A few dozen young gods university collectives and social centerswaving the flags of Palestine and shouting slogans, they challenged the Minister of University and Research this afternoon Anna Maria Berninito Pisa for an electoral initiative ahead of the European elections. The protesters reached the bar in the historic center where Bernini was expected and prevented Forza Italia militants from meeting the minister.
“Since 7 October – commented the minister – the government has chosen to guarantee freedom of expression to everyone without excessively strengthening the security measures, yet this willingness of ours to dialogue is not grasped by some noisy minorities who even today in Pisa they prevented us from speaking and holding our scheduled meeting with the militants“.
Before the arrival of Minister Bernini, the demonstrators, chanting slogans against Israel, tore down one of the flags of Forza Italia ahangs out. Upon his arrival, the minister stopped outside the venue, protected by a cordon of police and carabinieri, to listen to the student slogans. You then met only with reporters and some party leaders. “We guarantee everyone the freedom to demonstrate and we have the duty to listen to their requests – said Bernini – even if I didn’t quite understand what type of dialogue these guys wanted to establish given that they are not willing to listen to the reasons of others. I I think, and I have repeated it many times in recent months, that the universities must be a place of inclusion and not a boycott because it is one thing to judge the government of Israel and another to attack the Israeli population and its universities”. Bernini recalled that “Italian universities have long had cooperation initiatives with the University of Tehran and I I ask what the moral police and the Revolutionary Guards do more and better than what is happening in Gaza.”
-“What happened is very serious and unacceptable and we expect solidarity towards the minister and condemnation of these acts by the rector and all the political forces”, comments the regional coordinator of Forza Italia Toscana Marco Stella. “The initiative was planned in a bar in the historic center of Pisa – recalled Stella -. When we arrived, we found dozens of students with drums and Palestinian flags who, with their threatening behavior, prevented sympathizers and members from entering in the clubs. This is the left that talks about freedom of expression, and that prevents the holding of electoral initiatives with threats, while in Italian universities Minister Bernini allows free debate on any topic. As President Berlusconi said, this is the difference between us and them, One of our leaders, the provincial coordinator Lorenzo Paladini he was even pushed and thrown to the ground. We are concerned about this climate of intolerance and violence, which is fomented, particularly in Tuscany by left-wing forces. We expect unanimous condemnation of all these gestures which poison the political climate and the debate.”
