Associazione Antigone’s comment on the new Italian security package

The Government has announced a new security package consisting of a decree-law and a bill.
Taken together, these two measures mark a further and serious setback for the rule of law.
Over the past 18 years, six security packages have been adopted.
Yet security continues to be presented as an emergency.
This is a fact that should prompt political leaders to seriously question the effectiveness of this approach.

Both the bill and the decree-law introduce measures that target those who protest, minors, and migrants, while reshaping the role of law enforcement in a dangerously unbalanced way, significantly reducing judicial oversight.
They introduce disproportionate penalties, restrictions on the freedom of assembly, police stops and searches without judicial control, and provisions that risk undermining fundamental constitutional principles such as the mandatory prosecution principle and equality before the law.

This is not security.
It is a repressive response that treats complex social phenomena as a single public order problem.
In light of this scenario, concern is profound.
Security must not become a pretext for compressing fundamental rights and freedoms.

Read our statement