Clashes with police in riot gear occurred during procession of about thirty young people protesting for the presence in Naples of Roberto Vannacci.
The demonstrators, who intended to overcome the barriers and the police cordon to protect the area where Vannacci presents his book, they released water balloons and then hit the officers’ shields with flag poles.
“I do not understand because they don’t come to the room in peaceI am for the civil confrontation, I would listen to them and compare myself with them. And in any case, no, I don’t fear for my safety and I don’t feel surrounded” replied the general Roberto Vannacci commenting on the demonstration staged by the social centers upon his arrival in Naples. «I thank the protesters, I invite them to come to this room to express their ideas, I have never shied away from confrontation. But this invitation I make never succeeds. I don’t feel surrounded but I am worried about the context that has been created.”
«Opinions – continues Vannacci – are fought on the level of ideas.
And it strikes me to see that it is necessary to resort to an out-of-the-ordinary deployment of law enforcement for my initiatives: it doesn’t come from a civilized country like Italy. I am experienced – the general’s opinion – but since I published the book, everything has happened. The owners of the premises that host my initiatives are threatened and my sentences are often manipulated.”
Arcigay Napoli then announced that today it had presented a complaint to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in which it asks the judiciary to evaluate whether the volume «The world upside down» by Roberto Vannacci «is a dangerous vehicle for the propaganda of homophobic, sexist and racist ideas, actions, activities and behaviors». «In placing full trust in the work of the judiciary, and in the values of a constitutional state which cannot allow any Italian citizen in particular, much less a general of the Armed Forces, the right to claim feelings of hatred and contempt towards minorities judged ‘not normal’, with unequivocal reference to the LGBTQIA+ communities” the signatories Massimo Arcangeli and Antonello Sannino “at the same time call everyone to a sense of responsibility, outside the logic of opposing extremisms, so that the State of law adopts or prepares, for through our legal systems, and with the institutional tools at its disposal, the measures appropriate to the case”.
