meloni to stand in EU Parliament elections

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-Fascist roots, came top in Italy’s 2022 general election with 26 percent of the vote.

It is polling at similar levels ahead of the European elections on from June 6-9.

With Meloni heading the list of candidates, Brothers of Italy could exploit its national popularity at the EU level, even though EU rules require that any winner already holding a ministerial position must immediately resign from the EU assembly.

“We want to do in Europe exactly what we did in Italy on September 25, 2022 — creating a majority that brings together the forces of the right to finally send the left into opposition, even in Europe!” Meloni told a party event in the Adriatic city of Pescara.

In a fiery, sweeping speech touching briefly on issues from surrogacy and Ramadan to artificial meat, Meloni extolled her coalition government’s one-and-a-half years in power and what she said were its efforts to combat illegal immigration, protect families and defend Christian values.

After speaking for over an hour in the combative tone reminiscent of her election campaigns, Meloni said she had decided to run for a seat in the European Parliament.

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

“I’m doing it because I want to ask Italians if they are satisfied with the work we are doing in Italy and that we’re doing in Europe,” she said, suggesting that only she could unite Europe’s conservatives.

“I’m doing it because in addition to being president of Brothers of Italy I’m also the leader of the European conservatives who want to have a decisive role in changing the course of European politics,” she added.

In her rise to power, Meloni, as head of Brothers of Italy, often railed against the European Union, “LGBT lobbies” and what she has called the politically correct rhetoric of the left, appealing to many voters with her straight talk.

“I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian” she famously declared at a 2019 rally.

She used a similar tone Sunday, instructing voters to simply write “Giorgia” on their ballots.

“I have always been, I am, and will always be proud of being an ordinary person,” she shouted.

EU rules require that “newly elected MEP credentials undergo verification to ascertain that they do not hold an office that is incompatible with being a Member of the European Parliament,” including being a government minister.

READ ALSO: Why is Italy’s government being accused of helping tax dodgers?

The strategy has been used before, most recently in Italy in 2019 by Meloni’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right Lega party.

The EU Parliament elections do not provide for alliances within Italy’s parties, meaning that Brothers of Italy will be in direct competition with its coalition partners Lega and Forza Italia, founded by Silvio Berlusconi.

The Lega and Forza Italia are polling at about seven percent and eight percent, respectively.

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