Ugly protests erupt after Abderrahim Fakir dies pleading 'help' while restrained by police

Ugly protests erupt after Abderrahim Fakir dies pleading 'help' while restrained by police Footage shared on social media - deemed by the Mirror too distressing to publish - shows two police officers sit on Abderrahim Fakir as he repeatedly calls for help A protest erupted after the death of a man who repeatedly pleaded for help as officers restrained him on the ground. Police clashed with demonstrators in Bologna, Italy, after Abderrahim Fakir died on Sunday when officers were called following reports of a man behaving aggressively and damaging a vehicle. Local residents had alerted police shortly after midday over reports of erratic behaviour. Video shared widely across social media - too distressing for the Mirror too distressing to publish - appears to show the 42-year-old man repeatedly crying out “aiuto, aiuto, basta” (“Help, help, that’s enough”) as two officers restrain him on the ground while ambulance workers stand nearby. The Moroccan-born entrepreneur, who had lived in Italy since he was five years old, had heart problems and asthma. Footage appears to show him gradually becoming motionless as officers bound his ankles together. Officers reportedly called paramedics shortly after arriving and initially tried to calm Fakir before using pepper spray and restraining him while attempting to handcuff him. Police told ambulance workers he was “having a psychiatric episode”. Prosecutors have since opened an investigation into Mr Fakir’s death and requested officers’ body camera footage, while human rights campaigners and Italy’s opposition parties have demanded urgent answers. His sister, Khadija, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper: “You can’t die like this. The police have to protect us. If someone is agitated, you have to calm them down.” The death sparked protests across Bologna on Monday night, with thousands of demonstrators taking to the streets carrying signs reading “Justice for Fakir” and “State murders”. Some protesters threw firecrackers near police buildings, while officers responded with tear gas and water cannon. Others staged a sit-down protest in a city square holding photographs of Fakir, according to the Ansa news agency . The incident has drawn comparisons with George Floyd’s murder in the US six years ago, while others likened the restraint tactics to those used by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under Donald Trump. Barbara Spinelli, a lawyer, told Ansa she had met Fakir last year when he applied to renew his permit to stay. He had been “a very kind, well educated, respectful person” who was in Italy legally but worried about being expelled. She said: “I told him: ‘We are in Italy, a democratic country. Here the police respect the rules I don’t know how I will ever again manage to tell someone they don’t need to be afraid.” Ilaria Cucchi, a senator whose brother died in custody in 2009, told Agence France-Presse she was sickened by the “solidarity and thanks” expressed to police after such an “inhumane act”. Mr Cucchi, a member of the opposition Greens and Left alliance (AVS) party, criticised Meloni and her coalition government, saying their “policies seeped in hatred and racism” had fostered a climate of violence. Francesco Boccia, head of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) in the Senate, told La Repubblica: “If the right wants to import the ICE model, this is the wrong country for it. We have democratic antibodies.” Far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said an investigation would be carried out into Fakir’s death “without prejudice”, but condemned the violence that broke out in the aftermath. Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Piantedosi told public television: “Whoever makes insulting remarks against the police shows they have no trust in our law enforcement nor in our justice system [and] should look into what happened.”