A school in Genoa is devastated, a swastika also appears. But the same students who were attacked say: “Politics has nothing to do with it”
Since it is Genoa, one has to say that the matter must be taken care of cum grano salis. And in fact the centre-left mayor, courted by the Democratic Party, Silvia Saliswhile harshly condemning what happened, does not go too far in attributing political motives to the nighttime attack on the Leonardo da Vinci high school a stone’s throw from Piazza Manin, peacefully occupied since Friday by a student collective. He who has no doubts is instead Andrea Orlando – former PD minister for justice – who can’t wait to talk about fascists: «The attack on the high school represents, due to its premeditation, a qualitative leap in the violence of the far right. It is not an extemporaneous event. At the root of that episode was the campaign of demonization of student protests and organized forces. Let there be full light. Solidarity with students.” The municipal councilor of Avs follows Simone Leoncini who is also the father of one of the “occupying” boys: “It is a premeditated attack, which carries with it a clear criminal and fascist matrix. In addition to devastated chairs, benches and desks, a swastika stands out. There was courageous resistance from the students who were overwhelmed.”
Instead, it is emerging that the raid was the work of a “phalanx” of Maranza intent on smashing everything, including the students’ faces. It would be the first case – to use the language of organized crime news – of masked right-wing extremism. Shortly after midnight on Saturday a group of about ten boys broke into the high school in Via Arecco. From the students’ story, but also from the footage of the surveillance cameras now being examined by Digos and made available by the principal who immediately rushed to the scene, this group armed with bars made its way by breaking down the door and began to devastate everything, apparently also launching into a sort of manhunt. They defaced the walls and destroyed the desks, but there were no injuries. The students who had been occupying the institute since Friday evening, authorized because it was still a cultural initiative, managed to escape. The attackers left a “signature”: they drew a swastika on the corridor wall. Hence the first attribution of the attack to ultra-right extremists, supported by a statement from the student collective: «We were attacked by a group of neo-fascists who broke into the school shouting “long live the Duce”».
Is everything clear? Absolutely not. The first doubts began to circulate just a few minutes after the attack. Some students told reporters, and then the police: «Those are Maranza, all very young, they just wanted to smash everything; politics has nothing to do with it.” However, someone else reported the shouts of “long live the Duce” and in any case that swastika drawn in black paint remains. The Police Headquarters has doubts about the political matrix which, after stating that every “hypothesis is open and under consideration” by those investigating, clarified with the doctor Silvia Burdesepolice commissioner of Genoa: «The investigations are proceeding at 360 degrees. No hypothesis is excluded. At the moment any qualification of the action is to be considered premature.” The police – accused by Leoncini that she arrived late – she specified not only that the intervention of the police was almost immediate, but that “after hearing the first witnesses, some reported that the perpetrators of the blitz were very young boys, 15-17 years old, describing them as “maranza””. Therefore the attackers would have used both the slogans “long live the Duce” and the swastika to deflect their responsibilities. Furthermore, in September in Genoa there was a huge maranza raid – young second and third generation migrants, many of whom were non-EU minors who arrived unaccompanied – and for some time a group of North African minors have been dealing drugs in the center and moving from Chiavari to Imperia with periodic intimidating raids. Hence the idea that they may have “mascaried” the neo-fascists.
The mayor Silvia Salis in her statement she is cautious: «I am in constant contact with the police», she declared, «to clarify what happened at the Leonardo da Vinci. It is an extremely serious episode. Violence is not tolerable in any form: seeing a swastika on the wall of a school is a slap in the face to the founding values of our democracy. We hope that clarity can be clarified and the perpetrators identified as soon as possible.” The Minister of Education also spoke Giuseppe Valditara: «I express deep concern. I hope that those responsible for this serious act of violence, apparently of a neo-fascist nature, are quickly identified and convicted. School can never be a place of intimidation.” The honorable and municipal councilor Ilaria Cavo – We Moderates – commented: «Full solidarity with students, teachers and operators: I hope that the investigations will clarify and lead quickly to the identification of those responsible».
