Italian
leaders hit back at accusations of police racism and homophobia
Council of
Europe monitor reports ‘many accounts of racial profiling’ but Giorgia Meloni
says force ‘deserves respect’
Angela
Giuffrida in Rome
Wed 23 Oct
2024 07.49 EDT
The Council
of Europe has come under fire from Italian leaders after the publication of a
report accusing the country’s police force of racist and homophobic abuse.
In its
latest snapshot of Italy, published on Monday, the ECRI, the council’s
independent human rights monitoring body, said that during a visit to Italy its
delegation learned about “many accounts of racial profiling by law enforcement
officials that impacts especially the Roma community and people of African
descent”.
The accounts
of “frequent stop and account activities based on ethnicity” were substantiated
by reports from civil society organisations and international monitoring
bodies, the report added.
Furthermore,
the ECRI claimed that Italian authorities “don’t seem to be aware of the
relevance of the problem and have not considered the existence of racial
profiling as a potential form of institutional racism”.
The report
cited a study conducted among immigrants in 2022 in which 45.8% of respondents
said that out of all public institutions, they experienced the most
discrimination in police stations. Common examples were having their asylum
applications rejected without reason, having their documents destroyed, being
verbally abused and in some cases violently abused. Police were also accused of
verbal and physical abuse during operations in Roma camps.
The ECRI
also said “little or no action” had been taken in recent years “to ensure
better accountability in cases of any racist or LGBTI-phobic abuse committed by
state police officers, carabinieri and other law enforcement officials”.
The report
concluded by asking Italy for a complete and independent study on the
situation.
But Italian
leaders did not welcome the accusations. The prime minister, Giorgia Meloni,
whose far-right government has projected a tough attitude towards law and order
since coming to power in October 2022, fervently defended the police force,
saying it “deserves respect, not such insults”.
Meloni said
in a post on social media: “Our security forces are made up of men and women
who every day work with dedication and self-sacrifice to guarantee the security
of all citizens, without distinctions.”
The Italian
president, Sergio Mattarella, expressed his “astonishment” at the report’s
accusations during a call with the police chief, Vittorio Pisani, while
reiterating his esteem for the police force, Mattarella’s office said.
Antonio
Tajani, a deputy prime minister and the foreign affairs minister, said he had
instructed Italy’s representative in the Council of Europe, Roberto Martini, to
express the government’s “profound disdain” over the report.
“I don’t
agree with a word of what was written,” Tajani said. “There is no racism within
the Italian police force. We must respect those who serve the country, working
day and night for everyone’s safety.”
Matteo
Salvini, who along with Tajani is deputy prime minister, said the police force
had been “dragged through the mud” by a “useless” organisation.
While the
ECRI accusations against the police struck a nerve, the report delivered an
unflattering view of Italy in other areas, too. It noted “with serious concern”
that “Italian public discourse has become increasingly xenophobic in recent
years, and political speech has taken on highly divisive and antagonistic
overtones particularly targeting refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, as well
as Italian citizens with migration backgrounds, Roma and LGBTI persons”.
The report
said a number of derogatory and hateful statements had come from “high-profile
politicians and public officials, especially during election periods, both
online and offline”.
While the
report did not mention politicians by name, it referred to examples, such as a
councillor in Florence who before the 2022 general election posted a video
online of a Roma woman alongside a caption encouraging people to vote for his
party in order to “never see her again”.
The report
also referred to a book published by an army general in 2023 that contained
racist and homophobic comments. The person in question was Roberto Vannacci,
who was elected as an MEP in this year’s European elections.
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