There is controversy over what happened at the Prima della Scala in Milan yesterday: Marco Vizzardelli, a 65-year-old journalist, he was identified by Digos after shouting “Long live anti-fascist Italy” immediately after the performance of the Mameli anthem.
An expert in horse riding and a regular visitor to the theatre, Vizzardelli said he was “surprised by everything starting from the arrival of the Digos. For having said a constitutional sentence, the Digos arrived. They told me that the identification was a matter of practice but I I was a bit taken aback. At that point they told me that if I didn’t identify myself I would have committed a crime. ‘I didn’t commit a crime because I said ‘Long live anti-fascist Italy’, I would have committed it if I had said ‘Long live the ‘Fascist Italy’. I said something constitutional and obvious,’ I replied”, he explained to Adnkronos. “The officers laughed and told me that they also agreed very well but their job was to proceed with the identification. So we also did it very amicably,” he added.
In a note the Milan Police Headquarters explains that “the identification of the two spectators present in the gallery was carried out as an ordinary method of preventive control to guarantee the safety of the representation. The initiative was absolutely not determined by the content of the sentence pronounced, but by the particular circumstances, considering the demonstrations of dissent carried out in the city in the afternoon and the live television coverage of the event which could have been a stimulus for initiatives aimed at disrupting its regular progress. The knowledge of the identity of the people allowed, in fact, to be able to believe with certainty the absence of any risk for the event”.
The hashtag #VivalItaliaAntifascista has gone viral, on X profile of the Democratic Party, as a sign of solidarity we read: “We will continue to shout it, everywhere. Even if Salvini doesn’t like it. And now identify us all”. Several dem exponents, from Debora Serracchiani to Arturo Scotto, passing through Marco Furfaro, joined the initiative by tweeting “Long live anti-fascist Italy” with name, surname, place and date of birth.
The national secretary of the Italian Left spoke on the incident Nicola Fratoianni. “I hope that the reason that led Digos agents to identify whoever shouted ‘Long live Anti-Fascist Italy’ at La Scala last night is because the police commissioner and the prefect of Milan intend to thank that citizen for having paid homage to the Constitution”, the parliamentarian from the Green Left Alliance wrote on Twitter.