The Italian minister who called a former black minister an “orangutan” is sentenced to 7 months in jail

The Justice of Italy has sentenced this Thursday to seven months in prison to the Minister of Regional Affairs and Autonomies Roberto Calderoliof the extreme right italian leaguevice president’s party Matteo Salvinifor making racist insults against Cécile Kyengewho was the first Afro-descendant minister of the country.

A court in Bergamo has confirmed the sentence for aggravated slander on racial grounds against Kyengeoriginally from the Republic of Congo, after Calderoli, in 2013, when he was vice president of the Italian Senate, compared the then minister with an orangutan during a rally of his party in Treviglio, in northern Italy.

The Italian judiciary has already sentenced the now minister on appeal, but the judges had annulled the previous sentences against Calderoli for failure to recognize the legitimate impediment.

However, the Constitutional Court indicated that Calderoli cannot enjoy inviolabilitydespite the fact that the authorities had declared that the senator’s views were “expressed by a member of Parliament in the exercise of his functions” and, therefore, “unquestionable”.

According to the TC, the opinions expressed outside the specific exercise of parliamentary functions are covered by inviolability only if they assume a purpose of disseminating parliamentary activity. Thus, the prerogative of “cannot extend to insults“.

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18 month sentence

In January 2019, a court in Bergamo already sentenced the then senator to 18 months in jail Roberto Calderoli for comparing in 2013 the then Minister of Integration, Cécile Kyenge, with an “orangutan”.

Despite the ruling, the senator from the far-right League did not go to jail as his sentence was suspended. The events occurred when Calderoli referred to Kyenge in these termsthe only black head of the center-left Executive of Enrico Letta, during an act of his party in Treviglio, in northern Italy.

“I take comfort when I surf the Internet and see the government photos. I love animals, bears and wolves as they are known, but when I see the images of Kyenge I can’t help but think, although I don’t say that I am, in the orangutan factions”Calderoli then said, far from seeming truly sorry.

Calderoli had to apologize in Parliament after the avalanche of criticism caused by his words. The senator acknowledged having committed “nonsense”something that he justified by arguing that he had been carried away by the momentum of the rally.

Following the 2019 conviction, Kyenge celebrated the court’s decision on social media as it contributed to “fight racism”. “Although the sentence has been suspended, it is a courageous condemnation for all those who fight against racism,” he said after confirming that it was suspended.

However, Calderoli’s racist history did not start there, but is a recurrence: in 2006 he had to present his resignation as minister of Silvio Berlusconi after the controversy that broke out as a result of a shirt that he wore with offenses against islam