Waves of pro-Palestinian protesters washed over Madrid on Sunday for the Vuelta’s final stage, bringing to a crescendo three weeks of upheaval over the Israeli-Premier Tech team’s participation in clouds of smoke and tear gas.
Demonstrators waving Palestinian flags and chanting pro-Gaza slogans tore down barriers on the Spanish capital’s famed Gran Via commercial thoroughfare and invaded the course where the riders were due to pass.
Police officers, whose numbers were boosted in what authorities had called an “extraordinary deployment”, responded with charges and fired tear gas as one of cycling’s grand tours ended in chaos.
Demonstrators roared in triumph when they learned that organisers had cancelled the stage before the riders arrived, chanting “Palestine wins this Vuelta”.
“Boycott Israel”, “It’s not a war, it’s a genocide”, “No more deaths of innocent children”, they shouted while swamping the street, whistling and waving red, green, black and white Palestinian flags.
“It’s a way of making visible internationally that we are against the genocide in Gaza,” demonstrator Rosa Mostaza Rodriguez, a 54-year-old teacher, told AFP in the Spanish capital.
The tenacious protests, which have targeted the private Israel-Premier Tech team over the devastating war in Gaza, had already generated huge attention and disrupted the race.
The activism had forced some stages to be shortened and occasionally caused crashes as demonstrators burst onto the course, prompting fears for rider safety and the integrity of the competition.
– ‘World is crazy’ –
Anticipating trouble for Sunday’s finale, the authorities sent 1,100 police officers in Madrid’s largest security deployment since the 2022 NATO summit.
But the reinforcements were unable to stop the security breaches along a route that was due to pass landmarks including the Prado art museum and Cibeles Square, where police regrouped and blocked the demonstration.
Hundreds of protesters had massed behind barriers along the route holding signs with the words “Stop the Zionist genocide in Gaza” and “Israel = terrorism”.
Demonstrators wearing the traditional keffiyeh Palestinian scarf roared slogans and gesticulated before a line of imperturbable police officers who were guarding the course, with tense confrontations occasionally breaking out, AFP journalists saw.
Oskar Villamizar Dussan had enjoyed the sporting spectacle but sympathised with the activists.
“I am not against it, they are right, this world is a little bit crazy,” the 53-year-old gardener from Colombia told AFP.
Police escorted away a small group of pro-Israel protesters, who had assembled outside Cibeles Square with Israeli flags draped around their shoulders and attracted cries of “murderers”.
meg/imm/bc
© Agence France-Presse
