Attempted Murder Charges For Environmental Protestors
July 5th, 2011
The Proposed Site of the Tunnel, near the industrial city of Turin
A group of environmental protestors in the Italian Alps could face attempted murder charges as a result of a confrontation involving Italian police over a proposed high-speed rail tunnel connecting Italy and France.
The protest took place on Sunday near where the tunnel is being built, just outside the Alpine city of Turin. About 6,000 protestors from the “No TAV” movement (No to the High-Speed Train) engaged in a peaceful protests which turned into a violent confrontation with authorities, which left nearly 200 people injured and four protestors arrested. While these violent protests have, unfortunately, become more and more commonplace in Europe, largely as a reaction to austerity measures and corrupt governments, this is the first time attempted murder charges have been proposed. According to Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, the protestors were nothing more than “a group of thugs” looking to cause trouble, and wants the prosecution to push for attempted murder charges.
A spokeswoman for the organization said that the violence was not endorsed by the group, which is protesting the tunnel over a supposed destruction of the “natural beauty” of the area. The Italian government says that the tunnel, which would make the rail connection from Paris to Milan almost three hours shorter and would be more enviornmentally friendly than roadways, will continue as scheduled. The expected start date for the project is 2013, and will go into service in 2023.
The push for attempted murder charges is an unusual and heavy-handed action by the government in this case. While it is unfortunate that an originally peaceful protest turned violent, it is unrealistic that the goal of the offenders was to murder the police officers. If it was their intention, they would’ve brought more deadly weapons to the protests than just Molotov cocktails. Also, the police were in riot gear, so they were more than adequately shielded from the projectiles thrown at them, unlike the protestors who had virtually no defense, should the police have acted in retaliation. It is realistic that Rome wants to discredit this organization so it can win favor with the people for the rail tunnel which is supported by all major political parties in the national government yet opposed by local legislators from the area, or to be a distraction from the corrupt rule of Silvio Burlesconi and Italy’s troubled fiscal situation.
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