Youssef Siher, the 30-year-old second-generation Italian researcher believed to be the mastermind behind the October 17 Movement, linked to the clashes that erupted in the center of the Lombardy capital last weekend, has been arrested by order of the Milan Prosecutor's Office. The charges are incitement to commit crimes with the aggravating circumstance of terrorism and Article 420-bis of the new decree, i.e., organized violence at public demonstrations . His wife is under investigation for the same crimes.
Siher, who was transferred to prison late yesterday evening, is also charged with terrorism under Article 270 bis, paragraph 1, which establishes that "anyone who promotes, constitutes, organizes, directs, or finances associations that intend to commit acts of violence for the purposes of terrorism or subversion of the democratic order is punishable by seven to fifteen years of imprisonment."
THE PROFILE
A degree and master's degree, collaborations with prestigious geopolitical institutes such as ISPI and national media such as Il Fatto Quotidiano: Youssef Siher, the thirty-year-old Italian considered the administrator of the Instagram page and Telegram group Movimento 17 ottobre, has a path that intertwines academic training, research and journalism .
After graduating from Fermi High School in Salò, Siher earned a bachelor's degree in Humanities for Communication from the University of Milan, where he also served as a member of the Academic Senate and president of the Muslim University Students. He then completed a master's degree in Political Science and Government, specializing in political language, the history of North Africa and the Middle East, geopolitics, and Islamic movements. His resume also includes experience as a research trainee at the Observatory on the Middle East and North Africa at ISPI. "In 2024," the institute specifies, "and since then, he has not collaborated."
His research interests include political Islam, Islamic political movements, and the relationship between Islam and Arab nationalism . Alongside his education, he also has professional experience. Siher has collaborated with newspapers, including Il Fatto Quotidiano, where, after an internship and collaboration, he stopped writing for a year and a half. He has published only one article for Il Foglio, in 2022. He has also been a library assistant at the University of Milan and a rider for Glovo .
Siher has always been supportive of the Palestinian cause: "We have every right to demonstrate freely against the complicity of Italian institutions, including local ones, in the genocide in Gaza and Palestine," he said during a demonstration held in July 2025 against the twinning of the municipalities of Milan and Tel Aviv. "The day will come when we will break that glass wall behind which you hide," he later wrote on Instagram during the pro-PAL protests at Milan's Central Station on September 22, 2025.
(Unioneonline)
