CIVICUS discusses Italy’s new Security Decree with Pasquale Prencipe, a lawyer, member of the research staff of Associazione Antigone, an Italian civil society organisation (CSO) working to ensure respect for rights in Italian prisons, and editor of a recent publication, ‘The greatest attack on the freedom of protest in the history of the Italian Republic’.
On 11 April, the Italian government approved a Security Decree, which was passed into law by parliament on 9 June, expanding police public order powers and criminalising non-violent protests such as roadblocks, sit-ins and passive resistance. The decree will target civil society and people from excluded groups. Civil society has denounced the decree as a violation of the right to peaceful assembly, protected by the Italian Constitution and international human rights treaties.