The far-right government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has proposed a new security decree that would criminalize non-violent protests that block roads and resisting a police offer in prison or in a migrant reception center. The opposition has dubbed the legislation “anti-Gandhi” for targeting the forms of peaceful resistance advocated by the Indian civil rights leader.
The law approved by Congress on September 18, and just needs to be passed by the Senate, where the government wants it to be on the top of the agenda. The security decree creates up to 20 new criminal offenses or aggravating circumstances and increases prison time for offenders.
For example, cutting off roads or railways as a form of protest will be a criminal offense punishable by up to two years in prison — even if the action is nonviolent. Until now, this kind of protest — which is often carried out by unions and environmentalists — was punished with an administrative sanction.
Italy’s main trade union, CGIL, said that “it is a disgrace to introduce rules designed to indiscriminately punish those who express their disagreement with the government or demonstrate to defend a job.”
Participating in road or railway blockades can lead to a month in prison, but if it is done in a collective mobilization, a person could face between six months and two years. What’s more, the security decree introduces an aggravating factor, which increases the penalties by up to a third. In view of the recent protests against the Messina Strait bridge and high-speed trains, a defendant will receive a longer prison time if their actions were aimed at preventing “a public work or a strategic infrastructure from being completed.”
The punishment for the crime of causing property damage during a protest if there is violence to persons or threats will also be increased from 1.5 years in prison to six. On the other hand, police officers will be able to carry weapons without a license when they are off duty, such as a revolver, pistol or long gun.
The decree also criminalizes “passive resistance” as a method of protest in prisons and in migrant reception centers. Anyone who “participates in a revolt through acts of violence or threats or resistance to the execution of orders given,” in groups of three or more people, faces between one and five years in prison. The move comes amid growing protests in Italy’s prisons over the poor state of the facilities, which are run-down and overcrowded (61,840 inmates for 46,929 places). So far this year, 72 inmates have killed themselves.
What’s more, under the new decree, pregnant women and women with children under one-year-old, will no longer be exempt from having to go to prison. If the decree is approved, these women will be sent behind bars. This rule is aimed at female pickpockets, who are repeatedly caught but suffer no further consequences.
The new rules also consider crimes “in or near a railway or metro station” or inside the carriages an aggravating factor — a move that comes in response to the high crime rates on subway and train station in Rome and Milan.
The decree takes aim too at squatters: anyone who occupies a property or prevents the owner from accessing it will face between two and six years in prison. An emergency procedure is established for evicting the property and will be carried out automatically if the owner is unable to due to age or illness.
The security decree has also sparked controversy for ending the 2016 law that legalized so-called light cannabis, with less than 0.2% THC. The new rules will put it on the same level as other cannabinoids. The problem is that since the 2016 law was passed: there are now 800 companies that grow cannabis light and 1,500 that operate in the business. They have a turnover of €500 million and employ 11,000 people. It was supposed to be a growing sector, but it has come under attack from the League — the right-wing political party that forms part of Meloni’s government — which wanted to prohibit even the drawing of a marijuana leaf for advertising purposes, a proposal that was eventually dropped from the decree.
The League also proposed for chemical castration for rapists and pedophiles. Matteo Salvini’s populist party has managed to get at a technical commission approved to study the possibility of chemical castration for convicted sex offenders, provided they voluntarily accept the procedure. Under the plan, they could receive suspended sentences in exchange for hormone-blocking treatment. It is a measure that is applied in Russia, Poland and some Scandinavian countries, but there is debate about its effectiveness.
Italy’s Democratic Party (PD), the rest of the opposition parties and several legal experts have argued that it is unconstitutional and anachronistic to apply corporal punishment. It is not likely that this will go beyond the commission, but it is a sign of how the League has been able to influence public debate. Another key issue of the party is reinstating compulsory military service. Last week, the group made two parliamentary proposals.
Meloni’s security decree has been met with unusually strong opposition from the country’s judiciary. Fabrizio Vanorio, a public prosecutor from Naples, warned: “It provides for technically fascist rules. If approved, it would return Italy to an authoritarian criminal law similar to that of the Mussolini years or, to give a more modern example, yo that of Orbán’s Hungary.”
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