Over the past few years, the World Congress of Families, whose mission is to "defend the natural family," was held in former Soviet states. This weekend, the conference's 13th edition found a home in Verona, endorsed by the regional authority and Italy's deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, the leader of the anti-immigrant and xenophobic League party.
While Verona might be best known as the setting of the Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," the picturesque northern city of just over 250,000 people has a long history connected to fascist and far-right groups. It was home to one of the headquarters of German Intelligence during the Nazi occupation and in the 1970s, a far-right terrorist network.
Today neo-fascist groups such as Casa Pound and Forza Nuova, whose leader held a press conference outside the venue on Saturday, have their headquarters in the city's center. And most recently, Verona has become a flashpoint of far-right activity and a launching pad for some of the country's most well-known -- and controversial -- politicians and ideas.
In October, Verona's mayor Federico Sboarina declared the city "pro-life" after the town council passed a motion that would use public funds to finance anti-abortion programs, inspiring politicians in a few other cities, including Milan, Rome, Ferrara, Trieste and Sestri Levante to propose
similar motions, although they did not pass.
Verona's mayor, Federico Sboarina, declared the city "pro-life" last October.
Speaking to CNN from his office just steps away from the conference, Sboarina called Verona an "open city" where "everyone has the right to speak their minds."
And Salvini, the conference's keynote speaker, has never shied away from doing just that.
Inside the Gran Guardia Palace on Saturday, Salvini addressed several hundred attendees with a speech that spanned topics from population decline to illegal immigration and a critique of feminism.
"The feminists that speak of women's rights and are the first to pretend to not see what is the first, only and major, real danger in 2019 for rights, social achievements, freedom to work, study, speak, study, dress as you like -- and it's not the World Family Congress -- it's Islamic extremism, a culture where the woman's value is less than zero," he said.
"The woman gets covered with a burka, the woman doesn't have to leave the house, the woman shouldn't wear a mini-skirt, and if she dresses too western, thinks too western or becomes too western, (they) beat her up. Not from the dangerous extremists of the Family Congress," he added.
