Italy – PLDP: Police Officers Murder Man During Demonstration in Bologna
We hereby share an unofficial translation of the article published by Per la Democrazia Popolare on July 22nd.
THE FASCIST MURDER OF ABDERRAHIM FAKIR
On July 19th, Abderrahim Fakir, a man who was clearly in pain and who reportedly required passive restraint to allow medical personnel to reach him, died after being heavily crushed against the pavement by several police officers.
The Adnkronos news agency explains the situation: “Acute psychomotor agitation is, for all intents and purposes, a medical emergency. […] The death of Abderrahim Fakir, 42, during a law enforcement intervention brings back into the spotlight a clinical issue that emergency medicine has been aware of for over thirty years: prolonged physical restraint in the prone position, with the weight of the officers on top of the chest and compression on the nape of the neck, can be fatal… [there are three possible causes]. “The first is intrinsic to the state of agitation: the body… experiences malignant arrhythmia, ischemia, lactic acidosis, rhabdomyolysis with potassium release, and hyperthermia—a cascade that, on its own, can stop the heart […] The second cause is the prone position. Pinned to the ground, with the weight of one or more officers on their back, the subject can no longer expand their chest and diaphragm… CO₂ accumulates, the blood becomes even more acidic, and the heart fails. Compression of the neck exacerbates the condition. […] The third factor is pepper spray, which was used in Bologna just moments before the man was subdued. Oleoresin capsicum (a natural oily extract from hot peppers, used as the active ingredient) can cause laryngospasm and bronchospasm, leading to shortness of breath and airway obstruction—effects that become particularly dangerous for people with asthma. And Fakir’s family members report that the man was asthmatic, with a history of hospitalizations for respiratory problems. The result is a heart attack…”.
The footage that has been circulating of the incident shows chilling images. This latest murder by police has sparked a well-justified public outcry. In Bologna, thousands of people took part in demonstrations and road blockades, repeatedly clashing with police, who even resorted to firing tear gas from the rooftops of buildings. Some media outlets report that more than sixty police officers were injured during the clashes. Similar protests took place in numerous Italian cities. The protests involved family members, associations, migrant communities, labor unions, political organizations, and individual citizens, demonstrating how deeply this incident has affected the conscience of broad sectors of the people. Even the foreign minister of Morocco and the Moroccan embassy of Italy have called for “full transparency” regarding this murder.
To put this situation into context, it is necessary to highlight the increase in repression and freedom-suppressing laws, accompanied by propaganda that glorifies racism and fascism and is subversive toward the bourgeois Constitution itself. While the forces of the current fascist government play a leading role in these processes today, it is important to recognize that the advanced degree of fascistization of the State’s political structure is both an expression and a result of the actions of both the fascist-populist governments and those of the so-called center-left. Forces such as the M5S [The Five Star Movement], the PD [The Democratic Party], and the CGIL [Italian General Confederation of Labor] itself continue to collude deeply with the ruling forces to ensure the approval and implementation of various fascist decree-laws against opposition forces and movements. Rather than calling for general mobilization and the formation of anti-fascist volunteer units and new partisans in factories, workplaces, schools, and universities, they choose to pave the way for the establishment of the regime, thereby confirming on a daily basis the wretched nature of these social-fascist forces.
Institutional reforms, the approval of security decrees via decree-law, the expansion of powers granted to law enforcement, the tightening of measures against social protests, the daily repression of workers’ and students’ struggles, the criminalization of solidarity with the Palestinian people, increasingly repressive policies toward migrants, and the gradual narrowing of spaces for mobilization all reflect a single trend rooted in the development of contradictions on an international scale, beginning with the contradiction between the imperialist system (the US, major European countries, Russia, China, and Japan) and oppressed peoples. It is clear that the US is leading the major European countries down the path of fascism and war.
In Italy, the deepening economic crisis, the country’s growing involvement in genocidal imperialist enterprises and inter-imperialist war, and the worsening living conditions of the masses inevitably fuel new social and political contradictions. The bourgeoisie can only attempt to manage them by progressively strengthening the instruments of control and repression. The demonstrations that erupted following Fakir’s murder demonstrate the existence of a widespread willingness to mobilize against this offensive. The participation of workers, young people, migrants, labor unions, associations, and various political groups shows that there is common ground for struggle on which broad sectors of the masses can come together. However, this response continues to manifest itself in fragmented forms. The advance of the process of the State’s fascistization makes it necessary to build the Front—understood as the creation of the tools needed to defeat fascism and imperialist war. It is necessary to prepare the conditions for the establishment of a government of People’s Democracy as an expression of the development of the masses’ organization and revolutionary struggle, and as a necessary step in the transition to socialism.
Per la Democrazia Popolare Collectives
