(Adnkronos) – Foreign minister Antonio Tajani has ordered Italy’s permanent representative at the Council of Europe watchdog to protest a report by its independent human rights monitoring panel which accused Italian police of racism and homophobia.
“I have instructed Italy’s permanent representative at the @coe to express the government’s strong indignation at the unacceptable content of the ECRI report,” Tajani wrote late Wednesday on X (formerly Twitter).
“Our police forces are not racist. We demand respect for those who serve Italy by ensuring the safety of all, ” the tweet continued.
In its report ECRI said a delegation visiting Italy had received “many accounts of racial profiling” by police especially targeting the Roma community and people of African descent. It also cited responses to a 2022 survey of immigrants.
The accounts of frequent ‘stop and search’ activities were corroborated by reports from civil society groups and other international monitoring bodies, according to the ECRI report.
“Little or no action” had been taken in recent years “to ensure better accountability in cases of any racist or LGBTI-phobic abuse committed by state police officers, (paramilitary) Carabinieri police and other law enforcement officials,” the report stated.
Italy’s hard-right premier Giorgia Meloni reacted to the report by lauding the “dedication and self-sacrifice” of the country’s police. The police force “deserves respect, not such insults,” Meloni wrote on social media.
President Sergio Mattarella expressed “astonishment” at the report’s findings in a phone call with police chief Vittorio Pisani, underlining his esteem for Italy’s police, Mattarella’s office stated.
