EU equality official slams extreme-right violence in Italy

ROME (AP) — The European Union’s equality commissioner has called for a united, swift response to rising extreme-right violence. Helena Dalli on Wednesday addressed a plenary session of the European Parliament about right-wing extremism and racism in Europe that was prompted by an assault earlier this month by neo-fascist sympathizers on a union headquarters in Rome. Dalli said “hatred, violence and intolerance” are no longer hiding in the “dark corners” of the internet but are erupting ever more in the mainstream. In the debate that followed, some parliamentarians lamented that extreme-left violence isn’t eliciting the same concern. Others called for the strongest condemnation of manifestations of anti-Semitism, xenophobia and nationalism in Europe.