A female Italian MEP from Senator Matteo Salvini’s populist League party has been hit with a torrent of rape and death threats, many which are said to have come from foreigners, after objecting to the construction of a mosque.
The deluge of vitriolic abuse directed at Silvia Sardone, aged 37, came after she argued publicly against a plan put forward by the municipality of Milan to build a temporary mosque in the Via Novara area of the city.
According to a report from the Italian newspaper Il Giornale, a number of messages – most of which came from the social media profiles of foreigners – were sent to Sardone. One sender threatened to set the female populist MEP on fire, while another person attempting to intimidate the Sardone is said to have written: “We foreigners will come into your house and rape you.”
Responding to the nasty threats made against her, Sardone said that they “highlight, once more, that there is a latent hatred towards those who dare to ask for rules, controls, and security on the issue of mosques.”
But Sardone isn’t planning to submit to the intimidation tactics utilized by those threatening her.
“These threats of rape or death will not stop me from denouncing the Democratic Party’s submission to certain Islamic communities and the risks of the city,” she said.
“I have already given a mandate to my lawyer to denounce this scum. I will continue to stand by the citizens who are demanding the closure of illegal mosques, after having listened to the promises of Mayor Sala for years and then being disappointed,” Sardone added.
Threats of violence and acts of violence committed against members of Matteo Salvini’s populist League party are nothing new.
Last month, Salvini was campaigning for his party in Tuscany ahead of regional elections when a 29-year-old female Congolese migrant assaulted the former interior minister, grabbing hold of him, tearing his shirt, and ripping two rosaries from his neck, as previously reported by Remix News.
Before police could remove the violent migrant, she shouted in Italian, “I curse you.”
But it’s not only immigrants who’ve attacked and threatened the lives of Salvini and his fellow League party members. Days ago, members of the extreme-left Autonomous University Collective (CUA) put up posters of Matteo Salvini at a university event in Bologna which called for his assassination, Il Giornale reported.
The posters, which show a picture of Salvini with around his head, bear the words: “Assassin. Take aim at this.”
