Rome (AFP)
The statue of a famous Italian journalist was degraded and stained with red paint on Saturday evening by unidentified people in a garden in Milan, the Ansa news agency reported.
The statue dedicated to Indro Montanelli, placed in the garden of the same name, in the center of Milan, was covered with red paint, starting with the character's head.
The inscription "racist, rapist" was tagged in black paint on the base of the statue, according to photos published by the Italian media.
It is the first damaged statue in Italy, since the wave of demonstrations sparked around the world by the case of George Floyd, African-American who died in the United States on May 25 under the knee of a white policeman during his arrest.
In recent days, an "anti-fascist" Milanese association, I Sentinelli, had demanded from the mayor of Milan the removal of the statue, accusing him of having been guilty of having taken a child in Ethiopia for a wife. the Italian colonialist period in Africa.
"In Milan, there is a park and a statue dedicated to Montanelli, who until the end of his days claimed with pride the fact of having bought and married a Eritrean child of twelve years to transform her into a sex slave during the aggression of Ethiopia by the fascist regime ", accused this association on social networks.
Mayor Beppe Sala rejected this request, supported in this by the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs Luigi di Maio.
The statue has already been targeted in the past. It had been covered in pink paint last year during a feminist demonstration.
Founder of the newspaper Il Giornale, Indro Montanelli (1909-2001) is a famous Italian journalist and essayist, notably passing by the Corriere della Sera.
Classified on the right, the man defined himself as "anti-communist" and "anarcho-conservative", which earned him to be labeled as "fascist" by the Italian left during the 70s and 80s.
In 1935 he volunteered for the war in Eritrea led by Mussolini.
Anti-racist protests after the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police in the United States have given rise worldwide to the debunking or the degradation of several statues of controversial figures.
© 2020 AFP