ROME (AFP)
Italy's former deputy education minister has provoked a scandal by parading a pig, an impure animal for Muslims, on the site of a planned mosque in the country's north, news reports said Sunday.
"We have 'blessed' the ground that the Padua authorities want to transfer for the mosque," said Mariella Mazzetto, a member of the populist right-wing Northern League party in the city.
She walked the pig on a lead accompanied by about 10 party members, Italian daily newspapers reported.
"It's a question of defending Italian identity," said Mazzetto, who was deputy education minister in 1994-95 under the former right-wing government of Silvio Berlusconi.
The leader of the Northern League in the Italian parliament, Roberto Maroni, commented that "the battle in Padua was justified in its intentions, but in its methods, we need initiatives that make people sympathize, this one was wrong."
He claimed however that every four days a new mosque was built in Italy.
The mayor of Padua condemned the stunt.
"This sort of behavior is not worthy of Padua and I believe that many people here are ashamed. At least 7,000 people from Muslim countries live here and we try to live together peacefully," said mayor Flavio Zanonato.
"This sort of act goes in the opposite direction." |
