New protest strategy in Italy: meeting points to be announced just minutes before they begin

Following clashes last weekend, the youth movement “October 17” has changed the way it organizes Saturday’s protests. Organizers say meeting points will be announced just half an hour before the start, while participants will set off from three different locations and later join up in a single square.

Demonstrations by students and the “October 17” movement are scheduled to begin at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday. However, Italian authorities are expected to face a different situation from the one they had anticipated.

Piazza Duomo in Milan and Piazza Nettuno in Bologna may be empty at the announced protest time, with only tourists and police deployed in the area expected to be present.

A day before the gatherings, which are expected to be marked by tension, the youth movement that caused unrest in Milan and other Italian cities last week announced a change to the meeting points. It said the locations announced earlier had become predictable and could easily be surrounded and controlled by police.

For this reason, three new meeting points in each city will be announced only at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday. Protesters will then be directed to a single location, which will be made public later.

In a second statement, the “October 17” movement linked its decision to the new security decree approved by the Council of Ministers. The decree establishes the criminal offense of organized violence during public demonstrations. The movement also cited the deployment of 500 additional military personnel to Milan.

“For us, this has only one meaning: an authoritarian crackdown on those who dissent, with a severity unseen since the time of fascism,” the message posted on social media said.

According to the protesters, instead of considering the demands of a generation, the government is responding to its discontent with military troops, handcuffs and decrees.

“We must be silent,” is the message the movement says the measures taken by the authorities are conveying.

The organizers also accuse the government of trying to militarize squares before protesters arrive, using armored vehicles, police cordons and restricted zones.

The list of previous meeting points included Piazza Duomo in Milan, Piazza Nettuno in Bologna, Piazza Castello in Turin, Circo Massimo in Rome, Piazza Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Piazza Mazzini in Padua, Piazza Umberto I in Bari and Piazza De Ferrari in Genoa. The movement has clarified that these locations will no longer serve as meeting points.

Under the new plan, three meeting points in each city will be announced at 2:30 p.m., while the square where all protesters will gather will be made public at 3:30 p.m.

“The starting points are no longer valid: you won’t find any of us there, but you will find many of them,” the movement’s statement said, referring to the security forces expected to be present in those areas.

Participants are instructed to organize into groups, whether student collectives, organizations, informal groups or simply circles of friends. The movement is asking them to meet in advance, decide together how to travel and avoid taking part individually.

“When you move as a group, you protect yourself and get to know others,” the materials distributed by the organizers say.

Once formed, the groups are expected to head to the nearest meeting point. The movement uses the slogan “Be water” to describe this approach—a phrase associated with the 2019 Hong Kong protests that refers to adapting continuously and avoiding concentrating in a single location.

Under the final stage of the plan, the final square in each city will be announced at 3:30 p.m. Groups that initially gathered at three separate locations will join there for a single demonstration.

“Three rivers coming together as one,” is how the movement has described its strategy.

Meanwhile, Italian authorities are preparing for a tense weekend following last week’s clashes. Security forces are expected to be reinforced in Milan, while it remains to be seen how the protests will unfold and whether the new plan will affect how police manage them.