Violent clashes erupted in Italy over the weekend of December 20-21 after police moved to evict Askatasuna, a long-standing hard-Left social centre in Turin.
The move triggered two days of street unrest and political fallout, which underscored a broader confrontation between the state and radical movements.
“The eviction of Askatasuna is only the beginning: Bulldozers against social centres that have become dens of criminals,” said Deputy Prime Minister and Lega party leader Matteo Salvini.
Salvini presented the operation as part of a wider crackdown ordered by Giorgia Meloni’s government.
Senior Italian officials say the strategy follows two parallel tracks. One is targeting extremist hard-Left networks operating under the Antifa label. The second consists of also focusing on pro-Palestinian groups which the government sees as ideologically aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.
Analysts view the eviction as a key step in this long-running dual-track approach, amid concerns recent pro-Palestinian demonstrations have accelerated a convergence between these groups. That convergence, in turn, heightens security and public order risks, which the government regards as a serious threat.
“Groups in Italy connected to the Muslim Brotherhood have used protests to expand their reach within Italian politics and Muslim communities,” says Lorenzo Vidino, an Italian terrorism expert and director of an extremism programme at George Washington University.
Founded in the mid-1990s, Askatasuna has become a hub for militant anti-capitalist activism, Antifa mobilisation, and internationalist causes.
Over the years, its campaigns often blurred the line between grassroots activism and armed struggle. The centre cultivated links with radical movements in the Basque Country—the name Askatasuna itself is Basque, meaning “freedom” or “emancipation”—as well as with Kurdish organisations.
Several militants were investigated and prosecuted for travelling to Syria to fight alongside Kurdish militias, drawing national attention to the group’s ideological embrace of armed struggle abroad.
The centre also maintained ties with segments of the institutional Left. It has an informal pact with the city of Turin, which has historically been controlled by Left-leaning administrations. This arrangement has allowed the group to remain despite ongoing legal disputes.
In recent years, Askatasuna has also been linked to pro-Palestinian activism in Turin. Prosecutors accuse the centre of involvement in attacks on the Officine Grandi Riparazioni (OGR), a major cultural hub, and on the Leonardo defence company, which activists say supplies arms to Israel.
While there is no evidence that the centre coordinated or led all of these protests, it has been publicly associated with pro-Palestinian mobilisations.
The breaking point came with a violent assault on the headquarters of La Stampa on November 29, accusing the newspaper of being pro-Israel, during a nationwide strike attended by Antifa and pro-Palestinian groups.
Prosecutors allege Askatasuna-linked militants carried out the attack, marking a shift from tolerated illegality to direct political violence.
City officials said the incident ended its informal tolerance of the centre. Turin’s mayor stated: “What happened at La Stampa is a break with the past. No space can be legitimised if it resorts to violence. Freedom of expression cannot coexist with attacks on the press.”
The episode gave the government a political opening to act decisively, facing minimal obstruction from opposition parties. Supporters meanwhile framed the eviction as an attempt to “target the struggles for Palestine”.
The eviction symbolises the government’s crackdown not only on radical left-wing groups but also on militant pro-Palestinian movements, amid concerns about the growing convergence between these milieus.
Despite ideological differences, Vidino observes that these groups are finding common ground by identifying shared adversaries.
Many in the the radical Left see Israel as a proxy of the United States and the West. Meanwhile many pro-Palestinian movements—particularly ones linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas—frame the conflict in religious terms.
Vidino notes these groups are strategically flexible. They discuss the conflict in religious terms within Muslim communities but present Hamas as a national liberation movement focused on Palestinian human rights when engaging with the left.
While there is no direct link between Askatasuna and these movements, the operation carries strong symbolic weight as a break with tolerance for radical environments.
Vidino adds: “The Italian government’s action fits into a broader Western trend of increased attention to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Measures being taken against Islamism in Italy borrow heavily from the approaches of other European countries. There is concern that, following the massive pro-Palestinian demonstrations in recent months, part of this movement could take an Islamist turn, with a potential risk of jihadist radicalisation in the future.”
The operation against Askatasuna is therefore a political and symbolic move within a national strategy of preventing the intertwining of radical movements, says Vidino.
