The far-right politician likely to become Italy’s Prime Minister sparked outrage on Monday by tweeting a video of a woman being raped by an asylum seeker on the streets of an Italian city.
Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party leads a right-wing coalition currently polling at about 50 percent support ahead of next month’s elections, posted the footage of the sexual assault by an asylum seeker from Guinea, which took place on a pavement in the city of Piacenza early on Sunday.
Videos by VICE
The footage had been shot from a flat overlooking the scene, and was posted to an Italian news site with the image blurred but the 55-year-old woman’s cries audible. Police say the alleged attacker has been arrested and the investigation into the attack is ongoing.
Meloni, who has vowed to take a hardline stance on illegal immigration into Italy, posted the video with a statement expressing sympathy with the Ukrainian victim, and vowing to bring safety to Italian streets.
“One cannot remain silent in the face of this atrocious episode of sexual violence against a Ukrainian woman carried out in daytime in Piacenza by an asylum seeker,” she wrote. “A hug to this woman. I will do everything I can to restore security to our cities.”
But many critics responded that the tweet was an outrageously tasteless piece of campaigning that exploited the victim.
“Reporting a rape is one thing. Using the video for election purposes is simply unworthy,” tweeted Carlo Calenda, an MEP affiliated with the liberal Renew Europe parliamentary grouping.
“Giorgia Meloni, you did something indecent.”
Igiaba Scego, an Italian writer of Somali descent, condemned Meloni for subjecting the survivor to “clickbait voyeurism,” and labelled her election campaign “a horror.”
“We are at the abyss. To gain a few more votes, the video of a sexual assault is posted. How did we get so low?”
Enrico Letta, the head of the centre-left Democratic Party, tweeted: “It is indecent to use images of a rape. Even more indecent to do so for electoral purposes.”
But Meloni was unmoved, posting a response labelling her critics as “delusional,” and criticising them for supposedly not showing sufficient concern for the survivor – although Calenda, Scego and Letta all expressed their sympathy for the woman.
Campaigns linking immigration to crime are nothing new in Italian politics. In 2018, Matteo Salvini – the head of the far-right Lega Party, which belongs to Meloni’s coalition – won the powerful role of Interior Minister on the back of a fiery campaign of populist scaremongering that was blamed for unleashing a wave of anti-Black racism through the electorate.
Lega is currently polling in third place ahead of elections on September the 25th, behind the Brothers of Italy and the Democratic Party on 24 percent each.
