Mario Borghezio (; born 3 December 1947) is an Italian politician who represented

Lega Nord Lega Nord (LN; ), whose complete name is (), is a right-wing politics, right-wing, federalism, federalist, populism, populist and conservatism, conservative list of political parties in Italy, political party in Italy. In the run-up to the 201 ...

in the

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from 1992 to 2001, and as a

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

from 2001 to 2019.

Early political activities

Borghezio was born in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

. A former member of the Jeune Europe movement founded by Jean Thiriart, he was also a member of Ordine Nuovo in the 1970s. In the mid 1980s, Borghezio was a member of the group around the ''Orion'' magazine, a meeting point of Piemontese neofascists, and he served as director of the economic supplement, ''Orion-Finanza''. A proponent of antisemitic conspiracy theories at the time, Borghezio later went on to join the "autonomist" movement at the suggestion of Maurizio Murelli, the founder of the journal and close acquaintance of Borghezio. He has also regularly taken part in rallies and congresses of the neo-fascist New Force.

Convictions and issues

Borghezio was sentenced to pay a fine of the equivalent of 450 € for violence on a minor in 1993. He forcefully held and turned over to the police a 12-year-old Moroccan unregistered street seller. He was found guilty of

arson Arson is the act of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, watercr ...

in July 2005, for setting fire to the pallets of some migrants sleeping under a

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

in Turin during a vigilante raid. For this he was sentenced to two months and twenty days in prison, converted into a fine of

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by t ...

3,040. On 17 December 2005, Borghezio was injured by No Tav activists, who recognised him on a train from

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

. Because of the encounter, he had to undergo an operation for a fractured

nasal septum The nasal septum () separates the left and right airways of the Human nose, nasal cavity, dividing the two nostrils. It is Depression (kinesiology), depressed by the depressor septi nasi muscle. Structure The fleshy external end of the nasal s ...

. That morning, he had participated in a counter-protest against the No Tav movement in the Susa Valley. Borghezio was arrested by Belgian police on 11 September 2007 for participating in a protest against the Islamisation of Europe. On 9 June 2011, he was arrested by Swiss policemen after attempting to join the 2011 annual Bilderberg conference at St. Moritz (

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

). He was banished from the Canton of Graubünden for the duration of the meeting. The Italian embassy in Berne lodged a diplomatic protest. He was suspended for three months on 30 July 2011 by his party for praising several of the ideas in the manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik, the terrorist who perpetrated the

2011 Norway attacks The 2011 Norway attacks, also called 22 July () or 22/7 in Norway, were two domestic terrorism, domestic terrorist attacks by far-right politics, far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik against the politics of Norway, government, the civil ...

. In June 2013, he was expelled from the Europe of Freedom and Democracy, a eurosceptic group in the European Parliament, for making racist remarks regarding Italy's first black cabinet minister, Cécile Kyenge. He was fined 1000 euros in May 2017 by the Milan Tribunal for racist and defamatory remarks made against Kyenge during a call-in radio show. He was also ordered to pay her an indemnity of 50'000 euros.

Views and activities

Borghezio participated in an Anti-Islamisation Congress arranged by the Pro Cologne Citizens' Movement in Cologne, Germany in opposition against a mosque in 2008. In August 2010, he called for the European Union to have its own, centralised, X-Files where anyone would be able to access information on UFOs, even records held by the military. Borghezio argued that governments should go public with the information they hold and stop what he believes is a “systematic cover-up”. Not satisfied with a central archive, Borghezio also wants a scientific centre to research UFOs, because he feels that such study would have “major scientific and technological spin-offs”. “I think that, under the principle of transparency, the EU member states have a duty to make public and available to all scientific data on UFOs which today are partially or wholly withheld”. He participated in and held a speech at an international

counter-jihad Counter-jihad (also known as the counter-jihad movement) is a self-titled Islamophobia, anti-Muslim political movement loosely consisting of authors, bloggers, think tanks, demonstrators, and other activists across the Western world. Proponents are ...

conference in Paris in December 2010. In May 2011, he made inflammatory remarks after the arrest of Ratko Mladić, the Serbian military leader indicted for

war crime A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...

s at

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, including the

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

of 8000 Muslim men and boys at

Srebrenica Srebrenica ( sr-cyrl, Сребреница, ) is a town and municipality in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a small mountain town, with its main industry being salt mining and a nearby spa. During the Bosnian War in 1995, Srebr ...

. Borghezio was quoted as saying that "Mladić is a Patriot" and "The Serbs could have halted the advance of Islam into Europe, but they weren't allowed to do so." In August 2019, Borghezio was reported to have asked the Italian government to sell Sicily, Sardinia and Naples to foreign countries.

Quotes

In an interview published on 7 February 2006 on ''Corriere Della Sera'', Borghezio said: "''When I'm on stage at a political rally, I become a different person. I say whatever comes out of my gut. It's exciting. No, it's more than exciting: it's like having an orgasm''". "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", Reaction to the death of

Muammar Gaddafi Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (20 October 2011) was a Libyan military officer, revolutionary, politician and political theorist who ruled Libya from 1969 until Killing of Muammar Gaddafi, his assassination by Libyan Anti-Gaddafi ...

. In October 2012 Borghezio cosponsored with fellow MEP

Lorenzo Fontana Lorenzo Fontana (born 10 April 1980) is an Italian politician and member of the Lega (political party), League (Lega), who is serving as President of the Chamber of Deputies (Italy), President of the Chamber of Deputies since 2022 President of t ...

a motion for a declaration by the EU Parliament calling upon

Pope Benedict XVI Pope BenedictXVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as p ...

to carry out the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Electoral history

Notes

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Borghezio, Mario 1947 births Living people Politicians from Turin Turin communal councillors Deputies of Legislature XI of Italy Deputies of Legislature XII of Italy Deputies of Legislature XIII of Italy Counter-jihad activists Italian critics of Islam Italian neo-fascist politicians Italian politicians convicted of crimes People convicted of arson Lega Nord MEPs MEPs for Italy 1999–2004 MEPs for Italy 2004–2009 MEPs for Italy 2009–2014 MEPs for Italy 2014–2019