For further info on Lega Nord, here is an article on Lega Nord from the English wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lega_NordGerman wikipedia offers some additional info:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lega_Nord"Scandals about racist comments
Instead of being openly racist, Lega Nord - like other extreme right parties in Europe (Front National, Vlaams Belang, Austrian Liberal FPOe, Alleanza Nazionale) . adapts ethno-pluralism. Characteristic of this ideology is a comment by Umberto Bossi in June 2000 during an annual meeting of Lega Nord in the town of Pontida that in his mind nothing "can eliminate the peoples and their being different, nor their cultures and characteristics which are the fruit of their interaction with their territory and the food which their territory produces and which they consume". Alain de Benoist, philosopher of the 'Nouvelle Droite" [New Right; extremist tendency/cooperation of fascists from several European countries] is allowed to comment recent political developments at the front page of the Lega Nord paper 'La Padania'.
Despite Lega Nord leadership attempting to deny this, there were openly racist events and comments of the party and its members.
* Umberto Bossi claimed that Africans - whom he called "Bingo Bongos" hinting at a film about a person having grown up among monkeys - should not have the same rights as Italians do. Italians should receive the better jobs and houses, according to Bossi.
* During an interview, Bossi said: "The Navy and the Guardia di Finanza [customs] should rather shoot at the boats with immigrants who try to enter Italy illegally." After this met with much criticism from all over Italy, he took back this comment and said he of course was speaking about the empty boats.
* Erminio Boso demanded an apartheid system for the Italian trains in which immigrants would not be allowed to decide about which seats they take.
* Giancarlo Gentilini, mayor of the town of Treviso between 1995 and 2000, and at this point in time (2006) vice mayor, demanded "to educate these freeloaders in the bang-bang-bang way". The town is a stronghold of Lega Nord with its 8% immigrant population, as compared to an Italian average of 4.5% in 2005.
* In 2006, Mayor Gentilini demanded "metal waggons" for "arrested illegal immigrants", no matter whether these were "muscle-laden negroes" or "flower peddlers with a strange olive-coloured skin". (Source and more proof of LN's racism cf at:
http://www.cospe.it/uploads/documenti/allegati/rapporto_2002_su_violenza_razzista_en.pdf, p.20)
* In June 2005, during an event organized by Lega Nord, there was a public call to rape Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, the secretary of the Italian Green Party who is openly bi-sexual and helps immigrants substantially.
* Mario Borghezio, a representative of Lega Nord in the European Parliament, was fined in 1993 to pay 750,000 Lire (approx Euro 390) for having slapped a child of Moroccan nationality.
* On October 19, 2005, Mario Borghezio was sentenced to five months in prison. He had set fire to the tents of immigrants sleeping under a bridge in Torino in 2000.
On July 10, 2006, Lega Nord politician Roberto Calderoli, after the final match of the European soccer contest, defamed the French team as a "team without identity". He claimed Italy had lost against a team "which, to be successful, has given up its idntity by having negroes, Muslims, and communists in its ranks". Calderoli had made it to the headlines with similar provocations before.[...]
Further scandals
* In February 2006, Roberto Calderoli had printed T-Shirts with the controversial carricatures of Muhammad. After having presented himself proudly in one of those T-Shirts during a live interview on February 17, 2006, there were violent protests in Lybia taking place outside the Italian consulate; 11 persons died during clashes with police. Calderoli's colleagues in the government, especially Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, urged him to step down which he did on Feb 18, 2006.
As a consequence of this scandal, the four representatives of Lega Nord in the European Parliament were dismissed of the faction 'Independence and Democracy'."
German wiki also offers several links for further readings at the bottom of the entry:
1. ? Extreme right in Europe, from Corriere della Sera Vorlage:It icon.
2. ? The deep Europe that hates America, by Paolo Rumiz, La Repubblica
(headlined "Einzelnachweise")
Under the caption weblinks e.g.:
* „Bossi focuses immigration fears“ – BBC report about Lega Nord playing
with the fear of immigrants (in English language)
* EUMC/Cospe - Analytical study on discrimination and racist violence in Italy: 2000-2002 (englisch) - cf pages 19-21 listing racist events in connections with Lega Nord
