Italy’s high court ruled that fascist salutes at rallies should be allowed unless they threaten public order or threaten to revive the country’s outlawed fascist party – CNN reported.
The court made the decision after a video of more than 150 people performing a fascist salute appeared in the centre of Rome almost a fortnight ago. The 150 people used the salute to commemorate the murder of two members of a far-right youth group on 7 January 1978. No arrests have been made in connection with the rally, which remains under investigation.
The decision of the cassation court establishes that the Roman salute is not a crime unless there is a concrete danger of the reconstruction of the fascist party, as provided by Article 5 of the Scelba law, or there are concrete aims of racial discrimination and violence, as provided by the Mancino law, a lawyer for two of the defendants Domenico Di Tullio told CNN.
The court also ordered a retrial on appeal for eight people convicted of performing fireworks at a 2016 event in Milan commemorating the 1975 murder of a militant belonging to the neo-fascist CasaPound movement.
A 2016 conviction was upheld after a first appeal and no date has yet been set for the appeal to be heard again. The new ruling is to be applied in a lower court ruling to see if there was a threat to public order or if the salute was aimed at bringing back Italy’s fascist party.
Criminal cases go through three levels: primo or first level, automatic appeal or second level, and then the highest court, Cassazione, which determines whether the case should go back to the appellate level or will be affirmed and dismissed.
Members of Italy’s opposition parties and Jewish community leaders have criticised the ruling and plan to rally against it.
