Statements to the public regarding the speech by City Councilor Costantino Righi Riva

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"Human rights are a lie constructed to justify migration."

These were the words of City Councilor Costantino Righi Riva last night at the City Council meeting.

When a phrase like that is uttered by someone who sits in an institution, the problem isn't the tone, the excess, or even the provocation. It's more the content, and it's the profound rift it opens between those who represent the state, those who run for office, and the very principles on which that state is based.

Liberal democracies, like ours, don't arise by chance and don't stand alone. They exist because, throughout history, it was decided that power had to have a limit, and that limit was the individual, their dignity, their freedom. Human rights are not an ideological accessory or a rhetorical tool, but—and I fully agree—they are the cornerstone that prevents politics from turning into arbitrariness, the majority from turning into abuse, and the state from forgetting for whom it exists.

For this reason, anyone appointed to a public office (even one closest to the citizens, such as a City Councilor) not only represents a territory or an electorate, but embodies the credibility of the republic's institutions. This means knowing that every word carries greater weight, that every position contributes to strengthening or weakening the pact of trust between citizens and institutions, that every statement must remain within the confines of those values that make democratic coexistence possible. And here, as on other occasions, Councilor Righi Riva violated Article 54 of the Constitution.

Denying human rights isn't a "harder" or "more clear-cut" political stance on the issue of immigration, but something radically different. It calls into question the very foundation of freedom, because freedom, in liberal democracies, isn't the freedom to do what one wants, but the freedom guaranteed to all within a system of rights that always apply, even when it's inconvenient and even when it affects those who are weaker or more distant from us.

And anyone who has had the opportunity to engage with national and international institutional contexts knows well that human rights are not abstract statements, but concrete instruments of stability, security, and order. Where they are lacking, control ceases to exist, but only disorder ensues. Where they are denied, the state is not strengthened but weakened. Where they are dismissed as a "lie," the space opens for a politics without limits, and therefore without accountability.

We can and must discuss immigration, regulations, security, and the management of flows seriously and without hypocrisy. But there is a line a liberal democracy cannot afford to cross, and that is the line of fundamental rights.

Because beyond that line, no more “decisive” or more “effective” political space opens up.

Something very different is unfolding: a progressive and silent slide outside the confines of democracy itself. And finally, we wonder why, with such incidents and individuals, citizens lose faith and refuse to exercise their right to vote.

Can a representative of the institutions swear by the Constitution and then call its pillars a "lie"? In my opinion, no, and given his past, he shouldn't even be sitting on that City Council.