“They won’t keep us down, everyone get behind the banner, we’ll leave in procession.” Although the Police Headquarters has not granted authorization to extend beyond Piazza Ostiense, the pro-Palestine march blocks the city of Rome and generates tension after tension. “Free Palestine, free Palestine” are the chants that rise most frequently from the demonstrators, more than six thousand, gathered in the square in the rain, monitored on sight by the police and armored vehicles especially to intercept violent infiltrators. Along with traffic that is literally at a standstill and numerous checkpointsthe agents of the Polstrada and the police stations, together with the Digos, stopped numerous buses and private cars, for a total of 1,600 people checked and 19 taken to the police station. These are activists from different regions of Italy and with different criminal records behind, stopped by the police as a precaution although fortunately no improper weapons or pyrotechnic articles such as bombs and firecrackers appear to have been found.
In a Rome blocked also because of the transport strike, the deputy prime minister and foreign minister Antonio Tajani expressed concern about the pro-Palestine march, hoping that it would not become a glorification of anti-Semitism. «We must guarantee the safety of all Jewish places of worship and I hope that common sense prevails: the right to demonstrate is something else. The right to transform demonstrations of free thought into demonstrations in which a person like Senator Segre, who is an emblematic image of the fight against Nazi-fascism, is pointed out to public ridicule, pointing her out as a dangerous Zionist agent or doing the same with people who are Jewish origin, this is unacceptable,” Tajani added. Along with slogans such as “Free Palestine”, Palestinian and Hezbollah flags and portraits of Nasrallah and banners like «Giorgia Meloni murderer» and “Israel criminal state” and “Netanyahu murderer,” the protesters shouted into megaphones.
«We ask for an end to the bombings. Italy must take a clear line. There was a mystification about this parade. They told us it was a Hamas celebration but we are here to commemorate our dead, the Palestinian dead. The only ones who celebrate here in Italy are the friends of Israel and the Italian arms industry”, said one of the representatives of the Palestinian Arab Democratic Union. Moments of tension upon Simone Ruzzi’s arrival in the squareknown as «Cicalone», organizer of anti-pickpocketing patrols in the Rome metro who received heavy insults and invitations to leave, all while the demonstrators asked to move towards the Colosseum while groups of hooded youths they gathered about 20 meters from the police blockade, towards Viale Aventino. To reinforce the officers on site to contain the procession, other vehicles arrived including a water cannon truck.
Source: Vanity Fair
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