ROME (AP) – Italian restaurant owners and others angry at having closed their businesses for weeks due to a virus blockade clashed with police on Tuesday during a protest in front of parliament in Rome, while in the south, hundreds of protesters blocked a main road.
An agent was injured in the dispute, Italian news agency LaPresse said. RAI state television said seven protesters were detained by police.
Many of the crowd of hundreds of protesters in front of the Chamber of Deputies took off their masks to shout “Work!” and “Freedom!” Some threw flares of smoke or other objects.
It is currently forbidden to eat and drink in restaurants, bars and cafes until at least April. Only transfer or delivery services are allowed.
Officers charged some protesters after trying to break a police cordon. Members of a far-right political group joined business owners in protest, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
Among the protesters was Hermes Ferrari, owner of a restaurant in Modena, a city in northern Italy. He boasted of having challenged the authorities for months by opening his establishment to diners in breach of government decrees.
Even though the fines piled up “I was able to pay my workers,” Ferrari said, keeping the business open.
Ferrari called on other restaurant owners to protest to follow suit.
“You have to open it so no one can tell you to close,” he shouted.
The current and previous governments of Italy have allocated grants of millions of euros to categories particularly affected by the pandemic restrictions.
Employers insist they must reopen permanently. Restaurants and cafes in the regions with the lowest incidence of cases and in hospital ICUs with a less critical impact (the so-called yellow zones) have sometimes been allowed to eat and drink before nightfall.
But the current growth in infections, caused mainly by virus variants, has seen new daily loads every day in tens of thousands and hundreds of deaths from COVID-19 a day for months. This caused the Italian government to temporarily remove the yellow zone designation before the Easter holidays until the rest of April.
Expressing his solidarity with the injured police officer, Interior Ministry Undersecretary Carlo Sibilia said “violence will not be tolerated.”
However, Sibilia, of the populist 5-Star Movement, called on the government, in addition to concentrating on the deployment of vaccines, to provide “immediately, new compensatory funds for economic activities closed or penalized by recent restrictions.” .
Sibilia lobbied for government loan guarantees, a moratorium on mortgage payments, a halt to evictions and compensation for lost revenue due to COVID-19 measures.
Hours earlier, near the southern city of Caserta, another protest blocked traffic on the A1 road. Among the hundreds of protesters were those working in outdoor markets and owners of gyms and restaurants, according to Italian news agency LaPresse. The gyms have been closed for months.
Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese declared unacceptable protests that become violent or annoying to citizens.
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AP journalist Gordon Walker in Rome contributed to this report.
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