Attack on Berlusconi political

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was attacked on Sunday evening. According to the liberal daily La Stampa, the attacker, who threw a hard object at Berlusconi's face, is mentally disturbed but the attack can still be regarded as politically motivated: "The prime minister's body has been injured and no matter what you think of his politics this violence amounts to a direct, physical, material attack on the office of prime minister. In this respect it is an attack on the institutions, and must be judged as such, as a new tear among the many that are destroying the body of the Republic. It is a step in a direction from which there is no turning back - one that makes clear how quickly the political climate could degenerate into physical battle. ... Today we are no longer in a state of emergency [as in the times of the Red Brigades and terrorism]. But now as then the principle still applies that the governability of a country depends on a sense of responsibility - also on the part of the opposition." 

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