ANPI calls for CasaPound to be disbanded.

An anti-fascist demonstration is taking place in Rome on Thursday evening in protest over an assault on four students by members of the neo-fascist CasaPound movement.

The rally in Piazza Vittorio will be attended by representatives of the opposition centre-left Partito Democratico (PD) party, the CGIL trade union and Italy's partisan association ANPI which preserves the memory of the resistance movement against fascism.

Organisers of the demonstration say it is being held "in response to the fascist and cowardly attack" on the students who were returning home on Tuesday evening from a protest by opposition parties against the controversial Premierato constitutional reform bill and a new law giving Italian regions greater autonomy.

The students, members of left-wing student groups, were carrying flags and wearing t-shirts with references to the Spin Time Labs occupied space in Rome.

As they walked past a pub frequented by CasaPound on a side-street off Via Merulana, the students were set upon by four far-right militants in a politically motivated attack.

Un gruppo di neofascisti aggredisce alcuni studenti a #Roma colle oppio https://t.co/pYIt98PPMI pic.twitter.com/f32TUUtFej

— Tg La7 (@TgLa7) June 20, 2024

One of the students filmed the assault on her phone, with the footage helping police to identify those responsible for the violence.

"In giving the students all our solidarity and support, we express strong concern for the climate that is being created in our country" - the rally's organisers said - "Organisations that refer to fascism and Nazism evidently now feel justified, tolerated and able to act with impunity."

In addition to condemning the attack, the Rome branch of ANPI called for "the eviction of the publicly owned building which for years now has become the fascist hideout of CasaPound and the dissolution of this organisation whose existence constitutes a danger to the safety of people."

Confirming her party's presence at the rally on Thursday, PD leader Elly Schlein said: "How much longer do we have to wait for [Interior] Minister Piantedosi to do his duty and take measures to dissolve the fascist movements? The violence is now daily, the alarm bells are ringing loudly, indifference is complicity."