Anti-Semitism bill, first go-ahead in the Senate with 105 yes votes

Creating a database to chart incidents considered to be hate crimes, raising awareness of the issue through public service channels and removing content on social platforms that incites discrimination or violence, including content generated with artificial intelligence. These are some of the objectives that the government aims to achieve with the new regulations contained in the anti-Semitism bill, which got the first green light in the Senate with 105 yes, 24 against and 21 abstained.

There are 6 PD senators who voted in favour of the bill against anti-Semitism. In addition to Graziano Delrio who announced it in the Chamber, the names of Alfredo Bazoli, Pier Ferdinando Casini, Filippo Sensi, Walter Verini and Sandra Zampa appear from the printouts. There were 21 Dem abstentions, other senators from the group (which has 36 members in all) were absent or on mission. The party had previously expressed the possibility of abstaining if certain points of the text were not changed.

The two parts that ended up in the crosshairs of the opposition and also of Fratelli d'Italia, namely the ban on demonstrations and the criminal provisions, were expunged from the new text. The previously inserted Article 3 provided for the possibility of banning processions 'in the event of an assessment of serious potential risk due to the use of symbols, slogans, messages and any other anti-Semitic acts'.

The amendment request was therefore accepted. The rapporteur Daisy Pirovano herself admitted that she had also accepted the request in order to encourage a broad convergence on the final vote, by positively assessing some of the proposed amendments. For the senator, therefore, the result is: 'A very different text compared to the one presented, although the general structure is identical'.

On the other hand, an amendment by Maurizio Gasparri that would toughen the ddl by introducing a criminal rule, modifying Article 604-bis that punishes propaganda and incitement to hatred, was not approved. 'I have made not renunciations, but efforts, because the parliamentary debate must also serve a mutual conviction,' the senator's words.