Thousands march in Rome against security clampdown law
Representative AI image
Thousands of demonstrators marched through Rome on Saturday to protest a new security law passed by prime minister Giorgia Meloni's hard-right government, denouncing its criminal justice reforms as repressive.
Under tight police guard and sweltering heat, protesters marched through central Rome past landmarks including the Colosseum, waving trade union and Palestinian flags.
The law increases sentences for certain acts including protests and strengthens protections for police officers accused of violence.
"We consider this law the biggest attack on the freedom to dissent" against the government "in the history of the Italian republic," lawyer Cesare Antetomaso, a member of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers, told AFP.
The decree, passed by the lower house on Thursday after cabinet approval in April, is expected to clear the Senate, where the ruling right has a firm majority, within 10 days.
Police facing charges for violence while on duty will be eligible for 10,000 euros ($11,350) in legal aid under the new rules.
Offences such as taking part in "prison riots" will carry harsher sentences, including cases of passive resistance.
Illegal squatters face faster eviction procedures, and pregnant women or mothers of young children will no longer have the chance of avoiding jail when convicted, albeit in less severe detention centres.
Traditional union protests such as road blockades during protests, formerly considered only an administrative offence, could now carry jail terms of up to two years.
"There is a drastic increase in penalties for occupying buildings to live in," Antetomaso said.
"The housing crisis cannot be solved with seven-year prison sentences for those without shelter, but with various social policies."
The government insists it has a mandate to pass the law.
"Order, security and legality are at the heart of the Meloni government's actions," Carolina Varchi, a deputy in Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy party, said Friday.
"Challenging this decree means, in effect, turning one's back on the demand for security that comes from citizens."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Mexicans elect their judges under shadow of crime, corruption
Mexico City: Mexicans chose their judges Sunday in unprecedented elections that sharply divided opinion in a country plagued by rampant crime, corruption and impunity. The government and its supporters said the reform making Mexico the world's only nation to select all of its judges and magistrates by popular vote was needed to clean up a rotten justice system. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Arturo Giesemann, a 57-year-old retiree, said his main motivation for voting was "the disgust I have with the current judiciary because of its corruption." Turnout reached only around 13 percent of the 100 million eligible voters, according to the National Electoral Institute. With more than 880 positions to fill, many voters struggled to choose from the plethora of largely unknown candidates. "We are not very prepared," said Lucia Calderon, a 63-year-old university teacher. "I think we need more information." In the western state of Jalisco, 63-year-old housewife Maria Estrada said she used her "intuition" as she did not know the candidates. Experts were concerned that the elections would politicize the justice system and make it easier for criminals to influence the courts with threats and bribery. While corruption already exists, "there is reason to believe that elections may be more easily infiltrated by organized crime than other methods of judicial selection," Margaret Satterthwaite, the United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, told AFP. Hundreds of opponents of the reforms marched through Mexico City waving flags and banners with slogans including: "Hands off our democracy" and "No to electoral fraud." The elections send the judiciary "to its grave," said Ismael Novela, a 58-year-old company worker. "It was the last counterweight we had against the totalitarianism of the executive branch." - 'Regime of corruption' - President Claudia Sheinbaum has defended the need for the judicial reform, insisting on the eve of the vote that only those who "want the regime of corruption and privileges" to continue were against it. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Just after polls closed, she called the vote a "complete success." "For the first time in history, almost 13 million Mexican women and men exercised their right to decide the new ministers, magistrates and judges," Sheinbaum said in a video message posted to social media. The run-up to the vote was not accompanied by the kind of violence that often targets politicians in Mexico. But "it is logical that organized criminal groups would have approached judges and candidates who are important to them," said consultant Luis Carlos Ugalde, a former head of Mexico's electoral commission. Rights group Defensorxs has identified around 20 candidates it considers "high risk," including Silvia Delgado, a former lawyer for Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Another aspiring judge, in Durango state, spent almost six years in prison in the United States for drug crimes. - 'Good reputation' - Voters were tasked with choosing around 880 federal judges -- including Supreme Court justices -- as well as hundreds of local judges and magistrates. Another election for the remainder will be held in 2027. Candidates were supposed to have a law degree, experience in legal affairs and what is termed "a good reputation," as well as no criminal record. To do a good job, voters "would have to spend hours and hours researching the track record and the profiles of each of the hundreds of candidates," said David Shirk, a professor at the University of San Diego. He believes that most of the corruption in Mexico's judicial system is in law enforcement agencies and public prosecutor offices. "If you can avoid being prosecuted, you don't have to worry about the judge," said Shirk, who heads the Justice in Mexico research project. The judicial reforms were championed by Sheinbaum's predecessor and mentor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who frequently clashed with the courts before stepping down last year. The main reason for the elections seems to be "because Lopez Obrador had a grudge against the judges," Shirk said.
Hindustan Times
an hour ago
- Hindustan Times
Indian-American student banned from graduation ceremony after pro-Palestinian speech
New York, An Indian-American student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was barred from attending her graduation ceremony after delivering a speech denouncing the war in Gaza, according to media reports. Megha Vemuri, the 2025 class president of MIT, is the latest in the list of students to face discipline after protesting the war in Gaza. Vemuri told CNN that after her speech, the university's senior leadership informed her she was not allowed to attend Friday's commencement ceremony and was barred from campus until the event concluded. School officials confirmed that they told Vemuri that she was prohibited from attending the undergraduate ceremony. MIT leadership said that they stand by the punishment they issued to Vemuri. 'MIT supports free expression but stands by its decision, which was in response to the individual deliberately and repeatedly misleading Commencement organisers and leading a protest from the stage,' a school spokesperson said in a statement. The school said that she would receive her degree. Vemuri, who grew up in Georgia, was a scheduled speaker at Thursday's OneMIT Commencement ceremony in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she took to the podium, with a keffiyeh – a symbol of pro-Palestinian solidarity – draped over her graduation robe. She praised her peers for protesting the war in Gaza and criticised the university's ties to Israel. An MIT spokesperson told CNN Vemuri's sppech on Thursday 'was not the one that was provided by the speaker in advance.' Vemuri's father Sarat said that she was a double major, in computation and cognition and linguistics, and was told that she would receive her diploma by mail. Vemuri said she was grateful for her family, who have been present this week, supporting her. She says she's not disappointed about not getting to walk the stage. 'I see no need for me to walk across the stage of an institution that is complicit in this genocide,' Vemuri said. 'I am, however, disappointed that MIT's officials massively overstepped their roles to punish me without merit or due process, with no indication of any specific policy broken,' she added. He called MIT's purported support of free speech hypocritical. The Council on American-Islamic Relations has condemned the university's decision to ban Vemuri from the ceremony. 'MIT must respect academic freedom and respect the voices of its students, not punish and intimidate those who speak out against genocide and in support of Palestinian humanity,' CAIR-Massachusetts Executive Director Tahirah Amatul-Wadud said in a statement. College campuses across the US have witnessed protest encampments and accusations of antisemitism since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023, and the ensuing war in Gaza. The tensions coupled with the Trump administration's attacks on universities, have left some school communities wrestling with how to balance civility and safety with open expression and debate, The New York Times said. New York University recently said it was withholding the diploma of a student who condemned 'genocide' in Gaza while delivering a graduation speech. Several students at Harvard, Columbia and other universities nationwide are also facing disciplinary threats. At the start of the school year in September, MIT issued new school rules surrounding when and where students can protest on its campus. School leadership has responded more strictly toward unsanctioned demonstrations this year, which was a departure from the prior school year when protestors camped out on campus.
United News of India
an hour ago
- United News of India
Hamas expresses readiness to begin new round of Gaza peace talks
Gaza/Jerusalem, June 2 (UNI) Hamas said on Sunday that it affirms its readiness to begin indirect negotiations over the Gaza ceasefire immediately. In a press statement, Hamas expressed its appreciation for the continued efforts by Qatar and Egypt to broker a ceasefire agreement. The movement said that it is ready to "immediately begin a round of indirect negotiations" to address the outstanding issues with "the other party." Hamas said the objective of the talks would be to end the "humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza, ensure the delivery of relief aid to the Palestinian people, and achieve a permanent ceasefire accompanied by the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. There has been no immediate comment from the Israeli side regarding the Hamas announcement. However, Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir has ordered the expansion of the ground operation into additional areas in both the southern and northern parts of the Gaza Strip, according to a statement issued by the Israel Defense Forces. He stated that the expansion of activity will continue until conditions are created for the return of the Israeli hostages and the decisive defeat of Hamas. UNI XINHUA GNK
