Anti-hate commission,
Liliana Segre reelected president

Senator for life Liliana Segre will preside for the second time over the extraordinary Commission “aimed at counteracting the phenomena of intolerance, racism, anti-Semitism and incitement to hatred and violence”, that she strongly desired. The unanimous election took place during the installation meeting of the new body. Ester Mieli (from the right-wing party Fratelli d’Italia) and Francesco Verducci (from the left-wing Partito Democratico) will act alongside her as Vice-Presidents.
Senator Segre said she was “very satisfied, ready to take back the dossier and start again where work had stopped due to the early end of the legislative term”. In a statement to the Senate’s official channels, she also stated: “I got spontaneously emotional after the unanimous vote, because there has not always been unanimity in the past of this committee. This commission is very important to me, especially when it comes to intolerance and incitement to hatred”.
Last January, the Senate unanimously approved a motion that included, for this term as well, the establishment of an extraordinary Commission dedicated to these issues. “Our point of reference must always be our republican Constitution, which in this very January 2023 celebrates the 75th anniversary of its creation’ asserted the holocaust survivor in referring to this circumstance as an ‘important’ occasion to strengthen the commitment of the institutions around central issues such as ‘freedom of expression’ and ‘protection of the human dignity”.
“We worked effectively in the last legislature: the growth of social media involves the risk of encouraging hate speech and campaigns aimed at discriminating and spreading fake news” the senator for life said at the opening of the sitting. “In the field of hate speech, researching and learning will have to be carried out in compliance with the constitution, but we also must try to implement it with inclusion and social and civil rights. As parliamentarians, we must be aware that there is also a link between social malaise and the use of hate speech that impacts on the work of a commission such as the one we are about to approve”, she then added.

Translation by Alice Pugliese, revised by Martina Bandini, students at the Secondary School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste, interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – Pagine Ebraiche