Thousands of restaurants have opened in Italy in defiance of the country’s strict Chinese coronavirus lockdown regulations. The mass civil disobedience campaign — launched under the hashtag #IoApro (#IOpen) — has seen as many as 50,000 restaurants opening despite evening curfew restrictions.
Here is one restaurant owner announcing his intentions to defy the lockdown:
Italian opposition MP Vittorio Sgarbi expressed his support for the movement and calling for an insurrection against government restrictions on businesses. He says: “Open up and don’t worry. In the end we will make them eat their fines.”
This footage purportedly shows police in Milan trying to close a reopened restaurant and being driven off by customers:
This footage purportedly shows similar scenes in Bologna, as police are driven away to cries of “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!”:
Italy is not the only country where resistance to the lockdown is growing. There is a similar campaign in Poland under the hashtag #otwieraMY.
Among the Polish businesses planning to open in defiance of the country’s strict lockdown are those in the ski resorts of the Tatra mountains.
“We will end this madness… which wants to destroy Poland and Polishness, destroy the middle class, small and medium-sized enterprises and kill several hundred people a day,” said Sebastian Pitoń, the ad hoc leader of the Górlaskie Veto — Highlanders’ Veto — movement, which claims to represent around 200 businesses.
“I hope our action… will make all of central Europe get off this crazy train which is heading for destruction,” Pitoń said, addressing journalists while wearing the traditional dress of Poland’s southern highlanders.
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