MILAN (Reuters) - Anti-globalisation protesters clashed with police in Italy's financial centre on Saturday, underlining political tension ahead of April's elections.
Protest over fascist rally turns violent in Italy
By Svetlana Kovalyova
MILAN (Reuters) - Anti-globalisation protesters clashed with police in
Italy's financial centre on Saturday, underlining political tension ahead of
April's elections.
Up to 300 left-wing protesters, many wearing balaclavas and wielding
crowbars, set fire to cars and a building on one of Milan's busiest shopping
streets when police tried to break up their protest against a fascist
pre-election rally.
Angry shopkeepers and residents cornered a few of the protesters and punched
and kicked them, before police managed to drag them off. A nail bomb injured nine police officers and at least 45 protesters were detained, police said.
"They turned a quiet Saturday into a war zone," Milan council official
Riccardo Dicorato told Reuters while police rounded up dozens of
demonstrators and firemen hosed down burning cars and motor scooters.
It was the worst street violence in Italy since 2001, shortly after Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi came to power, when an anti-globalisation
protester was killed in riots at a summit of the Group of Eight
industrialised countries in Genoa.
Berlusconi and his centre-right coalition allies, who are lagging the centre
left by 3.5 percentage points in opinion polls, pounced on the violence.
The fascist rally that sparked the two-hour pitched battle was led by the
Tricolour Flame, an extreme-right group running on Berlusconi's ticket at
the April 9-10 vote.
Centre-right politicians accused leaders from Romano Prodi's centre-left
Union coalition of having been among the rioters.
"At the centre of the Union there is total chaos: from their democratic
groups have sprung 350 people, using violent means, who have tried to stop a
civilised meeting of our allies," Berlusconi told reporters at an election
rally in Sicily.
Members of the centre left lined up to distance themselves from the
protesters.
"We condemn in the strongest terms this kind of violence. It does not come
from our concept of democracy and civilisation," Prodi told reporters.
With just one month to go before the vote, campaigning on both sides has
turned sour with campaigning focussing on mud-slinging rather than
manifestos.
The centre-right issued its accusation of violence by the left a day after
Prodi's allies levelled sleaze allegations at Berlusconi when magistrates
sought to indict him in a corruption case and his health minister quit over
a spying scandal.
''Supporters salute during a demonstration by the extreme right group 'Fiamma Tricolore' (Tricolour flame)''
Protest over fascist rally turns violent in Italy
By Svetlana Kovalyova
MILAN (Reuters) - Anti-globalisation protesters clashed with police in
Italy's financial centre on Saturday, underlining political tension ahead of
April's elections.
Up to 300 left-wing protesters, many wearing balaclavas and wielding
crowbars, set fire to cars and a building on one of Milan's busiest shopping
streets when police tried to break up their protest against a fascist
pre-election rally.
Angry shopkeepers and residents cornered a few of the protesters and punched
and kicked them, before police managed to drag them off. A nail bomb injured nine police officers and at least 45 protesters were detained, police said.
"They turned a quiet Saturday into a war zone," Milan council official
Riccardo Dicorato told Reuters while police rounded up dozens of
demonstrators and firemen hosed down burning cars and motor scooters.
It was the worst street violence in Italy since 2001, shortly after Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi came to power, when an anti-globalisation
protester was killed in riots at a summit of the Group of Eight
industrialised countries in Genoa.
Berlusconi and his centre-right coalition allies, who are lagging the centre
left by 3.5 percentage points in opinion polls, pounced on the violence.
The fascist rally that sparked the two-hour pitched battle was led by the
Tricolour Flame, an extreme-right group running on Berlusconi's ticket at
the April 9-10 vote.
Centre-right politicians accused leaders from Romano Prodi's centre-left
Union coalition of having been among the rioters.
"At the centre of the Union there is total chaos: from their democratic
groups have sprung 350 people, using violent means, who have tried to stop a
civilised meeting of our allies," Berlusconi told reporters at an election
rally in Sicily.
Members of the centre left lined up to distance themselves from the
protesters.
"We condemn in the strongest terms this kind of violence. It does not come
from our concept of democracy and civilisation," Prodi told reporters.
With just one month to go before the vote, campaigning on both sides has
turned sour with campaigning focussing on mud-slinging rather than
manifestos.
The centre-right issued its accusation of violence by the left a day after
Prodi's allies levelled sleaze allegations at Berlusconi when magistrates
sought to indict him in a corruption case and his health minister quit over
a spying scandal.
''Supporters salute during a demonstration by the extreme right group 'Fiamma Tricolore' (Tricolour flame)''
