Premier Giorgia Meloni's silence over
controversial baton charges by police against peaceful
pro-Palestinian student protesters in Pisa Friday shows she has
no "sense of the institutions," opposition centre-left
Democratic Party (PD) leader Elly Schlein said Sunday.
"I would like the centre right exponents to break their silence
on the events in Pisa," said the PD chief.
"And that Giorgia Meloni should do so above all, she who is
demonstrating that she has no sense of the institutions.
"Let her stop hiding behind her ministers and come to report
directly to parliament on what happened".
She continued: "It's time for the premier to say something about
what happened and about the management of public order on the
occasion of the very serious episodes that happened in Pisa,
with the baton-charging of students by police but also other
similar episodes that occurred previously.
"It's not the first time, sadly, that we are witnessing actions
of this kind".
Schlein said that President Sergio Mattarella had "said
everything that needed to be said" about the allegedly heavy
handed policing in stating Saturday that "the use of truncheons
does not confere authoritativeness".
Another opposition leader, Green Europe co-spokesman Angelo
Bonelli, said: "Giorgia Meloni continues in her silence
regarding the use of truncheons by the police on the students in
Pisa, even after the stance adopted by President Sergio
Mattarella (who chided the policing, ed.).
"But she expresses herself through the words of the coordinator
of (her rightwing Brothers of Italy party) FdI, Giovanni
Donzelli, who attacks the demonstrators instead of listening to
those asking for more wisdom and dialogue as an alternative to
the use of batons, as suggested by the president's appeal".
As well as the baton charges in Pisa, of which videos surfaces
showing officers repeatedly hitting students on the head, there
also police baton charges on a similar demo in Florence Friday.
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