The police response to demonstrations in support of the Palestinians in Gaza continues to be the subject of fierce debate in Italy, following police charges against student and high school protests that left several people injured in Pisa and Florence on Friday, February 23. On Saturday, President Sergio Mattarella, as guarantor of the democratic values of the Constitution, issued a rare and clear call to order against the far-right-dominated government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose party, Fratelli d'Italia, came to the defense of the police officers.

A press release from the presidency, issued the same day, stated that Mattarella had spoken with the interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi (Lega, far right), to remind him that "the authority of the forces of law and order is not measured by the yardstick of truncheons, but by their ability to ensure security while protecting the freedom to publicly express one's opinions." "With young people," he added, "truncheons are an expression of failure." More than two decades after the event, Italy still has vivid memories of the riots against the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001, whose repression left one demonstrator dead and hundreds injured.

Filmed during demonstrations in the two Tuscan cities on Saturday, videos showed officers using their truncheons extensively and holding down very young demonstrators, some with bloody faces. In a country where police violence is not a regular feature of policing, these images came as a great shock, provoking widespread public reaction, while echoes of the ongoing massacres in Gaza have already caused tension in the Italian media and on the streets.

In Naples, on February 13, a rally of limited scope in support of the Palestinians had already been the object of a police charge, injuring five demonstrators and five others among the officers. It was held in front of the local headquarters of RAI, the public broadcaster, targeted by the protesters after the host of an entertainment program read out an official statement of solidarity with the Israeli people on the subject of the massacres of October 7, 2023.

The management had wanted to counterbalance the call to "stop the genocide" in Gaza made the day before by a singer on RAI radio. The opposition had already expressed alarm at the methods used by the police at the time. But after Friday's demonstrations, criticism of the police's actions redoubled, going beyond the realms of ordinary political debates.

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