Security crackdown by Italy’s right-wing government follows riots in Turin and comes on the eve of the Winter Olympics.
The Italian government on Thursday approved tough new security measures, fast-tracking legislation in response to the violent clashes in Turin last weekend.
The security package includes a controversial measure known as preventive detention, which gives police the power to detain individuals deemed a “threat to public safety” for up to 12 hours, before a demonstration begins.
In a post on social media, prime minister Giorgia Meloni said the measures were “not one-off”, hailing them as a continuation of the strategy of her right-wing government since it took office more than three years ago.
“We are also introducing specific tools to prevent the presence and action of organised groups dedicated to violence, which have nothing to do with the right to demonstrate and which use public squares as a pretext to create disorder and destruction”, the premier wrote on X.
Meloni said that the security package also includes harsher penalties for pickpockets and would address “the phenomenon of baby gangs” as well as a “crackdown on knives” and a ban on selling to minors “any instrument capable of causing harm”.
Italy’s interior minister Matteo Piantedosi said that preventative detention “is not a measure that kills freedom”.
“It exists in many jurisdictions, and there is a relationship with the judicial authority, who is informed that the person will be taken to a police station and held for up to two hours” – Piantedosi told reporters – “If they then determine that the conditions are not met, they can order release”.
The measures have triggered criticism from centre-left opposition parties and civil-rights groups who argue that the 12-hour preventive detention could undermine constitutional rights to free assembly while extra police powers could lead to a militarisation of Italian cities.
Turin riots
The Turin riots, which left more than 100 law enforcement officers injured, have become a political catalyst for Meloni’s coalition to implement stricter public order controls ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.
The unrest erupted on Saturday during a demonstration supporting the Askatasuna anarchist social centre, which had been evicted by authorities in December.
While the march began peacefully with an estimated 15,000 to 50,000 participants, it descended into “urban warfare” after nightfall, amid claims that the protest was infiltrated by organised “black bloc” participants intent on wreaking havoc.
Masked groups attacked police cordons using stones, incendiary devices and street furniture, with one 29-year-old officer being isolated, without his helmet, and being struck with a hammer.
Meloni, who visited the officer and his colleagues in hosptial, said he was the victim of “attempted murder”.
On Wednesday a judge in Turin ordered that the 22-year-old suspect accused of attacking the officer with the hammer be released from prison and put under house arrest.
Photo credit: Stefano Guidi / Shutterstock.com.
