Opposition call on Meloni to condemn incident.
Footage of two Italian journalists being threatened by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis has sparked controversy in Italy.
Laura Cappon and Daniele Babbo, two correspondents in the US city for Italian state broadcaster RAI, were reporting for the television programme In Mezz’Ora when their car was surrounded by ICE agents.
The footage, aired on Sunday, shows the car being stopped by the federal agents as the driver refuses their demands to roll down her window, as Cappon states that they are Italian press.
“I’m not doing anything wrong, I’m just driving around my community”, the driver says, before an ICE agent warns: “We are going to break out your window and extract you from the vehicle”.
“This is the only warning” – another ICE agent continued – “If you keep following us…we will break your window and we will pull you out of the vehicle”.
Political backlash in Italy
The footage sparked an immediate political controversy in Italy, with the centre-left opposition unanimously calling on the right-wing government of premier Giorgia Meloni to protest to the US over the incident which occurred after the protester Alex Pretti was shot dead by ICE agents.
“After the violence and street killings of these past few days, now ICE agents in the United States have also threatened Italian public service journalists who were simply doing their jobs” – Giuseppe Conte, former premier and leader of the Movimento 5 Stelle, wrote on X – “We express our full solidarity with them. We cannot accept this. Prime Minister Meloni and the entire Government must take a stand and make the voice of our country heard.”
Conte’s comments were echoed by Matteo Renzi, former Italian premier and leader of Italia Viva, who said the threats made by ICE to Italian journalists, “who deserve our solidarity, are unacceptable and must be forcefully rejected”, demanding “an immediate stance” from Meloni and foreign minister Antonio Tajani.
Peppe Provenzano, the Partito Democratico (PD) spokesperson for foreign affairs, called on the Meloni government, “if it has any national pride, to formally protest and distance itself once and for all. And to clarify how it intends to protect our fellow citizens who live and work in the places where ICE is operating from this climate of intimidation and violence.”
Green Party leader Angelo Bonelli also called on Meloni to condemn the incident, which he described as “mafia-like intimidation of the press in the heart of the United States”. Accusing Meloni of “political subservience” to US president Donald Trump, Bonelli said: “Freedom of the press and the dignity of Italy come before any ideological alliance.”
The political furore came the same weekend that a controversy broke out in Italy over the alleged presence of ICE agents at the Milan Cortina Olympics, claims that Italian interior minister Matteo Piantedosi dismissed.
