Security, yes to jail for roadblocks. Detained mothers, hold remains

From 'speech terrorism' to roadblocks and the 'arbitrary occupation of a property used as someone else's home', the Chamber of Deputies yesterday approved many of the new offences introduced by the Security Bill, approved by the Council of Ministers in November last year and landed in the House after a long process in the Constitutional Affairs and Justice Committees and bitter divisions, including within the majority.

The yes of the deputies went as far as Article 14 of the text, one of the most contested of the total 38: modifying Legislative Decree 66/1948, it replaces with imprisonment of up to one month and a fine of up to 300 euro the administrative sanction from 1,000 to 4,000 euro hitherto provided for 'anyone who impedes the free movement on an ordinary road or railroad (also a novelty, ed.), obstructing it with his own body. If the act is committed by several persons united, the punishment is increased from six months to two years'. The attacks by the oppositions were unprovoked. "This government wants to shut the mouths of those who protest peacefully, as Putin does in Moscow," stressed Dem Laura Boldrini. "To workers who take to the streets to defend their jobs, to activists who protest about the climate crisis and are not heard, you respond by sending them to prison. A penalty that, paradoxically, is not applied if the blockade is done with a dumpster, with a car, with a tractor'. 'We are escalating into the indiscriminate criminalisation of activism and legitimate forms of protest, and it is very, very serious,' commented Sergio Costa (M5S), Vice-President of the Chamber.

Montecitorio also gave the green light to the new contravention aimed at preventing terrorism and other serious crimes directed at those who violate the obligations to report vehicle rental contracts, extended to the identification data of the car (number plate and chassis number, changes in ownership) and sub-rental contracts: it provides for an arrest of up to three months or a fine of up to 206 euro. Amendments to the anti-mafia regulations also passed, including the novelty - introduced in committee - that the prefect, if he considers that the prerequisites for the adoption of the interdiction notice subsist, 'may exclude one or more prohibitions and disqualifications' if he ascertains that as a result of the interdiction notice 'the livelihood of the owner of the sole proprietorship and his family would be lacking'.

A green light was also given to Article 9, which amends Article 10-bis of Law 91/1992 on the revocation of citizenship, stipulating that in the case of a final sentence for terrorist and subversive offences and other serious crimes, "revocation cannot be carried out if the person concerned has no other citizenship or cannot acquire another one" and extending the deadline for adopting the revocation measure from three to ten years from the final passage of the sentence. All the amendments tabled by the oppositions on the possibility of giving citizenship to children and young people who have attended a five-year school cycle, the so-called 'ius scholae', were rejected. Paolo Emilio Russo of Forza Italia, who with Vice-Premier Antonio Tajani during the summer opened the front in favour in the majority, announced that an ad hoc text would be presented "to reform the rules governing the granting of citizenship".

Much debated, but nevertheless approved, is Article 10 on the new offence (634 bis) that punishes with imprisonment from two to seven years 'anyone who, by means of violence or threat, occupies or holds without title a property intended as a home for others or its appurtenances, or prevents the owner or the person who legitimately holds it from re-entering the same property, shall be punished by imprisonment from two to seven years. The same punishment shall apply to anyone who appropriates another person's property or its appurtenances by means of artifice or deception or transfers the occupied property to another person. Prosecution is ex officio 'if the act is committed against a person who is incapacitated by age or infirmity'. The provision also empowers the police to vacate the property quickly.