Protests and questions over killing of Senegal migrant Idy Diene

Rome, Italy – As Italians wakened to election results on Monday, fifty four-year-extinct Idy Diene left his home in the city of Pontedera and headed into Florence.

The fifty four-year-extinct migrated to Italy from Senegal twenty years prior to now, and eked out a living by selling equipment to passersby and tourists.

Diene became selling his merchandise on the metropolis’s Vespucci bridge when he became shot six times by Roberto Pirrone, a Sixty 5-year-extinct, unemployed, white Italian citizen who later told police he had supposed to commit suicide.

When he found himself unable to shoot himself, he talked about he fired on a random target. He became unpleasant and wanted to utter the comfort of his existence in prison, investigators told native media. 

Police enjoy ruled out a racist motive for the killing, however the Senegalese and Muslim communities are no longer happy. They are saying the most up-to-date election stoked anti-migrant sentiment and maintain Diene will had been centered because he became dusky.

His death has reopened extinct wounds.

In December 2011, Gianluca Casseri, an author linked to a a ways-correct neighborhood, killed his cousin, Samb Modou, and one other Senegalese citizen on the market where they worked.

In the years since, Diene took care of Modou’s daughter and his widow, Rokhaya Mbengue. Diene and Mbengue later married.

She has now been widowed twice.

« No ties enjoy emerged with political groups, for certain no longer correct-cruise or racist. [Pirrone] became a firearm collector, and we found some memorabilia from the outdated Soviet Union at his home, » Giuseppe Creazzo, Florence’s chief prosecutor, told reporters.

This man left the house to commit suicide, and ended up killing a dusky man as an different.

Mamadou Sall, member of Senegalese association in Florence

After a rally calling for justice on Monday, Dario Nardella, the metropolis’s mayor, tweeted, « The danger the Senegalese community is going by is understandable. »

Some angry demonstrators had kicked over garbage boxes in the metropolis centre. 

« Whoever makes employ of violence, wherever they are from, could perhaps unruffled face justice, » the mayor talked about.

« We condemn this behaviour, » talked about Mamadou Sall, a member of the Senegalese association in Florence which had invited the mayor, referring to the boxes being knocked down. 

« On the opposite hand, we cannot maintain that one other, fellow Senegalese became killed, randomly. On every occasion by a loopy man. We are drained. After we scurry away home, we acquire no longer know if we’ll get back. Security could perhaps unruffled be for all people, including foreign voters, » he told Al Jazeera.

« Or no longer it is no longer the first time, and this makes us pause and maintain. Is it staunch that they are loopy, or is there racism in the back of it? [Diene] became shot by six bullets, no longer a flying one.

« Now we enjoy seen an electoral advertising and marketing and marketing campaign primarily based on hatred, racism and verbal violence; now we enjoy seen the action. Right here is one among the causes folks are angry. This man left the house to commit suicide, and ended up killing a dusky man as an different. »

Election advertising and marketing and marketing campaign marred by racism

Izzeddin Elzir, the imam on the mosque Idy extinct to abet in Florence, and leader of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy (UCOII), known as for politicians to utter care in their advertising and marketing and marketing campaign rhetoric.

« What we know for particular is that there had been several folks on the bridge, but [Pirrone] killed a dusky man, » Elzir, who is before the entirety from Hebron in the West Bank, told Al Jazeera.

« Ours is an originate-minded metropolis, there is a dialogue. Italy is no longer a racist nation. But, sadly, prior to now two months of electoral campaigning, the political native weather has been unhealthy, against [migrants], against whoever is diversified. When politicians acquire no longer employ words responsibly, we know that words is at probability of be worse than bullets. »

One month prior to now, a ways-correct gunman Luca Traini attacked a neighborhood of African migrants in a pressure-by taking pictures in the central town of Macerata, wounding six. On the time of his arrest, he became draped in an Italian flag and greeted officers with a straight-armed fascist salute.

Traini had links to self-described neo-fascist groups and had accelerate in a native election as a candidate for the becoming-cruise League event, which is headed by a ways-correct politician Matteo Salvini, getting no votes.

Italian nationalist Luca Traini confessed to taking pictures African migrants from a automobile [File: EPA]

‘We rob into yarn this our nation now’

Amnesty Global, which monitored despise speech actual by the advertising and marketing and marketing campaign, talked about migrants had been the tip target, and named Salvini – who has beforehand claimed that Islam is « incompatible » with Italian values – as the principle wrongdoer.

Diene’s killing came amid repeated attacks on an Islamic cultural centre in Padova between March four and 5.

Police apprehended the suspect, a 57-year-extinct native, whom media talked about had no links to political groups.

His motive, reviews talked about, became an argument with one among the community participants.

« [The suspect] says or no longer it is an act of revenge, that he had an argument with a neighbour, » talked about Ahmed Raudi, head of the « La Saggezza » (Wisdom) cultural association. « But I in actuality enjoy chums living in that space, and no one appears to be like to enjoy had a earn 22 situation with him. »

Raudi told Al Jazeera that one and throughout the 2015 regional elections, any individual had tried to interrupt the centre’s windows.

He outlined, nevertheless, that nearly all of folks « understand we’re nicely constructed-in and that we’re no longer removed from Italians by manner of mindset.

« I in actuality had been right here for twenty years, my children grew up right here and I in actuality enjoy many chums esteem that. We rob into yarn this our nation now. »

The Nationwide Place of work Against Racial Discrimination (UNAR, a authorities body) recorded 2,652 discrimination incidents in 2016, sixty 9 p.c of which had been ethnically or racially-motivated.

A nationwide anti-racism demonstration has been announced for March 10 in Florence.