Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni lambasted those on the political left who celebrated or minimised the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and said that the left in Italy must be held accountable for its role in fomenting hatred against their political opponents.
Speaking from Rome on Saturday at an event for the socially conservative Unione di Centro (Union of the Centre) party, Prime Minister Meloni decried the killing of conservative American free speech activist Charlie Kirk.
Meloni, who, despite governing as a relative moderate, has frequently been branded by the legacy media as a fascist or far-right, said per Il Giornale: “We are accused of political hatred by those who justify Kirk’s murder.”
In the wake of Kirk’s assassination at a college campus debate event in Utah on Wednesday, social media apps like Bluesky and TikTok were flooded with posts celebrating the death of the 31-year-old Turning Point USA founder. Left-wing media outlets were also quick to suggest that Kirk’s “divisive” and “hateful” rhetoric were to blame for his murder.
In contrast, the Italian leader said that Kirk was only “guilty of courageously defending his ideas” and that he “just sat in public and allowed anyone to challenge him in a debate on any issue, because he was convinced of his ideas… He did it with a smile on his face, he did it with respect.”
Turning to the left in her own country, the PM said: “I believe that the time has come to hold the Italian left to account for this continuous minimisation or even this continuous justificationism of criminalisation, of violence towards those who do not think like them.
“Because the climate here in Italy is also becoming unsustainable, and it is time to denounce it, and it is time to say clearly that this is unacceptable, dangerous, irresponsible and antithetical to any embryo of democracy.”
Meloni specifically highlighted comments made by left-wing Italian academic and mathematician Piergiorgio Odifreddi, who sparked controversy by reportedly saying that “shooting Martin Luther King and shooting a MAGA representative are two very different things because Martin Luther King preached peace.”
Responding to the assertion, Meloni said, “I would like to ask this distinguished professor what exactly he means: does he mean that there are people who are legitimate to shoot based on their ideas? Or is a shooting less serious because we don’t share their ideas? Or is it understandable to want to shoot someone based on ideas?”
Like the United States, Italy has long been a hotbed for so-called anti-fascist activity. Indeed, one of the inscriptions scrawled on a bullet in the rifle believed to have been used to kill Kirk was the lyrics to Bella Chao. The Italian folk song became prominent amid anti-Nazi forces in the country during World War II and has since become an anthem of Antifa groups worldwide.
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