Reorganization of the dissolved Fascist Party into two forms: participation in "usual fascist demonstrations" and the "squadrista method as a tool for political participation": these are the two articles of the 1952 Scelba law, 1 and 5, for which 12 Apulian CasaPound militants were convicted by the Court of Bari, the first time in Italy, with the consequent deprivation of political rights for five years.

The ruling reignites the debate on the far-right movement, with the opposition demanding an urgent briefing from Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi. The Democratic Party, Five Star Movement, and AVS have unanimously called for the dissolution of CasaPound and the evacuation of the occupied building in Rome.

"Now that there's a ruling that establishes it," says Democratic Party secretary Elly Schlein, "the government has no choice but to do what we've been asking of it for a long time: dissolve Casapound, dissolve the neo-fascist organizations as provided for by our Constitution."

The trial concerns the September 21, 2018, attack in the Libertà neighborhood of Bari on anti-fascist protesters returning from a march against the immigration policies of then-Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. Seven of the 12 convicted defendants were also held responsible for the injuries. They were, therefore, the actual perpetrators of the beating. The first five received one year and six months in prison, and the other seven received two years and six months. The Court, presided over by Ambrogio Marrone, ruled out the aggravating circumstance of premeditation for all of them and acquitted the other five defendants, who were charged with violating the Scelba law "for not having committed the crime."

The defendants were also ordered to compensate the civil parties: the victims of the attack (then-MEP Eleonora Forenza of the Communist Refoundation Party and her assistant Antonio Perillo; Giacomo Petrelli of the Communist Alternative; and Claudio Riccio of the Italian Left), the National Association of Italian Partisans (ANPI), the Communist Refoundation Party, the Municipality of Bari, and the Puglia Region.

"Finally, a ruling clarifies that CasaPound is a neo-fascist group that must be dissolved," commented Maurizio Acerbo, national secretary of the Communist Refoundation Party, after the ruling was read. "The ruling recognizes the value of anti-fascist memory enshrined in the Constitution," said Emilio Ricci, national vice president of the National Association of Italian Partisans (ANPI). The President of the Puglia Region, Antonio Decaro, announced that "he will donate the funds collected as compensation for the activities of the Regional Observatory on Neo-Fascism, because we are convinced that the only way to fight fascism or attempts to rehabilitate fascist culture and politics is to continue disseminating culture and knowledge about what fascism really was and what it produced in Italy."

Bari Mayor Vito Leccese described it as a "sentence of great democratic value." "Today," he added, "the Republic has won." At Via Napoleone III, the far-right organization's headquarters, there was tight-lipped talk about the ruling. "We don't have the reasons, and besides, it's a first-instance ruling," was the laconic response given over the phone by CasaPound spokesman Luca Marsella.

The reasons will be known within 90 days, but the defendants' defense has already announced they will appeal. They also specify that "none of the defendants today have ever been tried and consequently convicted for the crime of reconstituting the fascist party, as provided for and regulated by Article 2 of the Scelba Law. Instead, they were held accountable for violating Article 5 of the same law," which "prohibits gestures, salutes (such as the Roman salute), or symbols associated with fascism or Nazism."

(Unioneonline)

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