Vandalized Memorial Stone of Resistance Martyrs at Forte Bravetta

A memorial stone commemorating the Liberation in the Forte Bravetta district, in Rome, has been defaced. During the night, a phrase was painted in red: "Partisan rapist murderer" on the stone. The news is reported by Elio Tomassetti, president of the Rome XII Municipality, and Daniela Cirulli, president of the ANPI XII. "This is how our April 25 begins," they state, "Fascists, after all, never change. This act demonstrates the relevance of the anti-fascist struggle today and one more reason to be numerous in the places where we will lay our wreaths in memory of the Resistance martyrs, and to be at Forte Bravetta from 12:30 until the evening. We thank the Rome Police Headquarters and the Rome Capital Decency Service, which are already working to cover this disgrace." "The defacement of the stone for April 25 at Forte Bravetta shows how important it is still today to testify to the centrality of the values of freedom and anti-fascism," said Rome's mayor Roberto Gualtieri in a statement. "We will never forget the many Italians - he adds - who sacrificed themselves to restore dignity to a country that had been humiliated by dictatorship. Of course, the specialized AMA teams are already on site to restore the dignity of the stone." Forte Bravetta is one of the many military forts that surround Rome: inside it, death sentences were carried out in the city of Rome from 1932 until 1945. The condemned were imprisoned, before being taken to the fort, in the Roman prison of Regina Coeli, and then all shot in the back as traitors, as required by the fascist penal code. The sentences considered are a total of one hundred and thirty, of which fifty were executed until September 8, 1943, on sentences of the Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State; seventy during the nine months of German occupation, on order of the German authorities and ten after the Liberation, on sentences of Italian and Anglo-American courts.