Amnesty International Report 2005 - Italy

Covering events from January - December 2004

There were further allegations of excessive use of force, ill-treatment and racial abuse by law enforcement and prison officers, together with reports of detainee and prisoner deaths in disputed circumstances. Detention conditions in some facilities, including temporary holding centres for aliens, fell below international standards. Many asylum-seekers faced obstacles in exercising their right to claim asylum; some may have been returned to countries where they were at risk of human rights violations. Roma and a number of other ethnic minorities suffered discrimination in many areas including policing, housing and employment. Domestic violence against women remained prevalent, but the majority of victims did not report it to the authorities, leading to calls for more concerted efforts to educate the public about the assistance already available to women and for further research into this serious abuse. Trafficking in people, in particular women and children, for sexual exploitation and forced labour remained a problem, despite government efforts to combat it.

Background

In September, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe deplored the fact that "no stable improvement" could yet be seen in tackling the excessive length of judicial proceedings in Italy. The Committee noted that "the situation generally worsened between 2002 and 2003."

There was continuing tension between the government and many magistrates who argued that proposed reforms to the justice system would undermine their independence. In December the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers expressed concern to the President of the Republic that the reforms represented "a worrying limitation" to the independence of the judiciary and welcomed the President's decision not to ratify the reforms and to return the relevant judicial reform bill to parliament.

Legislative initiatives to introduce a specific crime of torture into the Penal Code, as repeatedly recommended by UN treaty bodies, continued to suffer delays and setbacks.

Asylum and immigration

There was still no specific and comprehensive law on asylum. A draft law still awaiting parliamentary discussion at the end of the year fell short of relevant international standards. The protection for asylum-seekers offered under certain provisions of immigration legislation did not guarantee access to a fair and impartial individual asylum determination procedure. There were fears that many people in need of protection were forced to return to countries where they were at risk of grave human rights violations. Excessive delays in the asylum determination process, combined with inadequate provision for the basic needs of asylum-seekers, resulted in many people being left destitute while awaiting the outcome of initial asylum applications.

Thousands of migrants and asylum-seekers continued to arrive on southern shores by boat and hundreds of others perished in the attempt. Many such boats set out from Libya. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), AI and other domestic and international organizations working for refugees' human rights expressed deep concern about a number of episodes where the fundamental rights of people arriving by sea were not respected.

• In July UNHCR expressed "strong concern over apparent disregard for accepted international and European standards and for fundamental elements of due process" in connection with the expulsion to Ghana of 25 asylum-seekers. They were among a group of 37 people who had been allowed, on humanitarian grounds and after considerable delay, to disembark from a boat belonging to a German non-governmental organization.

• In October UNHCR expressed "deep concern" over the fate of hundreds of new arrivals from Africa and the Middle East on the southern island of Lampedusa, following reports that many were being sent to Libya "without proper assessment of their possible protection needs." It said that lack of access to the individuals concerned, in both Italy and Libya, was preventing it from exercising its mandate to ensure that refugees are properly protected. AI called for such access to be granted immediately. UNHCR subsequently reported that some five days after requesting authorization, and "following the return by air of more than 1,000 persons to Libya", it was granted access to the Lampedusa processing centre where those arriving had been held initially. Its preliminary evaluation was that "the rushed method used to sort out the incoming persons by nationality" had "not allowed individual persons from all national groups concerned to claim asylum."

Temporary holding centres

Thousands of foreign nationals without a right of residence in Italy, or suspected of not having such a right, were detained in temporary holding centres where they could remain for up to a maximum of 60 days before expulsion from the country as illegal immigrants or release. Many inmates experienced difficulties in gaining access to the expert advice necessary to challenge the legality of their detention and of expulsion orders. Some inmates trying to pursue asylum claims were apparently unable to gain access to the asylum determination process.

Tension in the centres was high, with frequent protests, including escape attempts, and high levels of self-harm. There were reports of frequent overcrowding, unsuitable infrastructures, unhygienic living conditions, unsatisfactory diets and inadequate medical care. Several criminal investigations were under way into alleged physical assaults on inmates.

Updates

• In January, a Roman Catholic priest employed as the director of Regina Pacis temporary holding centre in Puglia province, two doctors, five members of the administrative personnel, and 11 carabinieri providing the centre's security service, were ordered to stand trial in connection with the physical assault and racial abuse of inmates in November 2002. The trial was continuing at the end of the year.

• The Bologna Public Prosecutor concluded a criminal investigation into allegations that some 11 police officers, one carabiniere and a member of the Red Cross administration running the via Mattei holding centre were involved in a physical assault on inmates in March 2003. The Prosecutor indicated that he would be requesting the committal for trial of at least four police officers.

In January the Prosecutor opened another criminal investigation, following complaints lodged by three former inmates who alleged that they and other detainees had regularly been given strong sedative drugs without their knowledge. The Prosecutor subsequently concluded that the food and drink taken from the centre for expert analysis had not revealed the presence of the drugs indicated in the inmates' complaints and supporting blood analyses, and that the latter were unreliable. However, his findings and request to the judge of preliminary investigation that no further action be taken were challenged by lawyers representing the inmates. The judge's decision was still awaited at the end of the year.

Police brutality

Allegations of ill-treatment by law enforcement officers often concerned Roma, immigrants from outside the European Union and demonstrators. Police shootings, some fatal, occurred in disputed circumstances. A number of criminal investigations were under way into such incidents. Some officers were brought to trial but in general law enforcement officers enjoyed considerable impunity.

• In February the Supreme Court overturned an appeal court ruling which had acquitted a Naples police officer of the murder of 17-year-old Mario Castellano in 2000. A first instance court had sentenced the officer to 10 years' imprisonment. The boy, who was unarmed, was riding a motor-scooter but was not wearing a helmet, as required by law, when he apparently failed to obey a police order to stop. He was shot in the back by the police officer who maintained that he had shot him accidentally. Mario Castellano's family made an unsuccessful application for the president of the appeal court to be substituted, questioning his impartiality in view of opinions he had expressed in the media criticizing the lower court's verdict. The Supreme Court said that the appeal court's argument for acquittal had been "illogical" and ordered a retrial.

Updates: policing of 2001 demonstrations

Among the ongoing criminal proceedings were a number relating to policing operations surrounding the mass demonstrations which occurred in Naples in March 2001 and during the G8 Summit in Genoa in July 2001.

• In July, 31 police officers on duty in a carabinieri barracks used as a detention facility on the day of the Naples demonstration, were committed for trial on charges ranging from abduction to bodily harm and coercion: some officers were additionally accused of abusing their position as state officers and of falsifying records. Their trial opened in December.

• In February, a judge ruled that there were no grounds to prosecute 93 people accused of belonging to a criminal association intent on looting and destroying property. The accused had been detained during an overnight police raid on a building legally occupied by the Genoa Social Forum (GSF), the main organizer of the Genoa demonstrations. All the other accusations originally brought against them, including violently resisting state officers and carrying offensive weapons, had been dropped in 2003.

• In December, 28 police officers involved in the GSF raid, including several high-ranking officers, were committed for trial on various charges, including assault and battery, falsifying and planting evidence and abusing their powers as state officers. Scores more law enforcement officers involved in the raid and believed to have participated in physical assaults apparently could not be identified because their faces were frequently hidden by riot helmets, masks or scarves during the raid and they displayed no other means of individual identification. The trial was due to open in April 2005.

• The Genoa Public Prosecutor's Office requested the committal for trial of 12 carabinieri, 14 police officers, 16 prison officers and five prison doctors and nurses who were on duty inside Bolzaneto temporary detention facility at the time of the G8 Summit and through which over 200 detainees passed. The charges envisaged included abuse of authority, threats, assault, falsification of records and failure to officially report injuries. A judge of preliminary investigation was scheduled to start examining the request in January 2005.

• In October a police officer became the first law enforcement officer to be sentenced in connection with the G8 Summit policing operation. The officer, who had opted to be tried using a fast-track procedure, which allows sentences to be reduced by a third, was given a 20-month suspended sentence and ordered to pay compensation for striking a 15-year-old demonstrator in the face with his truncheon. At the same time, five other officers accused of participating in assaults on the boy and six other demonstrators, who had opted to be tried using the ordinary criminal process, were committed for trial to answer charges including abuse of authority, threats, assault, perjury and falsification of records. The boy and the other six demonstrators had originally been accused of assaulting officers and resisting arrest, but the boy had already been cleared of the charges, while the prosecutors had already requested that no further action be taken against the other demonstrators.

Ill-treatment and poor conditions in prisons

Chronic overcrowding and understaffing persisted in prisons, along with high rates of suicide and self-harm. There were many reports of poor sanitary conditions and inadequate medical assistance. Infectious diseases and mental health problems were on the increase.

Numerous criminal proceedings, involving large numbers of prison staff, were under way into alleged ill-treatment of individual prisoners and sometimes large groups of prisoners. Some proceedings were marked by excessive delays, with a few dating back to the mid-1990s. The allegations related to prisons across the country. They concerned psychological and physical, including sexual, abuse of prisoners, in some cases carried out systematically and sometimes amounting to torture. The criminal proceedings included at least six into individual prisoner deaths which occurred in disputed circumstances between 1997 and 2004.

AI country visits

Two AI representatives visited Italy in October