(ANSA) – ROME, SEP 18 – A rightwing councillor in the northern Alto Adige (South Tyrol) region has filed a formal complaint against rapper Fedez after the singer-songwriter said local hero and tennis starJannik Sinner spoke with Adolf Hitler’s accent.
Bolzano city councilor Giuseppe Martucci, a member of Premier Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, filed his complaint with the Bolzano Prosecutor’s Office following the Fedez comment “deemed seriously offensive toward South Tyrolean athlete Jannik Sinner,” local sources said.
The complaint is based on Article 604-bis of the Criminal Code, which punishes propaganda and incitement to racial hatred.
At the heart of the complaint is a passage from a publicly released song that states: “Italians have a new idol, his name is Jannik Sinner. Pure Italian blood with the accent of Adolf Hitler.” According to Martucci, the expression contains two particularly serious elements: the reference to “pure Italian blood,” which explicitly recalls the racial purity promoted by Nazism and enshrined in the racial laws of 1938, and the comparison of Sinner—an Italian citizen from South Tyrol—to Adolf Hitler’s accent, a comparison deemed completely unacceptable.
“I felt it was my duty to act to protect the founding values ;;of our Constitution. We cannot allow language that evokes racism and hatred to be normalized by public figures,” Martucci stated.
Four-time slam winner Sinner, 24, who recently lost in the US Open final to new world number one and six-time major winner Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, after beating him at Wimbledon, comes from a town in the German-speaking Alto Adige region and his first language is German, though he speaks Italian perfectly fluently and without any trace of a German accent. (ANSA).
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Bolzano city councilor Giuseppe Martucci, a member of Premier Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, filed his complaint with the Bolzano Prosecutor’s Office following the Fedez comment “deemed seriously offensive toward South Tyrolean athlete Jannik Sinner,” local sources said.
The complaint is based on Article 604-bis of the Criminal Code, which punishes propaganda and incitement to racial hatred.
At the heart of the complaint is a passage from a publicly released song that states: “Italians have a new idol, his name is Jannik Sinner. Pure Italian blood with the accent of Adolf Hitler.” According to Martucci, the expression contains two particularly serious elements: the reference to “pure Italian blood,” which explicitly recalls the racial purity promoted by Nazism and enshrined in the racial laws of 1938, and the comparison of Sinner—an Italian citizen from South Tyrol—to Adolf Hitler’s accent, a comparison deemed completely unacceptable.
“I felt it was my duty to act to protect the founding values ;;of our Constitution. We cannot allow language that evokes racism and hatred to be normalized by public figures,” Martucci stated.
Four-time slam winner Sinner, 24, who recently lost in the US Open final to new world number one and six-time major winner Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, after beating him at Wimbledon, comes from a town in the German-speaking Alto Adige region and his first language is German, though he speaks Italian perfectly fluently and without any trace of a German accent. (ANSA).
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