Benetton ad featuring migrants being rescued at sea criticised as 'squalid' by Italy's hard-right interior minister

Italy’s hardline interior minister condemned Benetton for using a photograph of migrants being rescued in the Mediterranean in an advertisement, calling the choice “squalid”.

The clothing company took out two-page advertisements in Italian papers this week, using a huge photograph of a rescuer throwing orange lifejackets to dozens of African refugees who had been rescued off the coast of Libya.

The words “United Colors of Benetton” appeared in the bottom right-hand corner.

“Is it only me who finds this squalid?” Matteo Salvini, who is also deputy prime minister and head of the hard-Right League party, wrote on Twitter.

Supporters of The League in the northern Veneto region, the home of Benetton, said they would boycott the fashion firm’s products.

The Benetton ad was also criticised by SOS Mediterranee, the French charity that operates the rescue vessel Aquarius, which was last week refused permission to enter an Italian port and instead had to take 629 migrants and refugees to Valencia in Spain.

"SOS Mediterranee fully dissociates itself from this campaign which displays a picture taken while our teams were rescuing people in distress at sea on June 9," the charity said.

The "dignity of survivors must be respected at all times. The human tragedy at stake in the Mediterranean must never be used for any commercial purposes."

Benetton had yet to respond to a request for comment at the time of publication. 

While Mr Salvini has been criticised internationally for declaring that Italian ports are now closed to NGO rescue ships, his domestic popularity has soared.

The League can now count on the support of 30.1% per cent of voters, making it the country’s most popular political party, according to a new survey conducted by the polling agency Ipsos.

The League garnered just 17 per cent of support at Italy’s general election in March, meaning its popularity has nearly doubled.

It has eclipsed the Five Star Movement, the other half of the populist coalition, which won 33% of votes in the election but now has just under 30% of voters behind it.

Mr Salvini’s calls for half a million unauthorised migrants to be expelled from Italy and for a register of Roma gypsies to be drawn up may have proved popular, but there are signs that his incendiary rhetoric is fomenting racism.

Two African migrants reported that three Italian youths shot at them with an air gun in a town near Naples while yelling “Salvini, Salvini!”

One of the migrants, from Mali, was injured in the attack, which happened last week.

Mr Salvini hailed the demolition of an illegally-built house inhabited by a family of Sinti, a gipsy community related to the Roma.

Both the Sinti and Roma were persecuted by the Nazis during the Second World War, with many exterminated in concentration camps along with the six million Jews who were murdered on Hitler’s orders.

The bulldozing of the home, in an unauthorised gipsy camp near Turin, was ordered by a local council run by The League.

“From words to deeds. Italians come first,” Mr Salvini wrote on Twitter.

There is growing criticism of the outspoken interior minister from political opponents, with some calling him a fascist and comparing him to Mussolini and Hitler.

“What will be the next edict? Against the Jews? Homosexuals? I’m reminded of actions taken by Hitler and Mussolini in the 20^th century,” said Gianni De Magistris, the Left-leaning mayor of Naples.

Mr Salvini said the comparison was “crazy”.

Writing on Twitter, he said: “My sole aim is to restore pride and dignity to Italy and to bring back rules, order and security. It is simply common sense.”

Leoluca Orlando, the centre-Left mayor of Palermo, also criticised Mr Salvini, vowing that he would never allow “any census or register of the Roma population”.

Maurizio Martina, the acting head of the centre-Left Democratic Party, said of the populist government: “It seems like a horror film, but instead it’s reality”.

Mr Salvini was also criticised by Vanessa Redgrave, the British actress, who was in Rome on Wednesday for World Refugee Day.

She told The Telegraph she was “totally opposed” to Mr Salvini’s declaration last week that all Italian ports were now closed to NGO rescue ships.

“I have to hope that Mr Salvini wants to educate himself...and perhaps someone will explain to him (what drives refugees and migrants to cross the sea from Libya). There are a lot of ignorant people in government at the moment.”

Populist governments such as the new Italian coalition were “very, very dangerous”, said the 81-year-old actress and activist, who has directed a film about the migrant crisis, Sea Sorrow.

Europe has an obligation to accept, help and integrate people fleeing war, poverty and persecution, she said.