Some 8,000 members of the Muslim community and other associations of Monfalcone, in northeastern Italy, demonstrated this Saturday in the streets of the city after the city hall in the hands of the far-right and sovereignist Northern League closed the two Islamic centers.
Behind a banner that read “We are all Monfalcone and we are all Italians” and with flags of Italy and the European Union, the 8,000 people, according to the Police Headquarters, walked the streets of this town in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region. , where almost a third is inhabited by the Muslim population.
Italian unions and associations that called for respect for differences and freedom of religion also joined in a demonstration that was much larger than expected and which ended peacefully.
They were protesting against the ordinances of the mayor of the League, Anna Cisint Sindaco, who has prohibited prayer in the two Islamic cultural centers of the city where the Muslim community met "for security reasons" and for "inappropriate uses" of the buildings. .
"We have the right to have a place to pray, like Christians," said Rejaul Haq, of the Baitus Salat association, recalling that in Monfalcone "they live and work" and "there are more than 80 Bengali-run stores who send their children to the school and have bought a house.
Among those who spoke at the end of the demonstration, Democratic Party (PD) councilor Sani Bhuiyan denounced "the discriminatory attitude" of the mayor's office "towards our community."
Before the demonstration, the mayor stated that "this Christmas Eve Monfalcone has had the most obvious demonstration of the Muslim community's desire for abuse to impose its most fundamentalist Islamic model."
This summer, the mayor also banned the wearing of the burkini, the full-body swimsuit worn by some Muslim women, on the town's beaches.
