The far-left group, Autonomous University Collective (CUA) put up posters at a university event in Bologna this week which bears the caption, “Assassin. Take aim at this,” and shows a picture of Salvini with a target around his head, Il Giornale reported.
The group declared in a Facebook post: “Today, from via Zamboni, the heart of the university area, the cry of hostility and contempt for racism and the supremacist policies put in place by the new interior minister in recent months has risen.”
The group claims that Salvini promoted “policies of hatred, exclusion and white supremacism” because of his anti-immigration stance.
Salvini responded on social media: “In Bologna, the usual spoilt children put the crosshairs on me with the inscription Assassin. What a pain. I think a few months of civilian or military service would do them good, what do you think?”
Virgilio Merola, mayor of Bologna, also slammed the posters, saying: “Bologna does not threaten and does not hate anyone. Who does it is against Bologna. I certainly do not agree with Salvini’s policy, but I do not need to use words of hate.”
Investigators and magistrates have however not yet decided whether or not to press criminal charges.
A week after the Italian coastguard rescued around another 200 migrants, Salvini on Thursday restated his refusal to let them land in Italy and accused other EU members of inaction.
Salvini’s popularity has been growing steadily because he voices the concerns of ordinary Italians that have to face the consequences on immigration. In Pescara, a young Italian woman found dead in the underpass of the Abruzzo city’s rail station on August 30 2017, was raped and murdered by two Romanians.
Cold case investigations revealed the murder, initially marked as a suicide, according to the Il Centro newspaper.
The suicide verdict was reached because the woman suffered from psychiatric problems, sources said at the time.
But an investigative breakthrough has enabled prosecutors to open a probe for homicide, sexual violence and abandoning incapable people, against the two Romanians suspected of the crime.