Italian opposition demands investigation after hundreds give fascist salute at Rome rally

Opposition politicians in Italy are demanding that police investigate a rally in Rome where hundreds of participants raised an arm in the banned fascist salute

ROME -- Opposition politicians in Italy on Monday demanded the government, headed by far-right Premier Giorgia Meloni, to explain how hundreds of demonstrators were able to give a banned fascist salute at a Rome rally without any police intervention.

The rally Sunday night in a working-class neighborhood commemorated the slaying in 1978 of two members of a neo-fascist youth group in an attack later claimed by extreme-left militants.

At one point in the rally, participants raised their right arm in a straight-armed salute that harks back to the fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini. Under post-war legislation, use of fascist symbolism, including the straight-armed salute also known as the Roman salute, is banned.

Democratic Party chief Elly Schlein, who heads the largest opposition party in the legislature, was among those demanding Monday that Meloni's interior minister appear in Parliament to explain why police apparently did nothing to stop the rally.

Schlein and others outraged by the use of the fascist-salute in the rally noted with irony that last month, when a theater-goer at La Scala's opera house's premier shouted “Long live anti-fascist Italy!” The man was quickly surrounded by police from Italy's anti-terrorism squad.