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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Demonstrators roared in triumph when they learned that organisers had cancelled the stage before the riders arrived, chanting “Palestine wins this Vuelta”.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
– ‘World is crazy’ –<\/p>\n
Anticipating trouble for Sunday’s finale, the authorities sent 1,100 police officers in Madrid’s largest security deployment since the 2022 NATO summit.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of protesters had massed behind barriers along the route holding signs with the words “Stop the Zionist genocide in Gaza” and “Israel = terrorism”.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Oskar Villamizar Dussan had enjoyed the sporting spectacle but sympathised with the activists.<\/p>\n
“I am not against it, they are right, this world is a little bit crazy,” the 53-year-old gardener from Colombia told AFP.<\/p>\n
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”.<\/p>\n
meg\/imm\/bc<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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