A controversial Milan statue of late
Italian journalism doyen Indro Montanelli has been vandalised
with paint for the second time in four years in an apparent
protest against his buying a teenage Eritrean wife during
Italy's Abyssinian war in the 1930s.
Montanelli, who died in 2001 aged 92, feted as an Italian
journalism great, never apologised for buying the 12-year-old
girl, whom he frequently recalled as 'a small docile animal",
when he was a Fascist soldier in the 1935-37 Second
Italo-Ethiopian War.
Leftist and women's groups have called for the statue to be
removed but Italian political parties have resisted the calls
given his status as a journalism legend.
Montanelli was a prominent right-wing journalist known for
being an independent thinker and prolific writer.
Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala has said that, while Montanelli
made mistakes, he does not think the statue located in the
Giardini Pubblici Indro Montanelli (Indro Montanelli Public
Gardens) should be knocked down.
In the last paint attack in June 2020, linked to the Black Lives
Matter campaign, a 21-year-old Milanese student and anarchist
was found guilty of defacing the cultural heritage.
Rightwing parties on Thursday called for the park to be guarded.
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