The case of the pro-Russian event that was supposed to be hosted in a civic hall is closed, at least in Modena. The City Council, at the request of Mayor Dem, revoked the concession of the hall for an appointment dedicated to the "reconstruction" of Mariupol. The mayor Gian Carlo Muzzarelli calls into question - after the fuss that also caused the Ukrainian embassy in Rome to intervene - Article 11 of the Constitution which defines Italy's commitment to repudiate the war. The organizers, the cultural association 'Russia Emilia-Romagna', claim the violation of Article 21, freedom of thought and speech. In Lucca, a hotel revoked the availability of a room for an event that would have hosted an event hosted by Russian intellectual Aleksandr Dugin, Putin's ideologue.
In Modena, the controversy had been raised for the exhibition/conference "Mariupol - The rebirth after the war", in which the organizers defined Mariupol as the "city-symbol of the popular revolt of Donbass against the Kiev junta" and again, "martyr city of the Banderite occupation (Ukrainian nationalists, ed.) that lasted eight years" which "now faces a rapid process of reconstruction under the aegis of the institutions of the Russian Federation of which it has become an integral part". The Democratic Party, and not only, is in revolt. So much so that the mayor, also a Dem, had immediately distanced himself. Then the Ukrainian embassy in Rome stressed that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine considered the event "a Russian provocation", officially calling for its cancellation. The revocation of the civic hall came today. The resolution points out that the initiative, despite the commitments signed by the association, "takes on the characteristics of a manifestation of open support for the war of invasion waged by Russia against Ukraine and therefore in contrast with Article 3 of the Municipal Statute", as well as the arguments in contrast "with Article 11 of the Constitution".
The organizers reject all this, essentially accusing the municipal administration of Modena of censorship and pointing the finger at Kiev and its "squad-media offensive". The association Russia Emilia-Romagna claims that Kiev based its pressure on a 'fake news' promoted by Ukrainian media organizations consisting in claiming that the Municipality of Modena would have granted patronage to the conference/exhibition, jointly with the Consulate of the Russian Federation in Milan. All false. For the association, the aim is to prevent "the Italian people from having access to real information, capable of definitively unmasking the work of demonization perpetrated against the Russian Federation."
The Italian Radicals are satisfied, among others, with the revocation, but they will be in the streets of Modena on the 20th to "say enough to Putin's propaganda", because "a criminal campaign" is underway in Italy that "must be opposed". In Tuscany, in Lucca, there are these days controversy for a similar case even if in this case the room for the event that ended up in the crosshairs was the "private" one of a hotel. On January 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day, the East Wind association proposed an event with the pro-Putin Aleksandr Dugin. After an avalanche of protest emails, the hotel backtracked.
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