Northern leaguer charged for Kyenge 'orangutan' quip

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Northern leaguer charged for Kyenge 'orangutan' quip

By Sandra Cordon (ANSA.IT) 17:57, November 11, 2013

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Milan, November 7 - Italian Senator Roberto Calderoli has been charged with defamation aggravated by racial discrimination after he compared Italy's first black cabinet minister to an orangutan.

The prosecutor for the case against the Senator, who represents Italy's anti-immigrant Northern League, requested an immediate trial. The remark by Calderoli was one of the first and the worst, but not the only such slur against Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge, who was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo but studied in Italy to become an opthalmologist. After years in local politics, she was appointed to cabinet in April by Prime Minister Enrico Letta.

Since then, a rash of racist remarks and threats against Kyenge have attracted international attention and raised questions about the depth of racism in Italy.

The minister has also been a lightning rod for protests against efforts led by Kyenge to change Italian immigration law.

But Calderoni's remarks drew particular attention because he is a senior member within the Northern League party and, as a Senator, a high-ranking national political figure.

He triggered widespread outrage when, during a political rally in the northern city of Bergamo in July, he told supporters: "Whenever I see Minister Kyenge, I cannot help but think of an orangutan". He later called the remarks a "joke" and said that his comments were born from his "love for animals".

"It was an aesthetic judgment, not meant to be racist," he added.

Those comments sparked calls for his resignation and triggered the prosecutor's probe in Bergamo.

At the time the investigation began Kyenge - who has previously called on the leadership of the League to halt the attacks - said: "It is a duty".

Besides Calderoli, other prominent members of the Northern League have joined in attacks against the minister.

In September, League members complained that a purification ritual had been conducted in Congo to rid Calderoli of evil spirits, and suggested Kyenge might attempt such measures in Italy. "This is Minister Kyenge's culture of origin. Exorcisms are all right in the Congo and in the hut, but I hope it is not the future of Italy," said Matteo Salvini, deputy secretary of the Northern League after an article in Italian tabloid Oggi described the ritual and interviewed Kyenge's father.

"The voodoo-type ritual celebrated in Congo by Kyenge-popes dressed as chief sorcerer by her community officially to eradicate evil spirits from the body of League Senator Calderoli - but whose true magical ends are unknown - is to say the least worrying," added Mario Borghezio, a Northern League representative of the European Parliament at the time. He was later ejected from the European Parliament's euroskeptics' caucus after suggesting that Kyenge wanted to impose "Congo tribal law" on Italy. In September, a former political activist opposed to immigration posted on Facebook the suggestion that "someone kill her". Kyenge has been praised by fellow cabinet ministers, who have called her very courageous, as well as such world leaders as United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-moon.

But that has not slowed the attacks. In August, officials in Vicenza were upset by a message scrawled in large handwriting on a garage door that read: "Kyenge-orangutan" accompanied by symbols that looked like swastikas.

In July, a local councilor in Padua was found guilty of instigation to commit racist sex crimes against Kyenge.

Dolores Valandro, formerly of the Northern League, was handed a suspended sentence of 13 months in prison and was banned from public office for three years after she called for Kyenge to be raped in a June 13 Facebook post.

"(Why) doesn't anyone ever rape her in order (for her) to understand what the victim of this heinous crime feels like?" wrote Valandro under a photo of Kyenge.

Valandro was later expelled from the Northern League. Calderoli has a history of xenophobic stunts, including a 2006 TV appearance wearing a T-shirt bearing cartoons of the prophet Mohammed which had sparked riots in Libya that left 11 dead.

He was forced to resign as reforms minister.

Later that year he made racist remarks about the France team that lost to Italy in the 2006 World Cup Final.

In 2007 Calderoli campaigned against a planned mosque in Milan, leading a pig over the site.