ROME – The leader of the Italian far-right political party Brother of Italy, Georgia Meloni, has caused shock by tweeting a video of a woman being raped by an asylum seeker, as public prosecutors confirm that have opened an investigation into the sharing of the video online.

 The assault took place in the northern city of Piacenza on Sunday morning when a 55-year-old woman from Ukraine was attacked by a 27-year-old asylum seeker from Guinea.

 The man was later arrested and police have confirmed that an investigation is being carried out into the assault.

 Meloni, whose post-fascist party the Brothers of Italy lead the polls ahead of September’s general election, latched onto the incident to push her anti-migrant migrant platform.

 Meloni reshared the video on her personal Twitter feed and added the caption: “we cannot remain is silence with this atrocious episode of sexual violence committed against a Ukrainian woman a few days ago in Piacenza. I send a hug to this woman. I will do everything I can to make our cities safe again.”

 Twitter subsequently removed the video from the social media platform early on Tuesday morning, replacing it with a message saying that “this Tweet violated Twitter rules.”

 The incident drew widespread condemnation from politicians including from the leader of the centre-left Democratic Party Enrico Letta. He tweeted that it was “outrageous to use images of a sexual assault and even more so to do it for electoral purposes. Respecting people and victims comes first.”

 The public prosecutor in Piacenza meanwhile has opened an investigation into the incident and the sharing of the video online.

 “The uploading of videos showing the criminal incident is being thoroughly investigated” the Piacenza public prosecutor Grazia Pradella confirmed.

 The government’s data protection watchdog also issued a statement saying that they were examining “possible responsibilities of people who have for various reasons posted it.”

jd