World Report 2015 - Italy

Italy

Between January and November, over 155,000 people reached Italy by sea, many of them rescued in the Mediterranean by the Italian navy. While many traveled onward to other EU countries, over 44,000 people applied for asylum in Italy by October, amid concerns about substandard reception conditions, including in roughly 200 emergency shelters.

The government increased to 13,000 spaces in specialized reception centers. Tensions flared in some communities hosting reception centers, including in Rome in November when authorities removed 45 migrant children from a center after neighborhood residents protested violently. The ECtHR ruled in November that Switzerland could not return an Afghan asylum-seeking family to Italy due to the risk of inadequate reception arrangements, particularly for children.

In October, parliament reduced maximum immigration detention from 18 to 3 months. Throughout the year, detainees in such centers had protested conditions and length of stay.

Undocumented entry and stay was decriminalized in April, though it remains an administrative offense.

In October, the ECtHR ruled against Italy over its practice of summarily returning migrants to Greece without individual screening for protection needs and despite risk of inhuman and degrading treatment upon return.

Episodes of xenophobic violence occurred throughout the year. In March, police intervened but made no arrests during attacks over two days on an informal Roma settlement in Naples, leading to its evacuation. Eight men went on trial in September for the racially motivated firebomb attack on a Roma camp in Turin in December 2011. A 17 year old who beat a homeless Pakistani man to death in Rome in September was charged with the killing but police discounted racist motivation.

The European Commission initiated enforcement action against Italy during 2014 over its discriminatory segregation of Roma in substandard, official camps. Roma living in informal settlements were subject to serial evictions.

In July, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention urged measures to end over-incarceration and disproportionate use of pretrial detention against foreigners and Roma. Prison overcrowding remained a problem despite measures, including reforms adopted in June, to reduce sentences and increase recourse to alternatives to detention.

The fatal shooting by a Carabiniere of 17-year-old Davide Bifolco in Naples in September reignited concerns about excessive use of force. In October, an appeals court acquitted six doctors, three nurses, and three prison officers over the 2009 death of Stefano Cucchi. Prosecutors alleged medical staff failed to treat injuries he suffered while beaten in custody. A lower court had convicted five of the doctors of manslaughter in 2013 and acquitted the others.

Associated documents