Rome. Attack on Sally Brown, three fascists arrested

Last night around 4.30 a group of fascists covered in balaclavas attacked the Sally Brown, a historic anti-fascist rude pub in the university district of San Lorenzo.

As those on duty say, for more than 15 minutes the attackers tried to force the main entrance door and the side shutter, which were closed for the usual end-of-evening operations.

At the same time, the pub was hit by numerous bottles being thrown.

The noise caused by the assault and probably the alarm raised by the residents caused the police to intervene, who arrested three men, found in possession of a hammer and an axe.

The pub shift workers, a man and a woman, were unharmed and promptly closed off the premises, preventing further material damage and guaranteeing their safety.

Stickers from a fascist group from Bordeaux called “La Bastide Bordelaise” and from the “Defend Europe” campaign were found in the attack.

As reported by the French newspaper Libération, “La Bastide Bordelaise” is the rename of “Bordeaux Nationaliste”, a fascist movement dissolved at the beginning of 2023 by the Minister of the Interior Darmanin because it was the bearer of “a xenophobic ideology, macho and racist propaganda praising hatred and violence”.

Immediately after the dissolution, the movement quietly continued to operate in the streets of Bordeaux under the new name, boasting of defending the city from the invasion of anti-fascists, foreigners and homosexuals, not failing to participate in nostalgic commemorations of European fascism.

The group also refers to the European neo-fascist campaign which is recognized behind the slogan “Defend Europe”.

Banners with this slogan and defense of the Aryan race against the onslaught of antifa, Muslims and various others untermenschen they appear in recent years in stadiums across half of Europe and in demonstrations recalling the European Nazi-fascist experiences, especially in the Balkan peninsula and on the eastern borders of the EU.

In France, the movement of reference for the campaign is called “Génération identitaire”, a fascist and Islamophobic group, which we have already dealt with in this newspaper, which was also officially dissolved in 2021 and hit the headlines a few years ago as part of the operations in the Mediterranean to prevent migrants from reaching European territory.

In 2017, Andrea Palladino of Famiglia Cristiana defined “Defend Europe” as “a continental Nazi-fascist network, but fully in the ‘wise’ hands of the secret services of several European Union countries; its role is ancillary to the most diverse ‘intelligence operations’”.

This latest serious act of intimidation is part of a climate of growing fascist-Zionist violence in the city and in the country, as experienced on April 25 in Porta San Paolo, in the universities and with the ambush suffered by Chef Rubio.

A climate driven in some way by the turn to the right recorded on the continent in the recent European elections, which certainly imposes an increase in the level of attention and prudence in the anti-fascist protests and social struggles that cross the country.

All that remains for us in the editorial team is to express our solidarity and closeness to our comrades at Sally Brown. NO PASARAN!