Italy: Salvini takes digs at counter-protesting Sardines during regional election rally

M/S Bibbiano social service scandal victims where children were erroneously taken into care, Bibbiano
C/U Woman of Bibbiano
C/U Banner against courts
SOT, Chiara Fioretti, Bibbiano social service scandal victims (Italian): "In Italy there are 40,000 sequestered children. Children. Who are being killed by the Italian State."
M/S Lega election banner featuring League party leader Matteo Salvini
SOT, Franco Rebecchi, President of family and life movement (Italian): "We are with all who give us visibility and listen to us. In Italy, the Democratic Party has not wanted to address this issue. They have never made a demonstration or an encounter with families that have problems, whose children were taken away."
W/S Salvini getting on stage with Lega Emilia-Romagna regional election candidate Lucia Borgonzoni
C/S Flags
SOT, Matteo Salvini, League party leader (Italian): "We will do everything humanly possible so that from tomorrow onwards there is justice. And that Bibbiano will be known in the world not for the stolen children but for the beauty of the people who live here."
M/S Supporters
SOT, Matteo Salvini, League party leader (Italian): "In Italy there is a problem. As written on that banner: children are from their mom and dad. And not from the State or bureaucracy."
M/S Media
SOT, Matteo Salvini, League party leader (Italian): "I'm sorry if a few meters away there will be people here making polemics. Because the good of children should unite all women and men of goodwill."
C/S Lega supporter
W/S Lega supporters
C/S Supporter
C/S Sardines
M/S Sardines supporters
M/S Banner (Italian): "Salvini try buzzing at a cammorist's home... if you dare"
SOT, Mattia Santori, Sardines movement founder (Italian): "At a time when we know that populism is strong. We know how much money Salvini has invested. I always said it, the real question is: with all the money he spent, and all the investments of time, money and space he made, the one who is gambling it all Salvini himself."
C/S Free sardines
M/S Sign (Italian): "Bibbiano does not tie itself down/Bibbiano does not turn to 'Lega'"
SOT, Mattia Santori, Sardines movement founder (Italian): "The moment in which a judicial case is instrumentalized for electoral purposes, a community of people is fed to the media machinery we know and it is not right."
W/S Sardines counter protest
C/U Sign: "Fish and Love"
SOT, Francesca, Sardines supporter (Italian): "Salvini has instrumentalized fear and a scandal that absolutely does not apply to the administration but single individuals."
M/S Sardines counter protest
C/S Sardine cut-out
W/S Sardines demo in Bibbiano
SCRIPT
League party leader Matteo Salvini was met by counter protesters as he attended a rally supporting their Emilia-Romagna regional election candidate Lucia Borgonzoni in Bibbiano on Thursday, ahead of Sunday's regional elections.
"We will do everything humanly possible so that from tomorrow onwards there is justice. And that Bibbiano will be known in the world not for the stolen children but for the beauty of the people who live here," Salvini said before telling his supporters he was sorry "if a few meters away there will be people here making polemics. Because the good of children should unite all women and men of goodwill."
Salvini’s comments were in reference to a scandal that emerged in Bibbiano, where some of the commune's social workers would press for children to be taken into state care, even if the situation would have allowed rehabilitation inside the family. The League railed against Bibbiano's ruling party, calling it an administrative scandal.
Supporters of the Sardines political grassroots movement in Bibbiano gathered nearby to protest the League's alleged politicisation of scandal.
"The moment in which a judicial case is instrumentalized for electoral purposes, a community of people is fed to the media machinery we know and it is not right," said Sardines movement founder Mattia Santori.
"Salvini has instrumentalized fear and a scandal that absolutely does not apply to the administration but to single individuals," a Sardine supporter added.
Historically left-leaning Emilia-Romagna region will elect its president on January 26. Recent polling shows current leader Stefano Bonaccini neck and neck with his Liga rival Lucia Borgonzoni.