Activist lawyer who defended Rackete rising star of Italian Democratic Party

After the painful reconfirmation of Democratic Party member Bonaccini as President of Emilia-Romagna, the next challenge in the Italian region will be the election of the mayor of Bologna, in the “progressive” fort par excellence.

The left is already discussing who to advance in 2021. And Cathy La Torre, a lawyer and well-known LGBT activist, has been proposed as one of the strong candidates. But above all, she is the lawyer of the “captain” Carola Rackete.  Rackete works for the German sea rescue organisation Sea-Watch. In June of 2019, she was arrested for docking a migrant rescue ship without authorization in the port of Lampedusa, Italy.

Born in Trapani in 1980, La Torre was already a municipal councilor in Bologna from 2011 to 2016. She is also the founder of Gaylex.it, and started a campaign against social offenses called “Hating will cost you”.

The LGBT lawyer has often verbally sparred with League leader Matteo Salvini, especially when she was criticized for wearing a shirt mocking the police with the words “Frociaria di Stato”.

La Torre was photographed at the Gay Pride in Rome with the very provocative shirt. On the back was an invitation to Salvini: “Put this on Matteo”. Too bad, however, that the rebel, lawyer and LGBT rights activist forgot to mention that she also works for the government as she had boasted before of being Senior Consultant at the Prime Minister’s Office in the Equal Opportunities Department on Linkedin, revealed ilgiornale.it.

The Autonomous Police Union decided to report the incident to the chief of the Police Franco Gabrielli.

For Stefano Paoloni, secretary general of SAP, what happened in Rome was “an affront and indecency against the good name of the public security administration”, because that shirt was been a “clear and unequivocal reference to the Police of state aimed at delegitimizing and deriding the work of men and women in uniform”.

“She boasts of being a consultant to the Prime Minister, but she mocks an institution of the State such as the Police with an offensive shirt”, said Erika Seta, Municipal Councilor in Casalecchio di Reno where La Torre is “responsible for data protection”. Galeazzo Bignami, MP of Forza Italia, also criticized her: “What surprises me is that no one in the Prime Minister’s office detects the interruption of a fiduciary relationship that should be the basis of these positions”.

In August 2018 La Torre, together with others, filed a complaint against Minister Salvini on the landing of a migrant rescue ship in Catania.

During the summer clash last year between Interior Ministry and non-governmental organizations, La Torre received a mandate from the Sea Watch to act on behalf of Rackete, who had ignored the blockade imposed by the then League minister and who was arrested for this.

Even if the candidacy of the lawyer has not yet been confirmed, she has already embraced the idea: “I’m thinking about it. It’s my dream”.

The race will actually be complicated. The favorite to date is Matteo Lepore, Piddino councilor. But La Torre can take advantage of several factors to her advantage: the first, the proximity to the LGBT world which in Bologna counts for a lot; then there is the national visibility, also gained with other lawsuits filed against Salvini; finally, she defended many sardines, another possible catalyst of preferences in the city where the fishy movement was born.

“I know Bologna and I don’t want my figure to be tied to my battles against Salvini, but to those I do for people’s rights,” she told the media.

Yet her exposure is directly linked to the League and while much in the end will depend on the choices of the Democratic Party, La Torre hopes that the left will be able to get out “outside the mainstream and political parties”.

But it is not obvious. The trail to follow would be the one that leads to Elly Schlein. La Torre noted about Soros operative Schlein: “We have been friends for a lifetime.”

“There is a new protagonist of outsider figures,” says La Torre who has even evoked the primaries. “I think that should be done,” she reasons. Carola’s lawyer has clearly been dreaming of Palazzo d’Accursio.