New York Post, by Geoff Earle and Angela Barbuti: Thousands of hooded and helmeted protesters, marching behind a banner that read “Know Your Enemy,” lobbed fireworks at police in Milan for hours during rowdy demonstrations after the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics.
The Saturday demonstration was organized by a group called Comitato Insostenibili Olimpiadi, which translates to Unsustainable Olympics Committee, which protested the games themselves and the presence of the Italian Trade Agency (ICE), according to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
Local police, many in riot gear, pushed the rowdy crowd back with tear gas and water cannons in an effort to disperse more than 5,000 agitators, some of whom unfurled huge banners saying “trans” and “binary” and with one calling for “community resistance.”
Five people — three male and two female — were arrested during the protests, which started at 3:00 p.m. and ended about 8:00 p.m. local time and included one group which climbed onto the roof of a former market.
“Long live working-class neighborhoods,” one banner read, while another proclaimed, “Homes for families, uniforms out of neighborhoods.”
The chaos came just hours after the Italian city hosted the opening ceremonies, on a day when high-stakes skiing and other events were already underway.
Vice President JD Vance and his family, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other dignitaries are on hand for the competition.
Images from the melee show fiery trails from flares lighting up the evening sky in Milan, the bustling city playing host to the games, as protesters sought to block a road to the Santa Giulia Arena.
On Friday, hundreds of anti-ICE protesters chanted and set off flares to protest the agency’s role at the games. The Italian government says ICE agents aren’t active on the streets and that Homeland Security Investigations personnel are working out of US diplomatic missions.
In addition to the anti-ICE protests, demonstrators were pushing back on the prohibition of trans athletes at this year’s Games, with signs like “Binary is for the train,” a play on the fact that in Italian, “binario” means both “binary” and “tracks.”
There was also a pro-Palenstinian group calling to free Mohammad Hannoun, president of the Palestinian Association in Italy, who was arrested in December on charges of financing Hamas, as well as environmentalists protesting the killing of larch trees to build the bobsled track in Cortina and held up cardboard trees.
Many also claimed public resources were spent on the Games instead of in support of low-income residents, with demonstrators holding signs reading, “Long live the working-class neighborhoods.”
“These Games are built as a major event based on useless projects, concrete construction, and exploitation of precarious labor, which will not benefit the working classes,” said protestor Mattia Scolari, secretary of Cub Milano, according to Italian outlet Il Fatto Quotidiano. “We are here to protest a development model based on speculation and the lowering of labor protections.
Prophetic Link:
“At the same time anarchy is seeking to sweep away all law, not only divine, but human. The centralizing of wealth and power; the vast combinations for the enriching of the few at the expense of the many; the combinations of the poorer classes for the defense of their interests and claims; the spirit of unrest, of riot and bloodshed; the world-wide dissemination of the same teachings that led to the French Revolution—all are tending to involve the whole world in a struggle similar to that which convulsed France.” Education, 228.2
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