A group of Italian environmentalists poured orange paint on the facade of the building of the Senate of the Republic in Rome on Monday. The protesters were detained, reports on Monday, January 2, the Rai News TV channel.
“This morning at around 7:45 (9:45 GMT), the environmental group The Last Generation smeared Madama Palace with orange paint using fire extinguishers. Five people were detained,” the channel’s website says.
The reason for this action, according to the participants themselves, was “despair due to the already begun climate collapse” and the lack of interest of politicians in solving climate issues, which, in their opinion, could cause “the largest genocide in the history of mankind.”
Senate President Ignazio La Russa, commenting on the actions of the demonstrators, said that he immediately convened a meeting of the governing council of the upper house of parliament to make an appropriate decision. The meeting will take place on Tuesday afternoon.
The action of eco-activists was also sharply condemned by the Minister of Environment and Energy Security of Italy, Gilberto Pichetto-Fratin. He stated that all acts of vandalism, even demonstrative ones, are unacceptable and will not go unpunished.
Members of the “Last Generation” held several acts of civil disobedience in Rome. In particular, they blocked traffic on the capital’s ring road and a number of large streets and avenues of the city.
Earlier, on December 23, seven climate activists from the Futuro Vegetal movement glued themselves to the M-30 ring road in Madrid. As a result, traffic on one side was paralyzed for more than an hour, after which the police arrived at the scene of the incident and took the protesters away. Activists demanded to stop funding the Spanish agri-food market, which is adapting to a new climate paradigm, while continuing to pollute the environment.
