Italy's top court said WednesdayFascist salutes may be crimes even if they are merelycommemorative reversing reports that it had said just that in aJanuary ruling ordering a second appeal for eight far rightmilitants who had been found guilty of making the salute during a commemoration in Milan in 2016.
In order to assess whether the salute is a crime, the CassationCourt said in the explanation of the January 18 ruling, you have to factor in "the environmental context, the symbolic value of the place, the immediate or not connection to the historical period (of Fascism), the number of participants, and the repetition of the gestures as well as the danger of emulation".
Hundreds of neofascists recently made the salute at a commemoration of the anniversary of a 1978 Rome attack by farleft militants in which three teen neofascist militants lost their lives.