Court in Bari sentences CasaPound activists to 18 months
\n Rome
\nTwelve members of Italy\u2019s fringe group CasaPound have been jailed for seeking to revive the Fascist Party, which ruled from 1922 to 1943 under dictator Benito Mussolini.
\nIt is the first time a law which bans the \u201creorganisation of the dissolved Fascist party\u201d has been applied to the neo-fascist group, the Repubblica daily said on Friday.
\nThe case dates to 2018, when CasaPound members attacked people who attended a protest against Matteo Salvini, head of the anti-immigrant League party and then interior minister.
\nAll defendants were convicted on Wednesday by a court in Bari in southern Italy and given 18 months in jail. Seven were also sentenced to 12 months for assault.
\nElly Schlein, head of the centre-left opposition Democratic Party, called on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni\u2019s hard-right government to ban the group.
\n\u201cNow that there\u2019s a ruling that establishes it, the government has no choice but to do what we\u2019ve been asking of it for a long time: dissolve Casapound, dissolve neo-fascist organisations as laid out in the constitution,\u201d she said.
\nCasaPound, which is based in Rome, takes its name from Ezra Pound, the modernist American poet who collaborated with Fascist Italy during World War II.
\nIn parliamentary elections in 2013 and 2018, the group won less than 1% of the vote. It subsequently decided not to contest the polls.
\nCasaPound members have been filmed making the Fascist salute in Rome, an action that current Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi condemned in 2024 as \u201ccontrary to our democratic culture\u201d.
\nHowever, he said at the time that it was complicated to ban such groups, saying the law only allowed for this in very limited circumstances.
\nMeloni\u2019s far-right Brothers of Italy party has its roots in the MSI, a party founded by supporters of Mussolini after World War II. However, the prime minister has condemned fascism and acknowledged Fascist Italy\u2019s complicity in the Holocaust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Court in Bari sentences CasaPound activists to 18 months Rome Twelve members of Italy\u2019s fringe group CasaPound have been jailed for seeking to revive the Fascist Party, which ruled from 1922 to 1943 under dictator Benito Mussolini. It is the first time a law which bans the \u201creorganisation of the dissolved Fascist party\u201d has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531269,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-531256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n