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Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Italy Green Pass protest leader banned from another city

Trieste port worker was recently barred from Rome for one year.

Stefano Puzzer, the leader of a high-profile No Green Pass protest in Trieste, has been banned from Pordenone for three years after taking part in a No Vax demonstration at a hospital in the small north Italian city.

Puzzer joined the tail-end of the Wednesday morning protest which saw around 100 No Vax activists gather at the S. Maria degli Angeli hospital in solidarity with health workers suspended for refusing the government's mandate to get vaccinated against covid-19.

The anti-vaxxers intended to "occupy" the hospital but their messages were intercepted the night before by police who showed up to foil the unauthorised protest, reports Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

The failed No Vax demonstration in the hospital was widely condemned by local politicians in the surrounding Friuli-Venezia Giulia region.

Sandra Savino, a deputy from the centre-right Forza Italia party said: "Trying to occupy a hospital means moving from pathetic folklore to criminogenic behaviour", calling for zero tolerance towards "these handfuls of irresponsible wretches".

The deputy mayor of Pordenone, Emanuele Loperfido told news agency ANSA: "The idea of occupying the hospital, hampering the activity of healthcare workers who dedicate everyday to saving human lives, is something we could never have imagined in our town."

Puzzer, who arrived towards the end of the demonstration, addressed the few dozen people still outside the hospital before being taken to the town's police station where he received his three-year ban.

In a video after his release from the Pordenone police station, the indefatigable Puzzer said: "Obviously I am the most dangerous criminal on the loose in Italy. If by persecuting me they think they will tire me and discourage me, they only make me laugh. If they think that I will give up, it is exactly the opposite."

Puzzer defended his presence at the Pordeonone protest by saying: "It was just a meeting of suspended doctors who, together with their lawyer, asked the medical director for an appointment because they wanted to report doctors who have been working for months in hospital without vaccines."

"Then I arrived" - he said - "as a sign of solidarity."

Puzzer's barring order from Pordenone comes just over a month after he was handed a one-year ban from Rome for staging an unauthorised protest in the central Piazza del Popolo.

The Rome sit-in saw him place five chairs with the names of Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, Pope Francis, the US, China and the European Union, saying he was ready for talks.

On 30 November Puzzer travelled to the United Nations headquarters in Geneva where he unsuccessfully attempted to lodge a number of complaints, including the police clearance of the Trieste port protest and his expulsion from Rome.

Puzzer is considered a hero by the No Green Pass movement which is against the government's mandate for every worker in Italy to carry the certificate proving they have been vaccinated, tested negative or recovered from covid-19.

With more than 85 per cent of the population over the age of 12 now double-vaccinated, the government recently banned No Vax and No Green Pass protests from city centres across Italy.

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Address 33170 Pordenone, Province of Pordenone, Italy

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Italy Green Pass protest leader banned from another city

33170 Pordenone, Province of Pordenone, Italy

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