Seven men aged 18 to 22 have been arrested in Palermo for gang-raping a 19 year-old woman in a case that has gained widespread media attention and moved public opinion, and not just because of its brutality. One reason is the apparent indifference of the perpetrators, which emerged in the testimony, CCTV footage and wiretaps collected by police: “I had only ever seen something like this in porn […] but what can I do, flesh is flesh,” one said on the phone, as reported by Il Post. Another has to do with the broader issue of gender-based violence in Italy. Since the news came out, thousands of Telegram users joined newly-created groups to get a hold of video of the rape shot by one of the assailants. Italy’s privacy watchdog had to issue a warrant to Telegram reminding it of the illegality of circulating the footage. Since January, 70 women have been killed in Italy because of their gender, 74 per cent of them by men in their own family or their partners. (In the UK the yearly average is 80 with 62 per cent killed by a current or former partner.) Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister, has accepted an invitation from a local priest to “clean up” a town reeling from a separate case in which teenage boys are accused of repeatedly raping two girls aged 10 and 12.
