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Yossra Fakir, the niece of Abderrahim Fakir, who was brutally killed by police officers in cold blood in Bologna on Sunday, said the family and those in support of the victim are not asking for revenge or hatred, but the truth.
“We are not here to ask for hatred; we are not here to ask for revenge. We are here to ask for the truth,” Yossra said at a rally on Monday.
The protest took place at the initiative of Bologna’s Mayor Matteo Lepore, who expressed unwavering support for the victim’s family and Fakir, who was brutally killed by two police officers while he was pleading for help.
Two police officers arrested Fakir on Sunday and brutally held him down, with his face facing the ground while he was handcuffed with plastic zip ties.
While Fakir was crying for help and urging them to stop, his pleas were unheard. He laid unconscious on the ground shortly after, a video taken by a local shows.
The killing of Fakir took place after one neighbor reported that the victim was allegedly “behaving agitatedly,” which led to a police intervention.
The intervention and arrest, however, took a violent and fatal turn, with police allegedly striking him with a vehicle, arresting him, and violently tackling him until death.
Yossra, Fakir’s niece, emphasized that it is a duty for her to be present at rallies, demanding justice for her uncle.
“It’s my way of standing beside my family, giving a voice to someone who can no longer speak. We will continue to demand the truth for him and for our family, so that no one else ever has to go through what he went through,” she said while in tears.
Barbara Spinelli, a Bologna-based lawyer specializing in asylum law and co-president of the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights, also commented on the case, as she had represented Fakir last year in renewing his residence permit.
In a Facebook post, Spinelli wrote an emotional letter mourning Fakir’s death.
“We had met in my office just a few days ago. You were happy because, in a few months, your legal proceedings would finally be over. You would receive your residence permit and finally be able to travel and look for new contracts to keep your business afloat and provide work for your employees,” she wrote.
She acknowledged Fakir was always expressing concerns over migratory challenges, especially the new European Pact on Migration.
“You told me, ‘Lawyer, we’re becoming like America here. They’ll send everyone away—even people like me, whose country of citizenship they’ve only visited a few times on vacation, because they were born and raised here.’”
She said while she defended her country, stating that police in Italy respect the law, what happened to Fakir now probably proves her wrong.
“You weren’t entirely convinced. Now that conversation won’t let me sleep. I came back from today’s vigil, and I could almost hear you saying to me, ‘You see, lawyer?’—with the kindness that always distinguished you,” the lawyer added.
She said that while Fakir always feared being deported, he was instead killed in their hands.
“What words will I ever be able to say again when someone tells me, ‘I’m afraid?’ Every time, I will think of you before answering. I will no longer be able to reassure people or explain things to them. I will have to swallow the words, ‘Maybe you’re right to be afraid—you never know how things might end,’” the lawyer added.
