Venue cancels fascist book event after protests

ROME – A restaurant owner in northern Italy has cancelled an event that would have brought together the great-grandson of Italy’s long-time fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and a neo-Nazi group under special observation by authorities, following protests.

Mauro Rosa, owner of the restaurant Rosa, near Padua, said he cancelled the presentation of a new release of the 1932 “Doctrine of Fascism,” co-authored by Mussolini, after receiving “many insults online.” He said staff booked the event without being aware of its nature.

The Italian dictator’s great-grandson, Caio Giulio Cesare Mussolini, a European election candidate for the far-right Brothers of Italy, was invited to attend, along with a leader of the Veneto Fronte Skinheads, an extreme right group that is under special observation by authorities after storming a migrant association’s venue in 2017.