Protests in Italy after Moroccan man dies pleading for help from police

A protester holding a portrait of Abderrahim Fakir during a demonstration in Bologna on Monday night. Photograph: Michele Lapini/Reuters View image in fullscreen A protester holding a portrait of Abderrahim Fakir during a demonstration in Bologna on Monday night. Photograph: Michele Lapini/Reuters Protests in Italy after Moroccan man dies pleading for help from police Officers use teargas and water cannon on crowds in Bologna after death of Abderrahim ⁠Fakir under police restraint Police have clashed with demonstrators during a protest in the Italian city of Bologna after a Moroccan-born man died pleading for help under police restraint. Human rights campaigners and Italy’s opposition parties have demanded urgent answers over the death on Sunday of Abderrahim ⁠Fakir, 42, who had moved to Italy when he was five years old and ran a small removals and cleaning business. A video shared widely on Italian media shows Fakir, who reportedly had heart issues and asthma, repeatedly calling out “ aiuto, aiuto, basta ” (Help, help, that’s enough) as two officers sit on him and ambulance workers look on. After he stops moving, the police officers are seen binding his ankles together, only later checking his vital signs with the ambulance workers, the video shows. Prosecutors have opened an investigation and requested the officers’ body cam footage. “You can’t die like this,” Fakir’s sister, Khadija, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. “The police have to protect us. If someone is agitated, you have to calm them down … not kill them like a dog.” View image in fullscreen Tear gas being used by police in central Bologna. Photograph: Thomas Cavagna/JNA/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock Italian media reported that police had been called to the scene, in the north-eastern neighbourhood of Pilastro, shortly ​after noon on Sunday by local residents who were concerned by Fakir’s erratic and aggressive behaviour. The officers reportedly called emergency services soon after they arrived, and tried ​to calm Fakir before using pepper spray and holding him down while ​trying to handcuff ‌him. They told ambulance personnel that he was “having a psychiatric episode”. During the protests late on Monday, firecrackers were thrown near police buildings and police reacted ​using teargas and water cannon. A group of demonstrators also sat down in a square holding a photograph of Fakir, the Ansa news agency reported. The incident has been compared in Italy to George Floyd ’s murder in the US six years ago, and also prompted comparisons with tactics used by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under Donald Trump. However, Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, told public television: “Whoever makes insulting remarks against the police shows they have no trust in our law enforcement nor in our justice system [and] should look into what happened.” View image in fullscreen Water cannon being used on protesters on Monday night. Photograph: Max Cavallari/EPA Tommaso Fot