ITALY: CREEPING FASCISM, "militarisation" of the urban landscape or merely a logical response to the concerns of Italian citizens about street crime?
From yesterday and for at least six months, 3,000 soldiers will be deployed on the streets of nine major Italian cities including Milan, Naples, Rome and Turin as part of a drive by Silvio Berlusconi's government to tackle street crime and illegal immigration.
Government spokesmen said the relatively small number of soldiers would be used merely as back-up to carabinieri and police forces. The soldiers will be called on to take over "guard duties" at sensitive sites such as embassies, government ministries and immigration detention centres while those soldiers on the beat in city centres will be accompanied by local police. Furthermore, the soldiers on the beat will patrol without body armour and will carry only small arms.
Mr Berlusconi campaigned on a law and order ticket in the general election this spring, capitalising on public concern about illegal immigration, illegal nomadic shanty towns and the widespread involvement of a minority of mainly Roma immigrants in drug pushing, burglary and violent crimes.
Last month the government declared a state of emergency, giving police and local authorities increased powers to tackle immigration-related problems.
However, human rights groups, the Vatican, the European Parliament and the Council of Europe have all expressed reservations about measures such as the dismantling of nomadic camps and the fingerprinting of those occupying them, branding the measures as "racist".
Yesterday, many senior opposition figures criticised the measures as little more than a massive public relations exercise: "There are neither attacks from outside nor a violent revolution from within going on in Italian cities today. The point of this whole exercise is very clear. It is much more a PR operation than something substantial. Basically, it's a TV ad that will cost us a few bob but will achieve nothing", said former magistrate Antonio Di Pietro, leader of the Italy of Values party.