Italian protests: Several injured in Bologna after a man died in police custody

Protests erupted in Italy after the death of a Moroccan man who was forcibly arrested by two policemen in the northern city of Bologna.

Several thousand people took to the streets on Monday night to chant “Justice for Abderrahim Fakir”.

A small group then broke away and clashed with the police until nightfall. The prosecutor said that 64 policemen were injured in the violence.

Prime Minister Georgia Meloni said it was important to investigate the truth surrounding his death, but “nothing justifies an attack on law enforcement.”

Police were called Sunday morning after a neighbor saw Fakir “behaving erratically” and banging on garage doors in Pilastro’s staff room. Officers tried to calm the situation but used pepper spray.

A video shared by Italian media shows two policemen sitting on top of Fakir, lying on his face, yelling at him to stop. A third person, who is not a police officer, pins his leg down as emergency personnel stand by.

About two minutes into the video, Fakir stopped fighting. The police officers tied his wrists and ankles and when one of them realized that Fakir was motionless, he hit him twice on the cheek. By the time an ambulance crew approached, Fakir had apparently passed out.

Prosecutors in Bologna have opened a manslaughter investigation into the police officers and medics who were at the scene.

Several eyewitnesses told Italian media that Fakir was under stress and did not threaten anyone and was unarmed.

“You can’t die like this,” his sister Khadija told Italian media. “They killed him without mercy, and I want the truth.”

Bologna Mayor Matteo Lepore told Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper that anyone watching the video would be “shocked”.

On Monday evening, he called a peaceful demonstration in central Bologna and invited Fakir’s niece to the stage.

“He was my uncle. He wasn’t a number, he wasn’t a news line… he was loved,” Yosra Fakir said. “They should understand and listen to him, and he deserves respect.”

The main peaceful demonstration on Monday evening saw around 100 protesters clash with police and set fire to two cars.

Lepore saw “two different squares” in Bologna on Tuesday – “thousands of people peacefully and spontaneously to express their support for the family of Abderrahim Fakir” and a small group that “think they will respond to violence”.

The general secretary of the police union, Domenico Pianese, criticized Lipor’s decision to call a peaceful demonstration.

“Calling for a protest the day after such a spectacular event is like calling on “all the fake anarchists and all the anti-police … to take advantage and protest against the government,” Pianese said.

Asked what went wrong when the police arrested Fakir, he said, “Judging from the footage we have seen, the intervention was done correctly.

Pianese argued that the fact that the two officers had to use pepper spray and sought the help of a civilian to restrain Fakir showed that the use of force was not excessive. “The first thing they did (after the incident) was … turn over all the (body camera) footage to prosecutors,” he said.