An association of Muslim confession won the auction of a chapel in a hospital in Bergamo. But the region led by the far right opposed it.
The League of Matteo Salvini, far-right co-vice-president of the Italian government, intervened to block the project to transform a chapel into a mosque in Bergamo, in the north of the country.
A Muslim association last week made the best offer at the auction of this chapel in a hospital in Bergamo, exceeding the proposal of the Romanian Orthodox Church that used it for its services.
The region is opposed
But the regional council of Lombardy, where Bergamo, headed by the League, is opposed to the sale under a law of 2004 that allows to intervene to safeguard cultural sites.
"I would never have put a church up for sale and I'm amazed that the hospital management did not understand how sensitive this issue was , " said Attilio Fontana, president of the region, on Twitter.
"However, we will exercise our right of preemption and there will be no room for an appeal," he added. It is the regional council that will therefore acquire the chapel.
The League and the myth of cultural replacement
Matteo Salvini, whose party has been governing Italy since last June as part of a coalition with five-star movement protesters, says he fears a loss of Italian culture and society under the blows of Islam.
"Centuries of history are in danger of disappearing if Islamization, which has been underestimated until now, ends up imposing itself," he said at the beginning of the year. According to population projections from the Pew Research Center, Muslims, who represented 3.7% of the Italian population in 2010, are expected to grow to 4.9% in 2020.