Holocaust Remembrance Day Saturday must be protected from an antisemitic risk, Rome Mayor Robero Gualtieri said Friday after the government said it might put off pro-Palestinian marches scheduled for that day in the Italian capital and other big Italian cities.
Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said Thursday authorities would try to reconcile the right to freedom of expression and the sensitivity of the Shoah Day of Memory.
Gualtieri told Corriere.it that the issue of pro-Palestinian marches on Holocaust Remembrance Day "is a sensitive one, it is right that there should be careful consideration by the government. "But the Day of Remembrance has a special value that should be kept out of the legitimate discussion on the (Gaza)war.
"It is bad for this purely political discussion to happen on the day we remember the Shoah, which has its own uniqueness and cannot be compared to any other crime.
"I deeply feel this uniqueness, and it is not nice that on that very day this debate can lead to expressions of antisemitism, of attack,."
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA