Last Generation environmentalists are being taken out after showing a banner against the use of fossil fuels in the Trevi Fountain. (Mauro Scrobogna/LaPresse via AP)
Climate protesters in Rome, Italy on Sunday entered the famous Trevi Fountain and released charcoal to turn the water black as they held banners and shouted toward the cameras while crowds of residents and tourists booed and yelled at them. When they were eventually dragged away by police the crowds cheered.
The vandalism was organized by the group Ultima Generazione (Last Generation) to protest the use of fossil fuels. Earlier this month the same group grabbed attention with a topless roadblock protest in Rome.
At the 260-year-old Trevi Fountain, a major tourism spot in the Eternal City, nine members of the group stormed into the waters and dumped charcoal dye into it, turning the water black as they shouted to the crowd and cameras.
Eventually, police went into the water of the fountain and dragged the activists out and finally arresting them.
Italian news site AGTW ran a livestream of the protest on Twitter. Here are some
Image via screenshot.
Image via Screenshot
Image via screenshot
Ultima Generazione released their own images and video the public from the illegal protest.
AS the protesters were dragged crowds could be heard cheering. Some people came up and yelled at the activists while they were awaiting arrest beside the fountain.
Ultima Generazione on Telegram
Ultima Generazione on Telegram
Some of the messages on the banners read “our country is dying” and “let’s not pay for fossils.”
From Daily Mail:
The environmental group said the carbon liquid used for the protest did not damage the fountain, but Rome mayor Roberto Gualtieri said the clean-up would ‘cost time, effort and water, because this is a fountain which uses recirculating water’.’We now have to empty it, and throw away 300,000 litres of water,’ he said. In a statement, Ultima Generazione called for an end to public subsidies for fossil fuels and linked the protests to deadly floods in the
northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna in recent days.
Mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri said on Twitter that activists must stop attacking Italy’s artistic heritage and monuments.
“Enough of these absurd attacks on our artistic heritage. Today smeared the #FontanadiTrevi . Expensive and complex to restore, hoping that there is no permanent damage. I invite activists to compete on a confrontational terrain without putting the monuments at risk,” he wrote. (Translated by Google.)
Watch the clips above via AGTW.