Meloni approves 12-hour “preventive detention” for “dangerous” protesters amid doubts about its constitutionality

“They are not propaganda measures, but another piece of the strategy that this Government has been executing since its inception,” declared the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni.

The Council of Ministers has approved an urban security package made up of a bill and a decree law, the latter a type of text that is used in situations of extraordinary urgency and that must be revalidated in Parliament in 60 days.

The Executive has justified the relevance of these regulations after the demonstration last weekend in Turin (northern Italy), which led to violent clashes and numerous injured police officers, and by a recent stabbing at a school in La Spezia (north), among other cases.

The Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, explained in a press conference the most notable articles of the 29 articles of the security bill, which in the first place punishes up to three years in prison for anyone carrying knives in public spaces.

The sale of these weapons is prohibited to minors, also on the internet, and in case they are discovered with a knife or a razor, the rule will sanction their parents or legal guardians.

Constitutional doubts

Another notable point of the regulations, which has raised doubts of constitutionality, is the introduction of the so-called “preventive detention”, that is, the possibility of retaining, for up to 12 hoursstill subject “at risk” for a public demonstration.

To do this, the text – not yet disclosed, but only exposed by the minister – determines that the dangerousness must be endorsed by the suspect’s criminal record or to find him in possession of weapons or with clothing that can be used to hide your identity.

The drafting of this text, key to Meloni’s intentions to reinforce security in Italian cities, has been followed by the technicians of the Quirinal Palace, the head of state, due to the constitutionality doubts it raises.

Meloni only limited himself to explaining on his networks that they are also “introduced harsher penalties for pickpockets.

Regarding the aforementioned preventive detention, the president explained that the objective is to “prevent the presence and action of organized groups dedicated to violence that have nothing to do with the right to demonstrate” and that “destroy” the streets of the country.