ROME — Dozens of people raised their arms in a fascist salute and shouted a fascist chant during ceremonies Sunday honoring Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on the 79th anniversary of his execution.
Dressed in black, neo-fascist supporters marched through the northern Italian cities where Mussolini was arrested and executed at the end of World War II, and also in Predappio, Mussolini’s birthplace and final resting place.
Mussolini was arrested by anti-fascist partisans in Dongo, on the shores of Lake Como, on April 27, 1945, while trying to escape with his lover, Clara Petacci, after the Allied liberation of Italy.
On Sunday, a group of neo-fascists marched through Dongo and placed 15 roses in the lake in memory of the ministers and officials of Mussolini’s government who were murdered there, according to a video of the event published by the LaPresse news agency.
Partisans executed Mussolini and Petacci the next day in the nearby lake town of Mezzegra-Giulino, where commemorations were also held on Sunday. After a rendition of Taps, the leader of the commemorations shouted “Chamber Benito Mussolini,” and the crowd responded with a loud fascist salute and chants of “present.”
Several police trucks separated the protesters in Dongo from hundreds of protesters who sang the famous partisan song “Bella Ciao” during the ceremony.
The anniversary of Mussolini’s execution fell on the same day that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni led her far-right Brothers of Italy party at an election rally in the city of Pescara. Brothers of Italy has its roots in the Italian Social Movement, which was founded in 1946 by a chief of staff in Mussolini’s last government and attracted fascist sympathizers and officials to its ranks after Mussolini’s fall.
Meloni, who joined the youth wing of the MSI as a teenager, has sought to distance his party from its neo-fascist roots. He has condemned fascism’s suppression of democracy and insisted that the Italian right consigned fascism to history decades ago. On Sunday, Meloni accused the left of being a more totalitarian threat to today’s Italy.
He noted that members of the Communist Party had lodged a formal complaint about the tent structures built on Pescara beach to host the Brotherhood of Italy rally, during which Meloni announced he would lead the party’s campaign ahead of the election. to the European Parliament in June.
“I note that the Communist Party still exists, and I say this to show where those nostalgic for totalitarianism are today in Italy,” he said.