Fascist salutes at Rome event to mark 47 years since killing of three neo-fascist militants.

Rome police have launched an investigation after hundreds of men performed the fascist salute during an annual commemorative event in the Italian capital on Tuesday.

The Acca Larentia event takes place every year to commemorate the 1978 killing of three members of the youth wing of the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), a percursor to the right-wing Fratelli d'Italia party led today by Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni, who has commemorated the killings in the past.

Police are reportedly studying video footage of the event, attended by around 1,300 people, in an attempt to identify those making the straight-armed salute, which is a crime in Italy although it rarely results in any convictions.

In addition to raising their right arms, participants are heard shouting "Present!" in response to the call "For all fallen comrades!", a rallying cry associated with the Italian far-right.

Political right

Earlier on Tuesday another commemoration took place at Acca Larentia, attended by the vice president of the lower house and Fratelli d'Italia deputy Fabio Rampelli.

The right-wing governor of the Lazio region around Rome, Francesco Rocca, also attended the commemoration.

"Remembering the Acca Larentia massacre is a civic duty", Rocca wrote on social media, saying that Acca Larentia is "a wound that is still open and deserves the utmost respect from every institution, with the aim of a true historical pacification, so that episodes of this type never happen again".

Controversy

During the ceremony on Tuesday morning a protester shouted as he passed by: "Long live the Italian Constitution, long live the Resistance!", before being identified by police and moved away.

The young man, a local resident, told reporters. "It is absolutely right that the victims of the armed political struggle are commemorated but it is absolutely unacceptable that this becomes Predappio" (a reference to an annual rally in commemoration of Italian fascist dictator Mussolini), "a gathering of neo-fascists who make the Roman salute and publicly praise the ventennio" (Italy's fascist period from 1922 to 1943).

Vergogna di Stato. Roma, Italia 2025. #AccaLarentia pic.twitter.com/CTBIrieZje

— Paolo Berizzi (@PBerizzi) January 7, 2025

The centre-left Partito Democratico (PD), which said it had called for the rally not to be authorised, posted a video on Instagram entitled "1,300 Roman salutes: infinite shame" along with the message: "We hope that those responsible for today's events will be identified quickly with the same diligence with which the most varied manifestations of dissent are now identified in our country: pacifists, students, environmentalists".

Acca Larentia massacre

On 7 January 1978, Franco Bigonzetti and Francesco Ciavatta, aged 18 and 19, were shot dead outside the MSI headquarters on Via Acca Larenzia in the city's Tuscolano suburb.

Nobody has ever been prosecuted for the killings which were allegedly carried out by far-left militants.

A third MSI youth wing member, Stefano Recchioni, 20, died after being hit by a stray bullet during riots with police in the immediate aftermath of the deaths.

Although the memorial event takes place annually, last year it sparked outrage after viral video footage of hundreds of men performing fascist salutes made international news headlines and was widely condemned by opposition politicians in Italy.

Fascist salute laws in Italy

In April, Italy's top court said that a fascist salute may be a crime even if performed during a commemorative event, clarifying an ambiguous ruling earlier last year.

The Cassation Court clarified that a number of factors must be considered when evaluating whether the stiff-armed salute constitutes a crime, and that making the so-called saluto romano during a commemoration does not automatically "neutralise" the offence.

These factors include the setting and its "symbolic value" and the degree to which the location it is linked - or not - to the fascist era, the number of participants, the "insistent repitition" of the gesture and the "danger of emulation".

The court's clarifation came after it ruled in January that the fascist salute could be considered a crime only "under certain conditions", including if performed in circumstances that risk a "concrete danger" of reviving the banned Fascist party.

In such cases, the court ruled that judges can apply the 1952 Scelba Law against "apology for fascism" and attempting to restore Mussolini's Fascist party.

The court ruled that the fascist salute could also be considered a crime if it posed a risk to public order under the 1993 Mancino Law which permits the prosecution of those involved in racial, ethnic and religious discrimination and the incitement of hate crime.

Photo La Repubblica