Ex-integration minister Cecile
Kyenge, a European MP with the center-left Democratic Party (PD)
party, said on Monday that no party is immune to racism.
"There are different souls within the PD, there are racists
in all parties, including mine", she told Radio 24 after the
Senate's committee on parliamentary immunity rejected an
authorization request to prosecute Northern League Senator
Roberto Calderoli for saying in 2013 that Kyenge "looks like an
orangutan".
Kyenge, a doctor born in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
became Italy's first black minister in 2013 in Enrico Letta's
cabinet.
"Calderoli did not voice a political criticism, he just
said that I look like an orangutan - this has nothing to do with
politics, it's just racism", said Kyenge.
Kyenge also described the leader of the anti-immigrant
Northern League party, Matteo Salvini, as a "calculating racist,
for electoral ends".
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