NOWHERE BORDERS

DIARI DEL CONFLITTO

Meloni Vattìnn

Bari,4th September 2026

On September 4, 2026, the Italian government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni marked 1,413 days in office, becoming the longest-serving executive in the history of the Italian Republic. The occasion was celebrated with an official rally staged at the port of Bari, where a stage was set up on the terminal grounds for the Prime Minister’s address.

The same afternoon, a coalition of movements, unions, and collectives gathered in Piazza del Ferrarese to contest the celebration. Cambiare Rotta, OSA, Ex Caserma Liberata, USB Bari, Assemblea Bari Palestina, Potere al Popolo, and Alternativa Comunista, among others, led a march that grew to several hundred people, carrying banners denouncing budget cuts, price hikes, rearmament, and what organizers called “the boss’s government.” Local authorities had restricted the march’s route, keeping it well short of the port itself, and had banned vehicle traffic and stopping on the street housing the Israeli consulate.

The march reached the Basilica di San Nicola in the early evening, where it was stopped by a line of police in riot gear and armored vans. Chants and flares continued at the barrier, but the standoff stayed without physical confrontation. Eight people were taken into preventive custody over the course of the afternoon and evening, according to organizers: three while still making their way to the demonstration, and five more later in the day. Upon learning of the detentions, the march broke from its authorized route and moved, without prior coordination, toward Bari Centrale train station, where the five detained members of the Clown Army were subsequently released.

Preventive custody of this kind has become a recurring feature of protest policing in Italy since the passage of the 2025 security decree, which expanded the grounds on which demonstrators can be detained ahead of, rather than during, an act of dissent. What unfolded in Bari that evening was not an isolated incident so much as a visible instance of that shift: a crowd that came to contest a government’s record found part of its own record made, that same day, at a police station.

Protesters gather in Piazza del Ferrarese, Bari, on September 4, 2026, behind a spray-painted banner reading "Meloni vaffa...tick, a Bari sim antifà".Two women in the crowd, one leaning on a rolling walker, below a hand-drawn sign mocking Meloni over diesel prices.Man on the sound truck holds a rolled banner, his T-shirt reading "La Palestina è dei Palestinesi".Man with a Palestinian flag tied at his waist stands on the sound truck, the towers of Teatro Margherita in Bari behind him.Speaker on the sound truck addresses the crowd by microphone, police vehicles parked down the street.Young protesters arm in arm at the front banner, shouting with fists raised.Young men chant behind the front banner under antifascist and Palestinian flags.Two protesters carry a laughing woman in their arms while the crowd around them smiles.Protester holds a banner pole and glances sideways as the march moves through Bari at dusk.Red and black smoke rises behind the front banner next to an old stone fortification on the seafront.Man waves an antifascist flag in front of the stopped march on the Bari seafront.Sound truck driver rests his arms on the wheel as the front banner passes alongside.Bearded man seated on the sound truck in a "Sempre peggio" T-shirt, flags hanging over the speakers.Young woman stands in the middle of the road at night next to a Palestinian flag.Helmeted officer stands with arms crossed in front of police vans with flashing lights.Officer in glasses behind a raised visor, eyes on the crowd.Tony Lapiccirella with a hand at his chin, an older man laughing beside him behind the banner.One officer's hand resting on another's shoulder between riot shields.The march leaves the seafront at night past the stone fortification, a "politica di odio e menzogne" banner on the sound truck.Riot police stand across a narrow street at night in front of a police van.Officers in berets wait against a graffiti-covered wall, helmets hanging at their sides.
Young man in sunglasses shouting, red flags and graffiti banners around him at the Bari protest.Older woman in dark sunglasses holds the front banner of the anti-Meloni march, a flag resting on her shoulder.Antifascist protesters stretch the "Meloni vaffa...tick" banner across a Bari street in late afternoon light.Student raises a flagpole among OSA and Cambiare Rotta flags, a Cuban flag waving above.Two organizers set up a power generator on the back of the sound truck before the march.Shaved-head protester in sunglasses beside a Palestinian flag, seen from below against the sky.Man blowing a whistle at the head of the march, young protesters and Palestinian flags behind the banner.Curly-haired young protester looks over his shoulder, a serpent tattoo on the hand holding his flagpole.Man seated on the sound truck lifts a flag while a young man behind him raises both fists.Man in a cap speaks into a microphone from the sound truck.The counter-demonstration against the Meloni government advances along a wide Bari road at dusk.Young woman smiles holding a red smoke flare above her head, a Palestinian flag in the haze behind.Man holds up the sign mocking Meloni over diesel prices as night falls, a woman watching beside him.Riot police line with shields blocks the Bari march at night, people watching from the old walls above.Red, black and Palestinian flags lifted through thick smoke at night, facing the police vans.Young man leaning on a pole checks his phone beside a police van, the crowd a few steps away.Protester in an Ex Caserma Liberata T-shirt shouts through a megaphone on a tree-lined street at night.Two women in bright red and orange wigs, one smiling, among the crowd outside the station at night.Young man smiling with hands on hips in an antifascist T-shirt, police lines behind him.
A young woman smiles under a banner painted "È morta", flags crowding the square around her.Two young women with dyed hair in the crowd of the counter-demonstration, one smiling at the camera.Low-angle view of a young man gripping the cane pole of a white banner, red flags against the sky.Young women carry a hand-painted banner on a wooden pole, one looking straight into the lens.Man pauses with a microphone at his lips on the sound truck, a Palestinian flag behind him.Front banner of the September 4 Bari march: "Tagli, rincari, riarmo e repressione contro il governo del padrone".Two women and a child in ear protection wait at the edge of the demonstration.Older man with a long grey beard, arms crossed, in a Basque solidarity T-shirt in front of the march.Bearded protester waves an Antifascist Action flag among young marchers in the evening.Riot police beside a police van on the Bari seafront at sunset, port cranes on the horizon.Young women behind a spray-painted banner at night, OSA, Cambiare Rotta and Palestinian flags raised.Officer in a white shirt and riot helmet faces protesters at close range while phones record.Helmeted officers confer behind their shields, one talking on the phone.Officer behind a riot visor and shield, street lights reflected in the plastic.Older woman stands in front of a wall of police shields, a lit stone bell tower behind the line.The crowd moves through the night with red and black flags, a flare burning over the harbour.Woman with a tattooed arm raises her fist through smoke in the street in front of Teatro Margherita.Protester seen from behind, shaved head and crossed straps, as the march reaches Bari Centrale.