“These acts not only injure art, but undermine the value of Memory [of the Holocaust], which is essential for building a conscious and just society,” Italy’s Holocaust memorial museum, the Fondazione Museo della Shoah, said in a released statement on Tuesday about the defacement.
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Mural of Italian Holocaust Survivors Defaced in Milan
A partial view of the mural in Milan, Italy, before (left) and after it was vandalized. Photo: Piero Fassino via X/Twitter screenshot
A mural in Milan dedicated to two Italian Holocaust survivors has been defaced by vandals who scratched off the two faces and yellow stars in the artwork.
The mural depicts Italian senate member Liliana Segre, who was named senator for life in 2018, and author Sami Modiano, both of whom survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during World War II. In the mural, the Holocaust survivors are wearing striped uniforms, worn by inmates in Nazi concentration camps, underneath bulletproof vests that feature the yellow star of David with the word “Jude” in the center, which were badges that Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis. The mural was painted by Italian artist and activist aleXsandro Palombo in Piazzale Loreto, a major city square in Milan, in late September. It is titled “Anti-Semitism, History Repeating.”
“Vandalism against the mural dedicated to Liliana Segre and Sami Modiano in Milan, scratched by unknown people, is a vile and insane act,” added Mario Venezia, president of the museum. “These thugs tried to distort the sense of memory, but they failed. A scratch doesn’t erase people, or what was. They can damage the walls, but the history and its teachings remain intact.”
Democratic Party politician Piero Fassino also commented on the vandalism in a post on X. “The outrage against the mural dedicated in Milan to Senator Liliana #Segre and Sami #Modiano demonstrates the level of cowardice and cowardice that anti-Semitic impulses that are manifesting themselves with ever greater aggressiveness reach,” he wrote on Monday. “Impulses that must be rejected and opposed in the most firm and uncompromising way.”
Last month, Palombo unveiled a mural on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack in Israel and it depicted Vlada Patapov, who survived the Nova music festival massacre. That mural was defaced by vandals who painted over Patapov’s face and half of her left leg.
In November 2023, a month after the deadly massacre in southern Israel and the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Palombo painted a mural that featured Holocaust victim and teenage diarist Anne Frank alongside a girl from Gaza. He simultaneously revealed another mural of a Gazan boy dressed up as a Hamas terrorist who is standing next to an adult terrorist as they both point their guns at a young Jewish boy from the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust.
“The antisemitic fury unleashed by Hamas is overwhelming Jews in every part of the world, this horror that re-emerges from the past must make us all reflect because it undermines freedom, security, and the future of us all,” Palombo said at the time. “Terrorism is the very denial of humanity and has nothing to do with resistance, it uses people with aim to divide and drag them into the abyss of its evil, into an infernal vortex that has no end. There can be no peace until terrorism is eradicated; legitimize it means condemning to death the whole humanity.”
Palombo’s latest mural, outside Iran’s consulate in Milan, shows Iranian student Ahoo Daryaei, who was arrested by the regime’s morality police after walking outside in her underwear in Tehran as an act of defiance against the country’s mandatory hijab laws. That mural has also been defaced.
The post Mural of Italian Holocaust Survivors Defaced in Milan first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘With or Without Russia’s Help’: Iran Pledges to Block South Caucasus Route Opened Up By Peace Deal
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – Iran will block the establishment of a US-backed transit corridor in the South Caucasus region with or without Moscow’s help, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying on Saturday by the Iran International website, one day after the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mr. Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Ali Akbar Velayati said of the so-called Zangezur corridor, the establishment of which is stipulated in the peace deal unveiled on Friday by US President Donald Trump. The White House said the transit route would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” the Khamenei advisor added.
Baku and Yerevan have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting or forcing almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Yet that painful history was put to the side on Friday at the White House, as Trump oversaw a signing ceremony, flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan—a pro-Western ally of Israel—is expected to pull Armenia out of the Russian and Iranian sphere of influence and could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran.
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UK Police Arrest 150 at Protest for Banned Palestine Action Group
People holding signs sit during a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, August 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
London’s Metropolitan Police said on Saturday it had arrested 150 people at a protest against Britain’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, adding it was making further arrests.
Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.
Protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, chanted “shame on you” and “hands off Gaza,” and held signs such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” video taken by Reuters at the scene showed.
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.
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‘No Leniency’: Iran Announces Arrest of 20 ‘Zionist Agents’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – Iranian authorities have in recent months arrested 20 people charged with being “Israeli Mossad operatives,” the judiciary said, adding that the Islamic regime will mete out the harshest punishments.
“The judiciary will show no leniency toward spies and agents of the Zionist regime, and with firm rulings, will make an example of them all,” spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri told Iranian media. However, it is understood that an unspecified number of detainees were released, apparently after the charges against them could not be substantiated.
The Islamic Republic was left reeling by a devastating 12-day war with Israel earlier in the summer that left a significant proportion of its military arsenal in ruins and dealt a serious setback to its uranium enrichment program. The fallout included an uptick in executions of Iranians convicted of spying for Israel, with at least eight death sentences carried out in recent months. Hit with international sanctions, the country is in dire economic straights, with frequent energy outages and skyrocketing unemployment.
In recent weeks Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed that Tehran cannot give up on its nuclear enrichment program even as it was severely damaged during the war.
“It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up of enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” the official told Fox News.