SOCIETY – Luca Spizzichino (UGEI):
Fascist salutes, repugnant images

Gioventù nazionale is the youth wing of the Italian PM Giorgia Meloni’s party Brothers of Italy. An undercover video investigation realized by Backstair, the investigative unit of the website Fanpage.it, now documents to what extent nostalgia for fascism is dangerously widespread within the movement, with fascism associated mottos and Hitler and fascist salutes. Titled Melonian Youth, the reportage has sparked many reactions, including one from the Union of Italian Young Jews – UGEI.
“Those images showing young people performing fascist salutes and praising Mussolini within Gioventù Nazionale are repugnant and leave us appalled,” commented UGEI President Luca Spizzichino (photo). “It is unacceptable to see young people openly celebrating an ideology responsible for racism, death and destruction.” These behaviors, Spizzichino added, “not only display a disturbing nostalgia for a fascist past, but represent a threat to democratic values and an insult to the memory of the victims of fascism and Nazism.” Therefore, the UGEI president concluded, “we expect firm condemnation and serious measures for the individuals involved.”