Youssef Siher, the mastermind behind the "October 17 Movement" page, has been arrested. THE PROFILE

He was arrested on the orders of the Milan Prosecutor's Office: Youssef Siher, the 30-year-old Italian second-generation researcher believed to be the 'mastermind' of the October 17 Movement, linked to the clashes that took place in the center of the Lombard capital last weekend. The charges are instigation to commit crimes with the aggravating circumstance of terrorist intent and Article 420 bis of the new decree-law, namely organized violence at public demonstrations. His wife is under investigation on the same charges but remains at liberty. The 30-year-old, recently transferred from the Milan police headquarters to prison, was charged not only with instigating crimes through social media (he allegedly made apologia for one or more crimes) and with the "organized violence" provided for by the newly enacted security decree, but also with terrorism under Article 270 bis, paragraph 1, which states that "anyone who promotes, establishes, organizes, directs or finances associations aimed at carrying out acts of violence with terrorist aims or aimed at subverting the democratic order shall be punished with imprisonment from seven to fifteen years." HIS PROFILE A completed course of study with a bachelor's degree and a master's, collaborations with prestigious geopolitics institutes such as ISPI and with national media outlets such as Il Fatto Quotidiano: Youssef Siher's path weaves together academic training, research and journalism. He is the 30-year-old Italian considered to be the administrator of the Instagram page and the Telegram group of the October 17 Movement. After graduating from the Fermi high school in Salò, Siher earned a bachelor's degree in Humanities Sciences for Communication at the University of Milan, where he was also a member of the Academic Senate and president of the Muslim university students. He then attended the master's program in Political and Government Sciences, focusing on political language, the history of North Africa and the Middle East, geopolitics and Islamic movements. His résumé also includes an experience as a research trainee at ISPI's Observatory on the Middle East and North Africa. "In 2024 and since then — the institute specifies — he has no longer collaborated with us." His research interests concerned political Islam, Islamic political movements and the relationship between Islam and Arab nationalism. Alongside his education, there were professional experiences. Siher collaborated with newspapers, including Il Fatto Quotidiano, where, after a period of internship and collaboration, he has reportedly not written for a year and a half. For Il Foglio, he published a single article, in 2022. He was also a library assistant at the University of Milan and a rider for Glovo. Siher has always been close to the Palestinian cause: "we have every right to demonstrate freely against the complicity in the genocide in Gaza and Palestine of Italian institutions, including local ones," he said during a demonstration held in July 2025 against the twinning between the Municipality of Milan and that of Tel Aviv. "The day will come when we will break that glass wall behind which you hide," he then wrote on Instagram on the occasion of the pro-Palestine protests at Milan's Central Station on September 22, 2025. "We will not stop fighting — he wrote on his profile — until we recover every centimeter of our land and until everyone returns home and there are no more displaced people looking for a place to call home." And again: "we do not surrender, we will win or die," his posts on the occasion of pro-Palestine protests. Also circulating on social media is his reply to a tweet by Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini on X on October 7, 2023, the day of Hamas's attack on Israel. "Allah Akbar," the researcher wrote to the League leader who was expressing support for Tel Aviv. And his political commitment has never abandoned his country of origin. Last September, on his Facebook profile, the 30-year-old had analyzed the failure of the so-called Generation Z protests in Morocco, arguing that the problems related to health care and education were not "the real problem," but "symptoms of a much deeper illness." The root cause, according to the young man, would be "the political and economic system based on a political class and big capital acting as oligarchs." Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA