Footage of police beating pro-Palestinian students drew broad condemnation in Italy on Friday, with the opposition calling for the interior minister to address parliament over the episode. Student marches were blocked by police in the Tuscan cities of Florence and Pisa, with images of officers vigorously using their truncheons on school-age protesters in Pisa triggering outrage on social media and from politicians.The videos showed the students, who appeared to be protesting peacefully, retreating under a hail of blows from law enforcers wearing helmets and full riot gear. “Is this how you beat your own children,” one young woman is heard shouting.
The Pisa police were not immediately available for comment.Elly Schlein, the leader of the centre-left Democratic Party, posted on Facebook a video of the “unacceptable” scenes of “students trapped in an alleyway, charged and beaten by the police.”She said Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government, which came to office in 2022 promising to crack down on illegal …