Police clashes with demonstrators in Pisa Friday that brought a reprimand from President Sergio Mattarella over excessive use of batons after five pro-Palestinian protesters were hospitalized are isolated cases and worse has been seen in the past, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said Monday.
"We are only dealing with isolated cases that are being assessed and there has never been any change of strategy in a more restrictive sense in the management of public order," said Piantedosi amid reports that a criminal probe had been opened into the allegedly heavy handed policing.
Moreover, he recalled, "in past years similar incidents have occurred with even more serious incidents".
As well as in Pisa, cops baton charged pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Florence and Catania Friday but no shocking footage of officers repeatedly hitting protesters over the headsurfaced in the other two cities, unlike in Pisa.
Piantedosi went on to say that he agreed with Mattarella's reprimand and also with the president's warning that politically motivated insults and threats have reached a dangerous level in Italy, with effigies of Premier Giorgia Meloni being burned and splashed with red paint to symbolize the blood shed in Gaza.
Piantedosi reiterated to trade unions that he "fully shared President Mattarella's words." The Viminale chief is also convinced that "the authoritativeness of the police force is not nourished by the use of force but is rooted in the sacrifice of hundreds of fallen officers in the fight against terrorism and crime, in the loyal defense of democratic institutions even in the darkest years of the Republic, in the ability to accompany the development of Italian society with balance and professionalism.
"And I also share," he added, "the president's other previous warning against the intolerable series of manifestations of violence: insults, vulgarity of language, speeches devoid of content but full of verbal aggression, even effigies burned or vilified".
The minister also reiterated that the government had utmost confidence in Italy's police forces.
During the meeting at the Viminale with the leaders of the confederal trade unions, according to ministry sources, Piantedosi expressed the "utmost trust of the entire government in the police force." The men and women in uniform, he added, are "servants of the State and workers who play a fundamental role in protecting security and legality".
The opposition has condemned the allegedly excessive use of truncheons in Pisa and has filed bills that would make it compulsory for police to wear bodycams and have ID numbers on their helmets.
The police baton charged the demonstrators in Pisa after they tried to breach a police cordon and reach the university campus, and in Florence after they tried to reach the US consulate.
Students staged another peaceful demo in Rome Sunday night"against your truncheons".
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