by Emma Biginelli Macchia, reporter

 

Three migrants from Senegal and Nigeria have been arrested by the police investigating the killing and rape of a 16 year-old girl. 

Desiree Mariottini was found dead in an abandoned building in San Lorenzo, close to the centre of Rome. She was drugged and then gang raped by 7 or 8 people when she was unconscious. According to police the people arrested are illegal immigrants.   

Matteo Salvini, leader of right-wing party Lega and Vice-Prime Minister has showed up twice in one day at the scene of the crime. Even before the men were arrested as suspects, he was already using the case to promote hatred and his fight against illegal migration.  

When he showed up, many people shouted at him and called him a jackal. Giulia Blasi, and Italian activist and journalist from Rome, said that Salvini only speaks out against rape when the perpetrators are immigrants.  

She said: “He needs immigrants to fuel his agenda, there’s nothing else there. Everything is based on fear.”

“He needs this episode to make a point about how immigrants are dangerous. But women keep dying every day at the hand of men so the problem here is men violence against women, which Italian men are not at all exempt from”.