Italy's First Black Minister Hails 'Historic' Fine for MEP Over Racist Slur

Italy's former Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge, who was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has hailed as "historic" the US$55,690 fine handed down to Mario Borghezio, an MEP who sits on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs his latest racist outburst.

In an interview with Radio 24, he referred to Cecile Kyenge saying: "Africans are Africans and belong to a very ethnicity different from ours." He also said that Kyenge — who trained as an ophthalmologist in Italy — "took away a job from an Italian doctor."

@ckyenge Congrats with achievement, madam. Go Ahead! Cheers.

— Tirzah Libert (@tirzahlib) May 19, 2017​

A Milan court handed down the fine to Borghezio — who was also minister for integration in Italy — as a result the latest of a series of controversial remarks, for which he has gained a reputation. In July 2005, he was found guilty of arson for setting fire to a migrant camp beneath a bridge in Turin. In 2007, he was detained by police in Belgium for taking part in a demonstration on the Islamization of Europe.

He was rebuked for calling Radko Mladic — the Serbian military leader indicted for war crimes at The Hague, including the genocide of 8000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica — a "patriot." 

"The Serbs could have halted the advance of Islam into Europe, but they weren't allowed to do so," he said.

In July 2011, he was suspended by his Northern League Party for praising ideas in the manifesto of Anders Breivik, the Norwegian far-right terrorist who, in 2011, killed eight people by detonating a van bomb in Oslo before shooting dead 69 participants of a Workers' Youth League summer camp on the island of Utoya.

"Gaddafi was a great leader, a true revolutionary who should not be confused with the new Libyan leadership swept into power by NATO's bayonets and by oil multinationals," he said following the death of the Libyan revolutionary.