As if once wasn’t enough…

Last week, Italy’s La Repubblica reported that the anti-immigrant Northern League (Lega Nord) had developed an online game called ‘Bounce the Illegal Immigrant.’ The game, which had boatloads of immigrants approaching a map of Italy, required the player to click on the individual boats and make them ‘bounce away’ from Italy’s coast. The winner is the person who manages to click on the most boats and one’s results can be then shared on the Northern League’s Facebook page.

La Repubblica’s article caused a stir in Italy especially since it followed the tragic news that out of a group of 80 illegal migrants who had set out for Italy by boat only 5 had survived.

Now, Il Cannocchiale writes that the Northern League has managed to out-do itself by posting another insensitive message on the Facebook page of a local chapter: “Torture Illegal Immigrants! It’s self-defense!”

The message appears on the Facebook page of Lega Nord’s chapter in Mirano, a small municipality near Venice and was posted in April. But instead of immediately attracting criticisms, the page boasts numerous high-level ‘group members’ such as Roberto Cota, the Northern League’s leader in Italy’s House of Representatives and Renzo Bossi, the son of Northern League founder Umberto Bossi and the creator of the ‘Bounce the Illegal Immigrant’ game.

Posted by our contributor Alessandro Passanti and Andrew Z. Giacalone

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