Giorgia Meloni is the leader of the anti-immigration party Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) and a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. The following video contains excerpts from an impassioned rant recorded in Ms. Meloni’s car (which I hope has right-hand drive). She is discussing the Alex, a migrant-ferry vessel owned by the Italian NGO “Mediterranea Saving Humans”. Back in May one of its ships was impounded by the government when it landed illegally at Lampedusa. It launched the Alex with the express intention of running the blockade again, in defiance of Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.

Many thanks to FouseSquawk for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Below are excerpts from two Breitbart articles about the Alex. The first article:

Italian NGO Defies Salvini, Launches New Migrant Transport Vessel Italian migrant transport NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans has launched a new vessel into the Mediterranean following the confiscation of their other ship. The new ship, the Alex, set sail this week to the area off the coast of Libya known as the SAR (search and rescue) zone with the head of the group declaring that the vessel will pick up illegal immigrants and take them to Italian ports, Il Giornale reports.

Article #2:

Salvini to Amend Law to Confiscate Ships From Migrant Transport NGOs Populist Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini is said to be reworking the security and migration decree to allow the government to confiscate ships flying under the Italian flag. The new proposal comes as Italian migrant transport NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans announced it would be putting another vessel to sea following the confiscation of the Mare Jonio in May.

Video transcript

Note: The clip above was composited from selected excerpts taken from the original. The times shown below reflect those in the original video:

01:31 Today the scandal of scandals is that the entrance into Italy 01:38 violating Italian laws, 01:41 forcing their way through the Italian block, 01:45 trying to go over the Italian patrol boats, 01:50 a boat, with illegal immigrants on board, 01:55 in which the captain at the helm is a parliamentarian of the Italian republic. 04:16 And I want to tell him that we have really 04:20 Crossed the threshold of that which we can tolerate, 04:23 and if we allow this, that the parliamentarians, who are those who are supposed to 04:27 write the laws, that these are the first who should believe 04:31 in the value of the laws that are written by the Italian parliament, are the first 04:35 who today are violating them, I tell you that Italy is finished, 04:39 democracy is finished, the nations of rights is finished, 04:43 our sovereignty is finished, our liberty is finished. Everything is finished. 06:17 The Germans and French who come to us with morale [unintelligible] 06:22 The Germans, the Germans, who sedate the illegal immigrants, they sedate them, put them to sleep, 06:30 to put them on charter flights to send them back to us when they cross the borders, 06:34 they are going to lecture us on morality? 08:27 The only way is to stop the ships from leaving with a naval blockade along the coast of Libya… 09:56 Second, the NGO ships that violate Italian borders, Yes, sink them. 10:04 [They should be] seized and demolished… 10:38 Third, We need to activate guarded centers in Italy… 10:49 What are guarded centers? Guarded centers means: 10:53 when an illegal immigrant arrives here, they don’t go wandering around 10:58 maintained by money from friends’ associations, by comrades who make 11:02 themselves the grand saviors of the nation. 11:07 No. These immigrants should be detained in guarded centers, 11:11 which means they cannot leave for up to 18 months, 11:18 and in those 18 months, they are evaluated — whether they have the right to stay in Italy — 11:22 almost… never, or if they should be repatriated — almost always.



Hat tip for the articles: Reader from Chicago.