As protests continue to ripple across European cities, the Italian Green MEP Benedetta Scuderi reflects on her own experiences of police repression, from holding a peace flag near a Brussels protest to facing the fury that followed the flotilla to Gaza. She spoke to EUobserver about the EU’s housing priorities, Italy’s elections, and how the far-right has captured freedom of expression for its own use.
You were detained by police in July, a few hundred meters from a far-right protest calling for “re-migration”. How has the rise of the far-right stalled some key areas, like freedom of speech?
The rise of the far-right is really threatening European democracy as we know it. It has never been perfect, but it allowed people to protest. Now, we only let certain people express their dissent.
In the European Parliament, people can discriminate and use hate speech because of their freedom of expression, but as you go out of parliament with a Palestinian flag, then you’re a terrorist. So, how is it possible that last Strasbourg plenary, I could hear my colleagues saying that Muslims are a threat, and there are no consequences? And then I go out and I say, “Free Palestine,” and I’ll be arrested.
This double standard is extremely problematic. Also, the fact that we’re not allowing fascist symbols within the parliament nor any other symbol, is not okay. Because we need to be fine to say that certain things are discriminatory and against European values, without having to say that everything else is not allowed.
We also need to be able to accept dissent. What is happening all over Europe, with violence increasing towards activists, we’re seeing it target only a certain kind of activists. In Italy, fascist protests are ignored by police. Farmers can come to the parliament with tractors, and that’s completely fine. And then we have 20 people doing a sit-in for Palestine in front of the parliament, and getting their heads smashed.
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