Italian opposition demands investigation after hundreds give fascist salute at Rome rally

A rally Sunday in Rome commemorates the 1978 slaying of two members of a neo-fascist youth group. Opposition politicians in Italy on Monday demanded that the government, headed by far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, explain how hundreds of demonstrators were able to give a banned fascist salute at a Rome rally without police intervention. “It’s right to recall the victims of political violence, but in 2024 this can’t happen with hundreds of people who give the Roman salute,” Ruth Dureghello, who for several years led Rome’s Jewish community, posted to X. Mussolini’s laws helped pave the way for the deportation of Italian Jews during the German occupation of Rome in the latter years of World War II. Sunday’s rally was held on the anniversary of the slayings outside an office of what was the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, a party formed after World War II that attracted nostalgists for Mussolini. Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has its roots in neo-fascism, has distanced herself from Mussolini’s dictatorial policies, declaring that “the Italian right has handed fascism over to history for decades now.” The late 1970s saw Italy bloodied by violence by extreme right- and left-wing proponents, including bombings linked to the far-right and assassinations and kidnappings claimed by the Red Brigades and other left-wing militants.