Brussels (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – MEP Mario Furore presents “The Island of the Arrusi”, a photography exhibition on the confinement of homosexuals in Italy in 1939, at the European Parliament.
Mario Furore, member of the Five Stars Movement and The Left Group of the European Parliament, organized a photography exhibition to raise awareness on homophobia during the fascist regime in Italy. The photos tell the story of 45 men from Catania, Sicily, who in 1939 were taken by the police and confined to San Domino, a remote island in the South of Italy. They were “guilty of being homosexual.”
Attending the event were also Luana Rigolli, photographer and curator of the exhibition; MEP Alessandro Zan; Italian Senator Alessandra Maiorino; Mayor of Tremiti Annalisa Lisci; Italian activist and TV host Vladimir Luxuria; and Alice Rizzi, President of Foggia Arcigay, an Italian association promoting LGBTIQ+ rights.
The photos, arranged in a semicircle, include mugshots of the men taken by the local authorities, police reports, shots of the island and personal items. One of them is the photo of a letter written by a man asking to be let go back to his mother and his brother.
The showing takes place in a vast hall in the EU Parliament area dedicated to Altiero Spinelli, one of the founding fathers of the European Union.
I wanted this spot because a lot of people walk by it everyday, so I hope that all my colleagues, from Vannacci (MEP in the Patriots for Europe group) to all the other ones on the right, will see what people were going through just because they were homosexuals. I did it on purpose.
Homophobia during the Fascist regime
In 1939, 45 homosexual men from Catania, Sicily, were booked, taken from their families, and exiled to San Domino, on the Tremiti Islands. This confinement, called Operation Molina – from Alfonso Molina, the quaestor who made it happen – was justified in the name of “decency and preservation of the race.” His goal was to “intervene with strength to attack and cauterize evil in its outbreaks.”
Between 1936 and 1940, around 300 homosexuals were confined on the Tremiti Islands. This was justified as a “preventive measure to preserve the positive image of the country”. These people – called arrusi, which means “gay” in Sicilian dialect – would get arrested and subjected to intrusive physical examinations to attest their sexual practices. Afterwards, they were taken on these once nearly inhabited islands and forced not to leave.
The story of the 45 men from Catania has already been told by Gianfranco Goretti and Tommaso Giartosio in “The City and the Island,” a book that provides historic background and details about the confinement procedure. However, photographer Luana Rigolli wanted to take it a step further.
I found these pictures at the Central Archive in Rome, where all their biographical files are kept,
Rigolli told Brussels Morning Newspaper.
When I opened the first one I got emotional, I ran to the bathroom and cried. It is so impactful to see their faces and not just hear or read their story. It makes you realize they were real people.
How is the European Union doing on LGBTIQ+ rights?
MEP Furore voiced concerns to Brussels Morning Newspaper of a European Commission that is now too right-wing oriented. This is an obstacle to progress towards inclusive policies, he explained. What he advocates for is uniformity on the normative level, so that every member of the LGBTIQ+ community has the same rights in every member state of the Union.
Data shows that, for the time being, discrimination and harassment still persist across the EU, especially in the workplace, education and healthcare. Moreover, not every country recognizes the same rights to LGBTIQ+ people, which sometimes makes it complicated for them to relocate or travel within the European Union.
If I could talk face-to-face to one of these men now,
Furore said to Brussels Morning Newspaper,
I would tell him that he was unfortunately born in the wrong period of history, but it is for people like him that we are fighting today, so that what happened to him won’t happen ever again.
