Report
Amnesty: Italian officials’ ban on pro-Palestine protest was a human rights violation
Amnesty points out that ‘banning a specific assembly pre-emptively must be a measure of last resort.’ The organization is calling for an “independent, thorough and impartial investigation” by the Italian authorities.
The Italian authorities committed human rights violations: This is the conclusion of Amnesty International after their investigation into the behavior of the authorities at the October 5 pro-Palestine demonstration in Rome, when around 10,000 people took to the streets to express their outrage at the ongoing massacres in Gaza and Lebanon.
In the days before the protest, the Rome police chief had banned the protest, after instructions to this effect were sent down by Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi himself. The claimed reasons were that it was too close to the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre carried out by Hamas in Israel; and that the social media posts by the organizers, the Young Palestinians, were too extreme, extolling that date as a fundamental revolutionary event while ignoring the 1,200 Israelis dead, 250 kidnapped and 200 who disappeared without a trace.
There was also the usual fearmongering about the supposed impending arrival of violent hordes ready to devastate the capital. Despite the plentiful factual and documentary evidence refuting such allegations, this ended up being the prevailing narrative after October 5 as well, with the brief scuffles that took place after the demonstration had ended in Piazzale Ostiense branded as the work of “violent infiltrators” – a classic trope of police mythology which has been shoehorned into every moment of tension that ever occurs at public demonstrations, at least since the Genoa G8 in 2001.
Amnesty points out that “banning a specific assembly pre-emptively must be a measure of last resort … Even if there was evidence that a small number of demonstrators might resort to violence, this would not justify the imposition of a ban on those protesters who had entirely peaceful intentions.” Thus, the measure taken was “at odds with international human rights law which instead underscores the obligation of the authorities to uphold the right of peaceful assembly of those who have peaceful intentions.”
In their dense 8-page statement released on Saturday, Amnesty describes how these violations of “human rights, including the right to freedom of expression and to peaceful assembly,” occurred: a list of “unlawful police control checks and preventive measures,” with a corollary of “illegal use of force” against “peaceful protesters.” The information gathered by the Amnesty observers present at the protest that day – recognizable by their bibs – have already been sent to Rome's police chief and the Interior Ministry, but no reply has been received so far. Amnesty is calling for an “independent, thorough and impartial investigation” by the Italian authorities.
According to Amnesty’s reconstruction of the events, at 1:15 p.m. on the day of the demonstration, a DIGOS officer “verbally communicated to one of the organizers that they could hold the demonstration, but in a static form,” that is, without marching.
“The initial imposition of a ban, coupled with the late timing of the decision to partially lift the ban and to permit a static gathering, significantly curtailed the right to peaceful protest,” the NGO pointed out. Furthermore, in the morning, “preventive controls and ID checks were established on numerous access routes to the capital Rome, including along the highways and in train stations.”
Groups of people, including non-protesters, were being stopped and searched for several hours, and some were even taken to Carabinieri barracks and police stations only for document checks, often being handed a “presence banning order” at the end, i.e., an obligation to leave Rome. This is a measure that does not require judicial approval and that can be used by the local police chiefs on the basis of their assessment of the “social dangerousness” posed by the individuals in question.
The report states that “Amnesty International spoke to five people subjected to administrative measures ... They shared how ‘presence banning orders’ were imposed by the Chief of the police on people whose ‘social dangerousness’ was inferred from previous administrative measures or in some cases only from police reports and identifications based on behaviors and actions closely related to the exercise of the right to peaceful protest.”
Amnesty also criticizes the behavior of officers who prevented many of those present from leaving the square when the clashes occurred, as well as the reporting of the outcome of the clashes: “Amnesty International wishes to note that its observers’ team saw at least 10 protesters who had sustained injuries. Media reports also refer to three protesters and a journalist being injured,” while the authorities have claimed that there were 30 injuries among the security forces.
The NGO concludes that the Interior Ministry, in its subsequent statements, “completely fails to acknowledge the unlawful use of force by police against peaceful protesters.”
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/il-rapporto-di-amnesty-sulla-piazza-pro-pal-violati-i-diritti-umani on 2024-11-29