Nationalist opposition League
party leader and populist strongman Matteo Salvini is a racist,
the Tunisian parliament's deputy speaker said Wednesday after
the former interior minister rang the doorbell of a Tunisian
family in Bologna Tuesday asking if a drug pusher live there.
The incident in Bologna's high crime working class Pilastro
district showed "a racist and shameful attitude that undermines
relations between Italy and Tunisia," said the official, Osama
Sghaier.
Salvini was led to the flat by a local mother of a dead
addict who told him a pusher lived there.
He commended her actions, saying more people should show such
concern for their communities.
Salvini rang the bell of the Tunisian family and said "good
evening madam, is your son a drug pusher?".
Anti-migrant Euroskeptic League leader Salvini has been
criticised for anti-migrant policies he enacted as interior
minister in the last government.
These including shutting Italy's ports to NGO rum migrat
rescue ships, and a migrant and security decree which critics
said criminalised migrants by stripping them of certain rights.
Salvini responded to the Tunisian official's charge by saying
"I listened to the cry of pain from a mother courage who lost
her son to drugs.
"An act of appreciation that we should all do: the fight
against drug pushers should unite and not divide.
"Zero tolerance for drugs and pushers of death: for us it is
a priority.
"In Emilia Romagna and in the whole of Italy there are decent
hardworking immigrants, who have integrated and respect the law.
But those who push drugs are a problem for all: whether they are
Italian or foreign, it makes no difference."
Salvini is campaigning hard in Emilia Romagna ahead of
regional elections there on Sunday.
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