In the scraps of a particularly unfortunate legislature, the Italian Parliament, which declined to approve a law of basic decency like jus soli, has found the time to approve — we do not know if it is the final version — an anti-fascism law proposed by Emanuele Fiano.
It extends and widens the existing norm of the Criminal Code concerning “the propaganda crimes of the Fascist and Nazi-fascist movements.” The new instrument includes penalties from six months to two years of imprisonment for “anyone who propagates the images or contents of the Fascist Party or the German National Socialist Party, or their respective ideologies, even through the production, distribution, diffusion or sale of items depicting people, images or symbols to which they are clearly referred to, or makes public references to their symbols or gestures.”
I imagine that many readers of this newspaper will instinctively welcome such a measure. But here I would like to underscore the many perplexities that the law arouses. One wonders if this bill was really necessary, since we have two solid laws (the Scelba Law of 1952 and the Mancini Law of 1993), which already regulate this topic. And it is also legitimate to question the implications of the overall, political and cultural disposition of those who work on such bills.