Bologna police death ignites Italian rule of law clash
The death of a Moroccan man under police restraint in Bologna has triggered a fierce political row, exposing deep divisions over immigration and state authority in Italy.
Abderrahim Fakir, a 42-year-old Moroccan man who had lived in Italy since childhood, died on Sunday in Bologna while being physically restrained by two police officers. A widely circulated video shows the officers sitting on Fakir as he repeatedly calls out for help in Italian. Ambulance workers stand by during the restraint.
Fakir, who reportedly suffered from heart issues and asthma, stopped moving during the encounter. Rather than immediately checking his vital signs, the officers bound his ankles together before medical staff eventually intervened. Local residents had initially called the police due to Fakir’s erratic behaviour, with officers telling ambulance personnel he was experiencing a "psychiatric episode".
Bologna prosecutors have opened an investigation and seized the officers' body camera footage. The incident has drawn immediate comparisons to the murder of George Floyd in the United States.
The fallout has split Italy's political establishment. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini defended the police, while Galeazzo Bignami, the lower house leader of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, praised the officers' "professional conduct".
Opposition figures strongly condemned the government's response. Senator Ilaria Cucchi, whose brother died in custody in 2009, called the restraint an "inhumane act" and accused the Meloni coalition of fostering violence through "policies seeped in hatred and racism". Francesco Boccia, a Senate leader for the Democratic Party, warned that if the right aims to "import the ICE model", Italy's "democratic antibodies" would resist it.
For the broader European public and business community, this polarization underscores the ongoing volatility of Italy's domestic politics. While not a direct market event, severe clashes over civil rights and policing feed into broader assessments of political stability and institutional reliability in the eurozone's third-largest economy.
Fakir’s sister, Khadija, told the Corriere della Sera that "the police have to protect us. If someone is agitated, you have to calm them down... not kill them like a dog." Barbara Spinelli, a lawyer who assisted Fakir with his legal residency permit last year, expressed despair over the incident. She said she had reassured him that "here the police respect the rules," adding, "I don't know how I will ever again manage to tell someone they don't need to be afraid."
