Category Archives: Matteo Salvini

‘It was mind-boggling’: Richard Gere on the rescue boat at the heart of Salvini trial

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Exclusive: the Hollywood actor, who lawyers have listed as a key witness, describes scenes of desperation on the Open Arms vessel

The Hollywood actor Richard Gere has revealed for the first time the full story behind his mercy mission to the NGO rescue boat Open Arms as he prepares to testify as a witness against Italy’s former interior minister and far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, who is on trial for attempting to block the 147 people onboard from landing in Italy.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Gere, 72, who lawyers have listed as a key witness to the situation aboard the NGO rescue boat Open Arms, described the scenes of desperation he saw when he arrived on the vessel being held off the Italian island of Lampedusa in the summer of 2019 with conditions rapidly deteriorating.

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Richard Gere may testify in Matteo Salvini trial over rescue ship standoff

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Actor helped deliver food to people onboard NGO vessel that was refused entry to Italian port by then minister

Richard Gere has agreed to testify against Italy’s far-right former interior minister Matteo Salvini, who is standing trial for refusing to let a Spanish migrant rescue ship dock in an Italian port in 2019.

Prosecutors in Sicily have accused Salvini of dereliction of duty and kidnapping for blocking the NGO vessel Open Arms from docking in August 2019 as part of his closed-ports policy. Onboard were 147 people rescued in the Mediterranean. During the standoff, as the ship was anchored off the island of Lampedusa, some people threw themselves overboard in desperation.

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The Guardian view on Fortress Europe: a continent losing its moral compass

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The increasingly draconian approach to irregular migration betrays the spirit of the 1951 refugee convention

Seventy years ago, the 1951 UN refugee convention established the rights of refugees to seek sanctuary, and the obligations of states to protect them. Increasingly, it seems that much of Europe is choosing to commemorate the anniversary by ripping up some of the convention’s core principles.

So far this year, close to 1,000 migrants have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean, more than four times the death toll for the same period in 2020. Many will have been economic migrants. Others will have been fleeing persecution. Increasingly, Europe does not care. All were “irregular”. And all must be discouraged and deterred through a strategy of cruelty.

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Matteo Salvini to face trial over standoff with migrant rescue ship

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Italy’s former interior minister says he was doing his job by refusing to allow ship with 147 people on board to dock

A judge in Sicily has ordered the former Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini to stand trial for refusing to let a Spanish migrant rescue ship dock in an Italian port in 2019, keeping the people at sea for days.

Judge Lorenzo Iannelli set 15 September as the trial date during a court hearing in Palermo, LaPresse news agency reported.

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Mario Draghi accepts mandate to form new Italian government

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Former ECB chief summoned by President Mattarella after collapse of Conte’s coalition in January

Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank chief, has accepted a mandate to try to form a new Italian government as the country seeks a way out of the political crisis triggered by the collapse of its most recent coalition.

Draghi, nicknamed “Super Mario” for his role in saving the European single currency, will have to galvanise support in parliament to quickly build a technical administration needed to manage the coronavirus pandemic and revive its battered economy.

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Italian president Sergio Mattarella to seek a ‘high-profile’ government

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Media speculations suggest former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi could become prime minister

Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, has said he would seek a “high profile” government, as speculation grew that it may be led by the former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi.

Mattarella made the announcement after ruling coalition partners failed to form a majority following Giuseppe Conte’s resignation as prime minister last week.

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Italian government under pressure over economic recovery plan

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Prime minister to meet with coalition party leaders as Italia Viva threatens to quit in dispute over Covid-19 fund

The fate of the Italian government hangs in the balance this week amid a confrontation between the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, and his coalition ally and former prime minister, Matteo Renzi.

Renzi has repeatedly threatened to pull his small Italia Viva party from the ruling majority unless the government changes tack on how to reboot Italy’s fragile economy. Renzi has also called for Conte to relinquish his control over the secret services and for the government to speed up the distribution of Covid-19 vaccinations.

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End of Trump era deals heavy blow to rightwing populist leaders worldwide

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As Biden’s victory sinks in across Brazil, Hungary and elsewhere, dreams of a rightwing global crusade appear to be fading

As the Donald Trump era draws to a close, many world leaders are breathing a sigh of relief. But Trump’s ideological kindred spirits – rightwing populists in office in Brazil, Hungary, Slovenia and elsewhere – are instead taking a sharp breath.

The end of the Trump presidency may not mean the beginning of their demise, but it certainly strips them of a powerful motivational factor, and also alters the global political atmosphere, which in recent years had seemed to be slowly tilting in their favour, at least until the onset of coronavirus. The momentous US election result is further evidence that the much-talked-about “populist wave” of recent years may be subsiding.

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Matteo Salvini goes on trial over migrant kidnapping charges

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Former Italian interior minister accused of abusing power in incident involving 116 people

Italy’s far-right former interior minister Matteo Salvini goes on trial on Saturday on kidnapping charges over an incident in 2019 when 116 migrants were prevented from disembarking a coastguard ship in the Mediterranean.

Prosecutors in the Sicilian city of Catania accuse the League party leader of abusing his powers to block people from disembarking from the Gregoretti coastguard boat under his “closed ports” policy.

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‘We’re living in fear’: LGBT people in Italy pin hopes on new law

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Debate on long-awaited bill that would punish discrimination and hate crimes towards LGBT people opens on Monday

For 15 years, Marco and his boyfriend had lived together fairly peacefully in a town outside Rome. Then, in early June, a neighbour started harassing them.

“It began quite lightly, with him being provocative whenever we met in the street,” the 38-year-old said. “Then he came to our home and forced his way in, calling us ‘dirty faggots’. My boyfriend managed to get rid of him but he returned with a baton and threw himself against the door, repeating the same insults and threatening to set us alight when we were asleep.”

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Europe’s populists will try to exploit coronavirus. We can stop them | Catherine Fieschi

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Italy’s Salvini and others on the far right could weaponise people’s despair. Democratic governments must fight them with transparency

If the coronavirus pandemic is fuelling any political hope, it is that this crisis is a robust nail in the coffin of populist politics. Surely, some argue, in the face of an entirely indiscriminate, unforeseen and formidable plague, for which no one can be blamed (unlike, say, greedy bankers and unscrupulous lenders in the global financial crisis, or the terrorists of 9/11) people will turn to the truth, to science and to expert-led government.

And, true, populist leaders seem to have lost their voice, for now: the attempts to blame migrants, porous borders and the forces of globalisation for the coronavirus have received short shrift. Fear and deference have, momentarily at least, rendered citizens less inclined to question mainstream governments and turn to populism’s snake oil vendors. Better still: it looks as though governments led by populists or populists-lite, such as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, are set for a rough ride, too, unless they change their ways.

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Five Star’s Luigi Di Maio calls on Italians to protest against his government

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Italian foreign minister’s move is sign of turmoil between coalition partners M5S and PD

The Italian foreign minister and former leader of the Five Star Movement (M5S) is calling for protests this weekend against the government he sits in, as Italy appears set for another period of political instability.

Luigi Di Maio said the Italian people “must peacefully demonstrate” in Rome on Saturday against a system that “wants to cancel our laws”.

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Salvini denies plan to visit Liverpool after mayor calls him fascist

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Steve Rotheram says far-right Italian politician is not welcome in the city

Italy’s far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, has denied he is going to Liverpool after the mayor of the city said “the only audience he’ll find here is one that won’t be shy in telling him what they think of fascists like him.”

The mayor of Liverpool, Steve Rotheram, said Salvini’s “division and hate” would not be welcomed in the city after reports Lega nel Mondo, a global network of the League established by Salvini in 2018, was holding an event in March.

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Matteo Salvini trial for kidnapping authorised by Italian senate

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When he was interior minister, Salvini prevented 177 migrants from disembarking in Italy

Italy’s senate has formally authorised a criminal case against Matteo Salvini, the far-right leader accused of kidnap last year when, as interior minister, he prevented 177 migrants from disembarking from a coast guard ship.

Last December, the Italian court of ministers in Catania, Sicily, ruled that Salvini should be tried for allegedly depriving the asylum seekers on board the Gregoretti coast guard ship of their liberty by refusing to allow them to leave.

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Salvini’s failure brings respite for embattled Italian government

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Left’s win in Emilia-Romagna averts threat of snap elections but could prove a brief reprieve

Matteo Salvini’s failure to overturn decades of leftwing rule in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna will bring some respite to the embattled national government, staving off the risk of snap elections.

The leader of the far-right League campaigned vigorously across the region in his attempt to use elections on Sunday as a platform for his return to power. But a high turnout ensured the Democratic party (PD), which rules nationally alongside the Five Star Movement (M5S), maintained control.

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Salvini suffers setback in leftwing stronghold during Italy regional elections

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League’s Matteo Salvini has failed to wrest crucial Emilia-Romagna from centre-left, projections suggest

Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s far-right League party, has failed to overturn decades of leftwing rule in the northern region of Emilia-Romagna in an election that brought relief to the embattled centre-left.

With 98% of the ballots counted, the incumbent Democratic party (PD) governor Stefano Bonaccini had won 51.4% of the vote compared to 43.7% for Lucia Borgonzoni, the candidate backed by the League and its allies, interior ministry data showed.

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Salvini vows to ‘evict’ government if far right wins Italy regional polls

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League leader hopes to secure political comeback via votes in Emilia-Romagna and Calabria

The far-right Italian politician Matteo Salvini has threatened to “evict” the national government if his coalition triumphs in two regional elections.

Italian newspapers reported a “boom” in turnout – up 23% in the wealthy northern region of Emilia-Romagna and 10% in Calabria, in the south – by midday, as voters headed to the polls in elections that could precipitate a return to national power for Salvini’s League.

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‘Sardines’ against Salvini: Italy’s fight against the far right

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Grassroots protests have brought tens of thousands of people on to the streets of Rome

Tens of thousands of people have crammed together in Rome on Saturday as part of the growing “sardines” movement against the leader of the far-right League and Italy’s former deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, and his allies.

Protesters converged in Piazza San Giovanni early in the afternoon in a bid “to further shake up the country’s politics and battle xenophobia”, in what was billed as their biggest rally.

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The Guardian view on Italy’s ‘Sardine’ movement: politics with panache can defeat the hard right | Editorial

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Spontaneous rallies opposing Matteo Salvini’s divisive rhetoric have captured imaginations. They offer a model that could be emulated elsewhere

For over a decade, the dominant theme in European politics has been the emergence of movements that seek to dramatise and exploit social divisions through crude and aggressive sloganeering. One of the trendsetters in this regard was the comedian Beppe Grillo, who in 2007 held an anti-establishment rally billed as “Vaffanculo Day” (Fuck-off Day). That mass protest in Bologna launched a populist wave in Italy, eventually leading to the rise of the anti-immigration politician Matteo Salvini, whose hard-right League party – currently out of government – is polling far ahead of its rivals.

Progressives have despaired at the apparent inability of centre-left politicians to find the vocabulary and imagination to challenge the divisive and often violent rhetoric of figures such as Salvini and Marine Le Pen. But help may be at hand, in the form of a burgeoning grassroots movement in Italy that takes the symbol of a fish as its inspiration. Appropriately, it began in Bologna.

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‘Sardines against Salvini’: Italians pack squares in protest against far right

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Thousands converge in bid to beat numbers drawn to League leader’s pre-election rallies

An estimated 7,000 people have crammed together in the northern Italian city of Modena as part of a growing “sardines” movement against the politics of the far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, in which opponents attempt to beat the numbers he draws to his rallies.

Protesters converged under the rain at Piazza Grande on Monday night as the former interior minister campaigned in the city before crucial regional elections in Emilia-Romagna, a leftwing stronghold.

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