“Christians attacked: ‘Muslims consider us inferior.’ And it is a controversy,” translated from “Cristiani aggrediti: “I musulmani ci considerano inferiori”. Ed è polemica,” by Alessandra Benignetti, Il Giornale, April 22, 2022:
The controversy breaks out on the case of the Copts attacked in Turin. The deputy of the Brothers of Italy, Augusta Montaruli, asks Lamorgese to report to Parliament. The League thunders: “The suburbs are in the hands of extremists.”
Sherif and Nabil Azer, the two Coptic brothers who were kicked and punched last Monday because they smoked and wore crosses during Ramadan, are not the only ones to have been scolded for not respecting Islamic law in Barriera di Milano, a multi-ethnic district of Turin. “Last week at Porta Palazzo, a dear friend of mine was cursed because he was drinking water in the street,” reveals one of the victims of the group of radical Muslims to Il Giornale. “They shouted ‘Ramadan, haram,’ to remind him that he must not drink water during the day in the fasting month.” Even his brother Nabil, a few days ago, came under fire again for the same reason.
“A boy, perhaps Tunisian, outside the same bar, told him that Islamic law prohibits smoking during Ramadan and this time he had to lower his head and adapt to avoid problems. I assure you,” Sherif goes on, “that if tomorrow I went out to eat a sandwich in that same area, I wouldn’t go out alive.”
The reason, the Egyptian-born entrepreneur explains to us over the phone, is simple: “They want to apply Sharia law to us because they consider us inferior and want to dominate us.” In recent days, Sherif reported everything to the carabinieri. The investigations aim to identify the perpetrators of the attack, also thanks to the security cameras installed in the area.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian, who had been transplanted to Italy for over forty years and known among his compatriots for his commitment against extremism, was overwhelmed by messages of solidarity: “There are several lawyers who have volunteered to defend us in a possible process and many people who made us feel their closeness.”
Piedmont’s councilor for social policies, Maurizio Marrone, announced that he would meet Sherif and his brother in the area. “The episode that saw Sherif and Nabil Azer as protagonists is worrying because it gives us the pulse of how our cities are becoming free territories for Islamic fundamentalists who have no intention of integrating,” commented the politician, an exponent of Fratelli d’Italy.
“This is not the first episode of its kind and it is not permissible that religious freedom is not respected in Italy,” the League’s deputies Alessandro Benvenuto and Elena Maccanti, both originally from Turin, also declare. Isabella Tovaglieri, MEP of the same party, speaks of “unacceptable aggression.”
What happened in the Piedmontese capital, she denounces, “cannot and must not leave us indifferent,” and is “the umpteenth result of myopic and unsuccessful immigration policies without limits so dear to the EU”. “While Brussels finances questionable campaigns to promote the veil,” he states, “our suburbs are increasingly in the hands of extremists and fundamentalists.”