Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said he was deeply shaken by the fatal shooting of US right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk.
“What is happening right now has affected me like never before. There is a before and an after,” Salvini told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in a Sunday interview, saying he cried upon seeing young people praying for Kirk.
Salvini sharply criticized reactions to Kirk’s assassination, saying parts of the left neither showed sympathy nor condemned the attack, instead blaming the victim or US President Donald Trump.
The right-wing politician, who serves as Italy’s transport minister in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government, described “a torrent of anger and malice no longer hidden, displayed with a smile and without shame.”
Meloni herself warned over the weekend of a growing climate of political hatred against the right.
Kirk had allowed himself to be “challenged by anyone on any issue,” she said. “He did it with a smile on his face, with respect — and that’s precisely why he instilled feared,” said the leader of the ruling party Brothers of Italy.
She added that the political climate in Italy is becoming increasingly fraught and called for a denunciation of dangerous, irresponsible and anti-democratic positions.
Opposition parties criticized Meloni, accusing her of fuelling social tensions with her comments.
Kirk, a 31-year-old political organizer, media personality and friend to Trump’s family, was shot in the neck on Wednesday in Utah while speaking outdoors on a university campus.
He was a powerful force in grassroots conservative politics, with particular focus on mobilizing the youth vote.