A pro-Palestine mob attacked a professor and a student who tried to defend him after they stormed his classroom during a lecture because he criticised his university’s anti-Israel stance.
Rino Casella, a political science lecturer at the University of Pisa, was kicked and punched as he was delivering a law class on Tuesday after he spoke out against the Italian university severing academic ties with two Israeli universities.
The professor was treated at hospital for injuries to his head and arms following the attack.
‘I represent the institutions, and the attack against me is an attack on the university,’ Mr Casella said.
He warned ‘someone could die’ if similar violence continued at universities.
A student was also beaten as he tried to grab a flag from the mob and defend the professor, who himself then shielded the student.
Dozens of anti-Israel activists, who waved Palestine flags and shouted ‘Free Palestine’, had burst into his class to hurl abuse and confront the professor.
Mr Casella described how ‘fascists’ stormed into his classroom and demanded he stop the lesson.
Pro-Palestine demonstrators disrupted a university lecture after the professor voiced his opposition to the university cutting ties with two Israeli universities
Rino Casella, a political science lecturer at the University of Pisa, was kicked and punched as he was delivering a law class on Tuesday
Rino Casella (pictured), warned ‘someone could die’ if similar violence continued at universities
It came after leaflets circulated against him around campus after he was one of two academics who opposed the institution’s decision to cut ties with Israeli universities.
The professor said he was in ’emotional shock.’
‘I can’t accept the interruption of a university class, which is a sacred place, a place of dialogue — not a place of violence,’ he added.
‘The lecture had just started. I tried to keep them out, but they forced their way in with Palestinian flags and megaphones. Some climbed on the desks, others surrounded me and hurled the worst insults at me just because I insisted on continuing the lesson,’ he told La Repubblica.
‘Yes, it was a very tense moment. One student tried to take a flag from a protester, and they kicked and punched him. So I stepped in to shield him. They hit me too — either with a punch or an elbow.’
The tutor was told by doctors to rest for a week but he said he would not be deterred by the violence and wants to return to work immediately.
Meanwhile, Italian politicians were quick to condemn the attack.
University Minister Anna Maria Bernini called the lecturer and announced ‘if it were to happen again, the ministry will consider filing a civil suit against the attacks, because the university is about inclusiveness, openness, democracy, and never violence’.
A student who stepped in to try and defend the professor was also attacked by the angry mob
The professor said he was in ’emotional shock’ after his law class was disrupted by demonstrators
She added: ‘Universities are not free zones where it is allowed to interrupt lectures or assault professors. What happened is intolerable for a society that recognises itself in the values of democracy and inadmissible for an academic community, such as that of Pisa and all of Italy, that is open, free and inclusive’.
Noemi Di Segni, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, added: ‘What happened at the University of Pisa is precisely the escalation that we have long feared, a drift of violence that has already been tolerated for so long, a flattening on the propaganda narrative of Hamas. This is how terrorism continues to be legitimised’.
The attack came on the same day that another Italian university saw a lecture disrupted by pro-Palestine protesters.
Professor Pini Zorea, a visiting lecturer from Israel, was delivering a talk at Polytechnic University of Turin, when demonstrators stormed the classroom to protest Israel’s use of facial recognition technologies for surveillance of Palestinians.
Italian universities have increasingly severed ties with Israeli institutions.
Milan’s Statale University has approved a motion to prevent ‘new agreements with universities and institutions that are involved in the violations currently taking place’ in Gaza.
The University of Florence also passed a motion pledging to evaluate ‘agreements with Israeli universities, bodies and institutions and to maintain only those that do not contribute to the maintenance of the illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territory and to the perpetration of the most serious violations of international law’.
