Chicago – February 23, 2023
Footage of police punching pro-Palestinian students sparked widespread condemnation in Italy on Friday, with the opposition demanding that the interior minister address parliament about the incident.
Police prevented student marches in the Tuscan cities of Florence and Pisa, with footage of officers violently deploying truncheons on school-aged protestors in Pisa sparking outrage on social media and among lawmakers.
The footage showed the students, who appeared to be demonstrating peacefully, fleeing under a shower of punches from law enforcement officers wearing helmets and full riot gear.
Elly Schlein, the leader of the center-left Democratic Party, shared a video on Facebook depicting “unacceptable” scenes of “students trapped in an alleyway, charged and beaten by the police.”
The government had no quick response to the police conduct.
Enzo Letizia, the head of the ANFP, a police trade union, stated that student protests were frequently infiltrated by “expert instigators” and that no judgments should be made until an investigation into the incidents was completed.
