On March 7, 10,000 pro-Palestine supporters protested in Malmo, Sweden, outside an arena where Sweden and Israel were competing in the Davis Cup, an international tennis tournament.
The protests were organized by Stop the Match coalition, whose main demand was “No sports exchange with an occupation force—stop the war and boycott Israel!” Due to the militancy of the protests and the increasing world-wide support for the Palestinian people, the Davis Cup match was forced to be played without spectators. The arena normally seats 4,000 and only 300 seats were occupied.
This is the second tennis tournament to be played behind closed doors in Sweden. In 1975, two years after Augusto Pinochet led a brutal military coup against Salvador Allende, a tennis match between Sweden and Chile was played to empty seats.
In recent weeks, several sporting events were protested by pro-Palestine demonstrations, including a basketball match in Turkey where Israeli players were forced to retreat into the locker room.
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