The Italian Senate has passed a major security decree targeting public demonstrations, pickpockets, and squatters. The decree also prohibits the trade in hemp. Opposition groups and civil rights activists have criticized the measures as “unnecessarily repressive.”
The decree prohibits blocking roads and vandalizing public property. The measure is primarily aimed at climate demonstrators. They have disrupted traffic or thrown paint on monuments more than once in Italy.
Demonstrators also face stricter sanctions if they clash with the police and suffer injuries. Officers under investigation or required to appear in court for causing those injuries will receive legal assistance insurance up to 10,000 euros.
Riots in prisons and detention centers are also punished. This even applies to passive resistance, a form of resistance in which no violence is used. The decree also states that people who occupy properties, or squatters, are committing a crime.
In addition, the decree eliminates an exemption from imprisonment for convicted pregnant women or women with babies. Supporters of the measure claim that female members of the Roma ethnic minority are abusing that exemption to escape punishment for pickpocketing.
Ban on hemp trade is concerning for entrepreneurs
The right-wing coalition government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has put forward the measures. One of the measures is the ban on the trade in hemp.
The difference between hemp and marijuana is that hemp has no hallucinatory components. It is mainly used industrially in fibers and oils. Entrepreneurs fear that the ban will cost thousands of jobs and jeopardize millions of euros in investments.
Senate passes package in ‘stormy’ session
The Italian version of the Senate passed the package of measures with 109 votes in favor and 69 against. One of the members abstained from voting.
It was a “stormy session,” writes news agency Reuters. The session was temporarily interrupted when opposition members protested in the senate and shouted “shame, shame.”
“We are challenging a government that wants to lock up children, striking students, and demonstrators at factories,” said a senator from the center-left Democratic Party to present reporters.
But the coalition does not recognize that picture. “Anyone who breaks something has to pay for it. Anyone who makes a mistake has to pay. It is right that they pay for it with a prison sentence,” said Senator Gianni Berrino of Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), the party of Prime Minister Meloni.