A five-year-old video of Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has surfaced on social media, in which she said that Islamic culture and the values and rights of European civilisation have a "compatibility problem".
The video is from 2018 before she became the Prime Minister of Italy. Meloni was heard speaking in Italian in the old video. The video surfaced a day after an event was organised in Rome on Saturday by her right-wing, ultra-conservative Brothers of Italy party. The event was also attended by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
"I believe there is a problem of compatibility between Islamic culture or a certain interpretation of Islamic culture and the rights and values of our civilisation," she is heard saying in the viral video.
"It does not escape my mind that most of the Islamic cultural centres in Italy are financed by Saudi Arabia," she said.
In the video, Meloni also criticised Saudi Arabia's rigid Sharia law under which apostasy and homosexuality are criminal offences. Sharia law, commonly referred to as Islamic law, constitutes a set of principles and regulations rooted in the Quran and the Hadith, representing the foundational religious texts of Islam.
"Sharia means lapidation for adultery and the death penalty for apostasy and homosexuality. I believe that these should be raised, which does not mean generalising on Islam. It means raising the problem that there is a process of Islamisation in Europe that is very distant from the values of our civilisation," she said.
Britain and Italy announced plans on Saturday to jointly co-finance the journey home for migrants stranded in Tunisia, according to statements from both countries, but did not say how much would money was being provided.
"If we do not tackle this problem, the numbers will only grow. It will overwhelm our countries and our capacity to help those who actually need our help the most," Rishi Sunak said.
"Making that deterrent credible will mean doing things differently, breaking from consensus. And both Giorgia and I are prepared to do that."
The two leaders also met Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama to discuss migration.
