Thousands protest Turin book fair's Israel theme

TURIN, Italy (AFP) - Between 3,000 to 4,000 people gathered Saturday to protest against the Turin book fair's decision to showcase Israeli writers, an AFP photographer at the scene said.

"Free Palestine" organisers put the demonstration's attendance at 10,000, while police said 1,500 had turned out to criticise the book fair's choice to highlight 60 years of the Jewish state as its central theme.

"Boycott Israel, support Palestine," read a banner at the head of a cortege heading for the former Fiat factory which is hosting the prestigious booksellers' exhibition, due to end on Monday.

Around 1,000 police were mobilised to shepherd protesters who denounced "the continuing terror and daily raids which have, these last few years, killed 5,050 Palestinians and destroyed 32,000 houses".

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano inaugurated the Turin fair, while new Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Friday that Italians are closer to Israel than any other people, saying protesters who targeted the fair earlier in the week represented "0.00 percent" of the population.

The demonstrators were supported by Italy's 1997 Nobel prize winner for literature, playwright and director Dario Fo, for having "raised the problem of the absence of the Palestinian question at the fair".

Fo criticised organisers for not having invited Palestinian authors.

The Paris book fair in March, which also cast a spotlight on Israeli literature, drew similar Palestinian protesters.

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