Two Brazilian journalists have been attacked by the Italian security team accompanying the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, in the streets of Rome, the city where the Group of 20 summit was held this weekend.
According to a video released by another journalist who accompanied them, Bolsonaro was walking around the Navona Square, where the Brazilian embassy is based, surrounded by people who were praising him with flags of the Latin American country.
At that time, the Italian policemen separated these two journalists and invited them to stop following in the footsteps of the Rio de Janeiro head of state. Given the refusal of the journalists, they have been pushed violently and have seized the phone of one of them.
Bolsonaro has been the great loner of this summit. He has not had any bilateral meeting with other Heads of State and Government, as is usual in this type of meeting.
The Brazilian president has been accused in Brazil of crimes against humanity for his management of the pandemic and maintains an open conflict with the Catholic Church.
During his visit to Italy, he has been the subject of controversy following the decision of the City Council of Anguillara Veneta, a commune in the Veneto region of northern Italy, to grant him honorary citizenship.
The mayor of that town, Alessandra Buoso, linked to the Italian far-right Liga party, has justified her decision by arguing that the recognition is granted because Bolsonaro’s great-grandfather emigrated from this commune to Brazil in 1888.
According to his official agenda, Bolsonaro plans to travel to Anguillara Veneta this Monday to receive his decoration and will not go to the Conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) in Glasgow.
