Commentary
Salvini wants to weaken torture statutes
We must prepare for broad, intense, radical opposition on the social, cultural, legal and political fronts. The local levels of power have thus become decisive. A new vision of punishment and of state power must rise from municipalities and regions.
Torture is a crime against humanity. Transport Minister Matteo Salvini has announced that – in order, he says, to let prison police do their jobs under the best possible conditions – he will pursue the narrowing of the definition of the crime of torture.
We must prepare for broad, intense, radical opposition on the social, cultural, legal and political fronts. Curtailing the torture statute would halt ongoing trials, starting with the case now before the bunker courtroom in Santa Maria Capua Vetere for the violence committed in that prison in 2020, images of which we have all seen. Torture is an outrageous crime, carried out by people with custodial duties who break their oath of loyalty to the state. Like corruption, it is a crime of the powerful.
It is no accident that the Italian Constitution uses the verb “to punish” only once, in Article 13, which commands that all physical and moral violence against anyone whose liberty is restricted shall be punished. And one must also take into account Article 117, which binds the Republic to international-law obligations, making any attempt to amend or scrap the current statute unlawful.
All that said, the issue is a political, cultural and professional one, even more than a legal one. Politically, we are losing our democratic identity and leaving the field to the oligarchies in power. Culturally, schools, universities and the media are speaking less and about denied rights. A war by the powerful against their enemies – NGOs among them – is under way. Professionally, every law-enforcement and prison officer is called to make a choice. None of them should ever endorse the false security promises peddled by certain unions, which are fighting not for their members’ rights but for them to be given free rein without accountability.
The human-rights framework is under attack. Two major gains historically championed by the Antigone NGO have been the criminalization of torture and the setup of the office of National Ombudsman for People Deprived of Liberty. Both have fallen – or could soon fall – beneath the government’s axe: on one side by granting torturers impunity, on the other by anaesthetizing watchdog institutions. The local levels of power have thus become decisive. A new vision of punishment and of state power must rise from municipalities and regions.
That is why local bodies, in contrast to the national government, must appoint prisoner ombudsmen chosen for their independence and specific expertise, not for past membership in a party or in the very institutions they are meant to monitor.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/sotto-attacco-il-sistema-dei-diritti-umani on 2025-06-26