He doesn't stand up for the town anthem, the controversy: "It's an obligation, the rules say so". The former mayor: "That song doesn't represent the whole community"

Castano Primo (Milan), May 22, 2025 – It is certainly not a serious matter, if compared to the gesture of the new mayor of Merano who did not wear the tricolor sash at the inauguration , but even in Castano Primo there are those who do not recognize a symbol that according to the majority identifies the community. The former mayor Giuseppe Pignatiello, now a minority city councilor, does not stand up as the other councilors do when, at the opening of the session, the notes of the anthem Città di Castano are played.

The episode is repeated at every meeting and ends with the invitation of the mayor Roberto Colombo to the municipal secretary to note in the minutes of the meeting that the councilor did not stand up at the sound of the anthem. Initially the secretary had to note even if among the public present there was someone who did not stand up at the sound of the anthem. From some councils the note is limited to the councilors.

“The city councilors have the obligation , not the right, to stand up during the performance of the anthem Città di Castano Primo in every official event and in city councils. We decided this with the regulation that we gave ourselves,” the mayor reiterated in the council. “The choice to stand up or not while listening to an anthem, even if full of symbolic meaning, belongs to the sphere of individual freedoms, guaranteed by the Constitution, in particular by articles 13 and 21, which protect personal freedom and freedom of expression. I will continue not to stand up until there is an anthem that is not the expression of a group but of the entire community, an anthem chosen together, with the involvement of the city,” said Pignatiello.