A pro-Palestinian rally that Italian authorities have banned from taking place in Rome is set to go ahead regardless on Saturday 5 October, organisers said on Friday. The rally was banned on public safety grounds by security chiefs who claimed that the timing of the event - two days before the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October last year - risked glorifying the massacre. Rome's new chief police commissioner Roberto Massucci said the ban "exists and must be respected" however he noted that authorities were engaged in talks with the rally's organisers, the Arab-Palestinian Democratic Union (UDAP), to find a solution.
Earlier this week the UDAP appealed to the Lazio regional administrative tribunal against the "arbitrary" and "political" decision to prohibit their planned rally in Rome on 5 October, however the court upheld the ban. The unauthorised demonstration is scheduled to take place on Saturday afternoon in Piazzale Ostiense where security will be at a maximum, with Italian media reporting that 30,000 protestors are set to travel from across Italy. Italy's interior minister Matteo Piantedosi, who backed the decision to ban the rally, told reporters on Friday that the situation would be managed with "the usual balance" by police.
Speaking at the end of the G7 Interior Ministers' summit in Avellino, Piantedosi warned however: "Clearly any demonstration carried out in violation of the ban would be illegal." Piantedosi also said that a "very represe.
