Lockdown Protests Snowball as Europe's Libertarians Fret About Freedom
Voice of America
On the streets of Rome, frustrations with pandemic curbs boiled over this week as desperate protesters, many of them restaurant owners and small-business owners, complained that restrictions and repeated lockdowns aimed at suppressing the transmission of the coronavirus are ruining them.
"We can no longer go on like this," 51-year-old pizzeria owner Ermes Ferrari told reporters. "I just want to work." Outside the parliament in the Italian capital, protesters Tuesday called for an immediate end to Italy's grinding lockdown. At one point they clashed with riot police. The protesters chanted repeatedly, "Libertà, Libertà." Many of the protesters, who emphasized they are not COVID-19 deniers, are members of the burgeoning "I'm Opening" movement of bar and restaurant owners, who defy curbs, break rules and incur hefty fines for doing so.A TV screen shows a file image of North Korea's rocket launch during a news program at a bus terminal in Seoul, South Korea, May 27, 2024. FILE - Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi speaks to reporters in Colombo, July 29, 2023. FILE - A TV screen shows a report of North Korea's spy satellite into orbit with its third launch attempt this year with an image of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 22, 2023.
Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.