Mussolini app gone from iTunes store

The iPhone application featuring a collection of speeches by Benito Mussolini has been withdrawn from Apple’s iTunes store following legal threats and protests by Jewish groups.

iMussolini, Italy’s best-selling iPhone application, sold for about $1 when it was launched Jan. 21, just days ahead of Italy’s annual Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration on Jan. 27. It was withdrawn Feb. 4.

Holocaust survivors had described the application featuring Italy’s World War II fascist dictator as “offensive.”

The film group Cinecitta Luce, which holds the rights to the films of the Mussolini speeches used in the app, threatened legal action, saying the app did not serve the educational purposes for which the clips were designated. Luigi Marino, who developed iMussolini, told the BBC he plans to put the app back on the store when the matter is cleared up.

Subtitled “The man who changed the history of our country,” iMussolini contains audio, video and text of more than 100 speeches dating back to 1914. On the iTunes page, Marino wrote that iMussolini was a “history-related application” that “does not celebrate fascism,” as it was simply a collection of original speeches. — jta