36 arrested at anti-G8 protest in Italy

Italian police arrested 36 demonstrators in the capital city on Tuesday in the clashes against the upcoming Group of Eight (G8) summit.

Photo: 36 arrested at anti-G8 protest in Italy

Protesters with covered faces and helmets blocked roads, threw bottles and stones towards police vehicles, and set fire to tires and garbage bins outside the University of Rome.

Among the arrested, 11 were detained with various charges, while the rest would be released, local media quoted a policeman as saying, Xinhua reports.

Police said citizens of France, Germany and Poland were among those arrested.

Separately Tuesday, police in the town of L'Aquila seized clubs from five French protesters close to where the summit is being held. They were not arrested , Voice of America reports.

Demonstrators hurled bottles at riot police and set fire to tyres on the streets of the Italian capital on Tuesday, news agencies reported.

The clashes came as leaders from some of the world's richest nations gathered in the city ahead of the summit, which begins on Wednesday, aimed at tackling the global economic crisis, climate change and events in Iran.

Italian police were on high alert on the eve of the summit, with 15,000 officers deployed in an effort to prevent a recurrence of the violence seen during the country's last G8 meeting in 2001, Aljazeera.net reports.