Anti-war march in Rome: fear of clashes, capital armoured
The Viminale's attention is maximised: motorway toll booths and railway stations are under the lens to monitor arrivals, but also metro stops with the aim of preventing any violent fringe from mixing with the demonstrators
Key points
They promise a "great popular march" to "invade Rome and block it" with their bodies. A 'global mobilisation', which will take place simultaneously in other countries, 'against the kings and their wars'. No Kings Italia is ready for the parade that will march through the centre of the capital on Saturday to say 'no to authoritarianism, no to war, no to rearmament, no to genocide and no to repression', but also no to the government, whose resignation the movement demands en bloc.
15,000 march participants expected
The procession is expected to start from Piazza della Repubblica and cross the centre to the San Giovanni area. Promoters' estimates speak of around 15,000 participants, but - in the aftermath of the no vote's victory in the referendum on justice - higher numbers are not excluded. Hundreds of buses from all over Italia have already been organised. 'We will be hundreds of thousands,' assures No Kings Italia spokesman Luca Blasi (Avs). 'We cannot even count the trains and buses that are ready to reach Rome. More than 700 different realities adhere to the 'No Kings Italia' platform, from Anpi to Emergency, from Amnesty to the Italian Network for Peace and Disarmament, from Arci to Cgil, student movements and collectives and pro-Palestine movements.
Monitored motorway toll booths and railway stations
The Viminale's attention is maximised: motorway toll booths and railway stations are under the lens to monitor arrivals, but also metro stops with the aim of preventing any violent fringes from mixing in the procession and exploiting the visibility of the demonstration for demonstrative actions or to provoke disorder. Circles of the antagonist area and realities close to the Askatasuna social centre, a historical reality of the autonomous movements, monitored by the security apparatus, have also announced their participation in the mobilisation.
The explosion in Rome
The level of attention of the forces of law and order has also increased in the light of the recent explosion in the Parco degli Acquedotti in Rome, where two militants of the anarchic-insurrectionist area died while, according to investigative hypotheses, they were assembling a homemade bomb. It is no coincidence that at the question time in the Chamber of Deputies, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi recalled that 'there must be no room for those who with violence intend to subvert democracy and replace it with chaos'. And, with a view to Saturday's demonstration, he hoped that 'all political forces would unite in defence of democratic institutions and in clearly distancing themselves from those who wanted to engage in violent behaviour and actions'.
