Milan, fascist chants and offenses against Jews on Zoom: 8 searched

Fascist choirs and offenses against Jews on Zoom, 8 boys searched in Milan. This morning, the state police, at the end of an investigative activity coordinated by the head of the district anti-terrorism section of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Alberto Nobili and by the prosecutor Francesco Cajani, carried out 8 delegated search decrees against as many persons under investigation for unauthorized access to a computer system, private violence, propaganda and incitement to crime on the grounds of racial, ethnic or religious discrimination. The searches, coordinated by the Digos of the Milan Police Headquarters and by the central police prevention department of the state police, were carried out by the police of the Digos of Bari, Bologna, Brescia, Palermo, Rome, Turin, Trapani and Treviso. The investigation is inspired by a double unauthorized access to the Zoom platform: the first episode occurred on the evening of January 26th, when, on the occasion of the Day of Remembrance, the Italy-Israel Association of Venice organized a public conference in live streaming, entitled ‘Avoiding the Meaning of the Shoah: Collective Memory and Social Rationality. The Holocaust as an expression of the internal logic of Western modernity? ‘. Right from the start the conference was disturbed by an intrusion of voices from several people, phrases praising the Duce, offenses against the Jews and blasphemies, accompanied by typical music of the Fascist period. The second intrusion took place on the morning of 4 February last, always on the occasion of the commemorations for the Day of Remembrance, when the Municipality of Cinisello Balsamo (Mi) organized, edited by prof. Raffaele Mantegazza, three educational meetings entitled ‘The backpack of memory’, aimed at middle and high school students called to participate in the event via streaming. At the third meeting, during the videoconference various voices intervened with phrases praising the Duce and Hitler, insults against the Jews and blasphemies. The investigative activity, focused on the analysis of the log files associated with the accounts of the Zoom platform from which the audio and video incursions had started, at first made it possible to locate the devices. The searches led the state police to identify, within different families, the users of the electronic devices subjected to seizure: they are a 21-year-old and seven minors who interacted in a chat on Telegram called ‘zoommannari’, at the time. it is no longer active and already the source of other similar episodes investigated by the State Police, in which the hacking and cyberbullying actions carried out were launched and shared. Almost all the young people involved, who do not belong to politically oriented groups, admitted to having made a goliardic gesture, minimizing the consequences of their action.