The Rome Kurdistan Network organised a sit-in at Rome's Castel Sant'Angelo monument on Monday during a visit to the capital by Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"The protest is to strongly state #ErdoganNotWelcome - Rome does not want you here and rejects the government's silent complicity in the bombing of Afrin," the group wrote on its Facebook page.
It was referring to the deadly offensive launched in January by the Turkish military and allied Ankara-backed Syrian rebel forces in the Kurdish enclave of Afrin against Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia.
Erdogan had an audience on Monday with Pope Francis at the nearby Vatican amid a security lockdown during his 24-hour visit to Rome.
Castel Sant'Angelo is outside the 'green zone' in central Rome where the Italian government has taken the unprecedented step of banning all demonstrations amid a security lockdown for Erdogan's visit.
