Thread: Italy unveils anti-sex crime and illegal immigration measure

Italy unveils anti-sex crime and illegal immigration measures



Feb 20, 2009, 13:13 GMT


Rome - Italy's conservative government introduced Friday harsher penalties for rape and other sexual abuse cases, the creation of civilian anti-crime patrols and an extension to the period for which illegal immigrants can be kept in detention centres.

The measures contained in a decree approved by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's cabinet, come in the wake of several high profile gang-rape cases.

They also follow rioting by Tunisian would-be immigrants protesting their repatriation from a detention centre on the island in Lampedusa.

'The government is not acting on a wave of emotion,' Berlusconi told reporters.

He said his cabinet was working to keep the centre-right's April 2008 election promise to combat crime and curb illegal immigration.

Rape cases have declined 10 per cent in 2008, compared to the 2006-2007 period when Italy was governed by the centre-left, Berlusconi said.

The decree introduces mandatory life sentences for people convicted of gang-rape, sexual assault resulting in murder and violent sexual abuse of children.

Those charged with such crimes, as well as suspects 'caught in the act' for child prostitution and child pornography, 'sex tourism' crimes committed abroad, will be kept in jail while awaiting trial, according to the decree.

Recent decisions by magistrates to issue house arrest instead of prison orders to several rape suspects have triggered public outcry in Italy.

The decree also contains a controversial clause allowing mayors to recruit civilians to conduct anti-crime patrols in towns and city.

Italy's opposition opposes the measure saying it will lead to the creation of 'ronde' or vigilante squads, taking the law into their own hands and likely to target immigrants.

But Maroni denied this, saying the patrols would 'preferably' consist of retired policemen as well as off-duty soldiers and firefighters.

'They will not carry weapons, and will only be equipped with radio transmitters or mobile phones to alert police,' he explained.

As for illegal immigrants, Maroni said the government's would continue to seek their 'expulsion' except when minors or asylum- seekers are involved.

The decree increases from two to six months the period in which would-be immigrants are to be kept in detention centres.

This will allow for their proper identification and for arranging their repatriation with the authorities of their countries of origin, Maroni said.

Human rights activists, the Roman Catholic Church and much of Italy's opposition say this will lead to overcrowding at the detention centres with associated health and security risks such as the current situation in Lampedusa.

Maroni said the government plans to convert former army barracks and other structures located 'away from urban centres and preferably close airports to ease swift repatriation.'

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/ ... _measures_

'The government is not acting on a wave of emotion,' Berlusconi told reporters.

Seems as if there is a lesson to be learned here by the U.S.!

Good for you Italy!

Pelosi went there Friday, the day this came out.
I wonder what the witch thought about that???

We can learn a thing or two from Italy's policy on rape.

I also meant to mention that Italy's policy on illegals is exceptional as well as their policy on rape.

Look at the statistics:

From Times OnlineFebruary 16, 2009

Italian minister calls for rapists to be castrated Richard Owen in Rome
An Italian Cabinet minister called today for rapists to be chemically castrated, amid a growing row over vigilante attacks on immigrants that have followed a series of rapes blamed on foreigners.

Roberto Maroni, the Interior Minister, urged Italians not to take the law into their own hands after masked youths armed with wooden clubs smashed up a kebab bar near the scene of a rape at Caffarella Park on the Appian Way in Rome at the weekend.

Five Romanians were beaten savagely in the raid, and two are in a serious condition.

The attack followed an incident on St Valentine's Day in which a 14-year-old girl was raped and her 16-year-old boyfriend beaten up in the park, which is used by courting couples.

Related Links
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Also at the weekend a 21-year-old Bolivian girl was raped in Milan by a man described as North African, while in Bologna a Tunisian who had just been released from prison after being held on drugs offences was re-arrested for allegedly raping a 15-year-old local girl.

Roberto Calderoli of the Northern League, who is Minister for Simplification of Laws in the centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi, said that chemical castration was "the only answer" when teenage girls were being attacked. "Talk of rehabilitation is not enough," he told La Stampa. "Society must defend itself".

Mr Maroni said that the Government would push through an emergency decree this week speeding up legislation aimed at creating "groups of unnamed citizens" to "assist the police by bringing to their attention events which might be damaging to urban security". The decree will also ban magistrates from releasing into house arrest those accused of crimes involving sexual violence.

Mr Maroni said that creating groups of "concerned citizens" was not the same as condoning vigilante patrols, known as ronde. However Pierferdinando Casini, of the Christian Democratic UDC, said that the Government was "flailing around" after coming to power on a promise to resolve the crime and immigration problem nearly a year ago. "What we need are more police," he said.

Marco Minniti, the shadow interior minister, said that there was "a very fine line" between vigilantes and neighbourhood watch groups. Enzo Letizia, head of the police trades union, said that because of public spending cuts by the Berlusconi government the police were so badly underfunded that there was no money to maintain the country's 25,000 police patrol cars, 500 of which were currently out of commission.

Gianni Alemanno, the rightwing mayor of Rome, who visited the Cafferella Park area at the weekend to meet angry residents, said that police patrols should be stepped up in isolated areas where the suburbs merged into the countryside. Rapists must know they face "a definitive sentence", the mayor said, and all illegal gypsy camps in Rome would be dismantled. There was no justification, however, for "intolerance and do-it-yourself justice".

The number of Romanians arrested for rape annually has risen from 170 five years ago to nearly 500, followed by Moroccans (300), Albanians (150) and Tunisians (120), according to official crime figures. The proportion of immigrants accused of crimes of sexual violence has risen from 9 per cent of the total ten years to 40 per cent today. A taskforce of 25 Romanian police officers arrived in Rome today to help the Italian authorities investigate the recent spate of rapes.

Earlier this month a homeless Indian labourer was savagely attacked and set on fire by local youths as he slept on a bench in the coastal town of Nettuno, 70km south of Rome. Last month four Romanian immigrants were arrested at Guidonia, near Rome, for allegedly gang-raping an Italian woman. The day after the attack, Albanians and Romanians were beaten up by a mob and Romanian-owned shops were fire-bombed.

A Bill currently going through Parliament includes a provision calling for a census of homeless people to be entered into a database held by the Interior Ministry. Doctors would be allowed to report illegal immigrants to the authorities, something which has been banned on privacy grounds since 1998.

Last month Mr Berlusconi vowed to increase tenfold the number of soldiers helping police to patrol city streets, taking the total to 30,000. But in a characteristic gaffe he said that to guarantee public safety, "we would have to have as many soldiers as beautiful women, and I don't think that would be possible".

The recent attacks echo the rape and murder of a woman in Rome in October 2007 for which a Romanian man has been convicted. That attack helped to make crime and immigration one of the main campaign issues in last year's elections.

Thousands of illegal immigrants continue to arrive at the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, off the North African coast, where there have been riots at the overcrowded detention centre.

Last November, four youths beat up and set alight a homeless Italian man sleeping on a park bench in Padova. Also last year, a 63-year-old Ghanaian immigrant sitting on a park bench in Milan was severely beaten by youths with baseball bats.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 745281.ece

Here's another article on the subject. I've always said that the tolerance for illegal immigration, particularly from third world countries, is a giant step backwards for women's rights. Yet we let it go on...



BBC NEWS
Italy passes emergency rape law

Italy's government has rushed through a decree to crack down on sexual violence and illegal immigration after a spate of rapes blamed on foreigners.

The decree sets a mandatory life sentence for the rape of minors or attacks where the victim is killed.

It also establishes rules for citizen street patrols to be conducted by unarmed and unpaid volunteers.

The number of sexual assaults fell last year, but three high-profile rapes last weekend sparked national outrage.

These included the rape of 14-year-old girl in a park in Rome on Saturday, allegedly by two men from Eastern Europe.

A Bolivian woman was raped in Milan by a man described as North African, while in Bologna, a Tunisian who had just been released from prison was re-arrested for allegedly raping a 15-year-old girl.
“ Volunteers who take part in patrols will not be armed but they will have mobile phones and radios â€