The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty,  urged the members of the Italian Senate not to adopt Bill 1236 on public security on Friday. O’Flaherty voiced his concerns about the disproportionate impact brought by the bill on the freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

In a letter to the Senate president, O’Flaherty flagged that the bill can pose significant threats to the rights of freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and protest under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) by introducing vaguely defined offenses and criminalizing acts. 

Article 14 of the bill will replace the existing administrative offense with the criminal offense of traffic disruption with one’s own body, punishable with imprisonment from six months to two years. Articles 11, 13, and 24 of the bill broaden the scope of crime committed in certain areas such as roads, railways, airports, and other infrastructures and extend the circumstances under which police commissioner can ban individuals from accessing those areas. Furthermore, Articles 26 and 27 introduce the crime of rebellion in prisons, detention centers, and reception centers for migrants and asylum seekers for mere passive resistance, punishable with imprisonment from one to four years.

Moreover, O’Flaherty claimed that several measures within the bill appear to target environmental protesters and young human rights defenders who occasionally have to rely on demonstrations or protests to voice their opinions in case of limited possibilities to formally participate in political decision-making. He explained that even demonstrations involving temporary alterations of ordinary life such as noises and obstruction of road traffic still fall within the right to peaceful assembly.

O’Flaherty highlighted that the government’s discretion to exercise a margin of appreciation on sanctioning intentional disruptions in the context of public assemblies is not unlimited. He highlighted the legislature’s responsibility “to strike the right balance between respect for the freedom of peaceful assembly and the protection of the rights of others” in the OSCE Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly.

In response, Italian Senate president Ignazio La Russa only said that the bill is still underway. The legislative committee approved the bill on Wednesday. The Senate will commence its deliberation shortly. 

The Special Rapporteur on Environmental Rights Defenders under the Aarhus Convention, Michel Forst, expressed similar concerns in February 2024: 

The repression that environmental activists who use peaceful civil disobedience are currently facing in Europe is a major threat to democracy and human rights. The environmental emergency that we are collectively facing, and that scientists have been documenting for decades, cannot be addressed if those raising the alarm and demanding action are criminalized for it. The only legitimate response to peaceful environmental activism and civil disobedience at this point is that the authorities, the media, and the public realize how essential it is for us all to listen to what environmental defenders have to say.

Several human rights and environmental organizations across Europe expressed similar concerns over the bill and labeled it as “the most severe assault on protest freedoms in decades.”