Terror at the Berlin Gay Pride, where last night a van entered the city's Tiergarten park and plowed into the crowd, killing a woman and injuring 16 people, three of whom are in critical condition. As the manhunt for the attacker continues — a 21-year-old who was released from a young offenders institution in May, known to the authorities and linked, according to investigators, to "Islamist circles" — Italy is expressing solidarity with Germany. And, as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni writes on X, Italy "condemns and strongly opposes any form of hatred and extremism, working at every level to defend the freedom and security of our citizens. A heartfelt thought goes out to the victim's family, and we wish a swift recovery to the many injured. We stand alongside Germany and the German people."
On behalf of the government, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani also spoke out, expressing his closeness to his German counterpart Johann Wadephul "over the serious attack" and "to the victims and their families. A united Europe stands against the shadow of terrorism, against those who through hatred and violence seek to strike at the freedom of citizens," the Forza Italia deputy prime minister also wrote on social media. For the other deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, "Islamic fanaticism is the problem, in Italy and in Europe. Stop all concessions of spaces to Islamic organisations until there is a written agreement with the Italian State, as has long been the case for many other religious denominations."
Solidarity also came from center-left figures. Among them, MEP and head of Rights in the PD secretariat Alessandro Zan: "What happened in Berlin is a tragedy that wounds all of Europe and demands a clear response against every form of hatred. It is not just a criminal act, but an attack on the fundamental rights of everyone. Chancellor Merz called it an attack on all of society. If he truly believes that, words must be followed by actions: Bundestag President Julia Klöckner should immediately raise the rainbow flag over the German parliament, after having refused to display it on May 17th, the International Day Against Homolesbobiphobia and Transphobia," Zan observed. "Merz himself, on the very issue of the rainbow flag, had defended the decision not to fly it for Christopher Street Day, going so far as to say the Bundestag 'is not a circus tent.' Today, in the face of those who sow hatred and violence, unequivocal gestures are needed. The rainbow flag is not a provocation, but a symbol of rights, freedom and democracy that have been attacked. Flying it over the Bundestag would be the clearest way to say that Germany will not bow to hatred."
Italia Viva senator Ivan Scalfarotto, the party's foreign affairs spokesperson, expressed his thoughts "to the people who were struck down, to the free city of Berlin, to the LGBTQ+ community: a van driven into a crowd celebrating freedom and pride in the heart of secular, democratic Europe. We are left with the task of vigilantly upholding, without compromise, the secular nature of our democracies and of always resisting the sirens of religious fanaticism, even when it disguises its fierce intolerance behind the language of rights, the grammar of the oppressed, or a just cause. Investigators are searching for a young man they believe is linked to radical Islamist circles," he added, "the kind for whom sexual freedom, equality between women and men and religious freedom constitute sin and therefore, in the confusion they profess between religion and politics, between holy scriptures and penal codes, constitute crime."
