By Jenilyn Brhel
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

ROME, Italy – In a rampage that lasted two hours, a right-wing Italian extremist shot and wounded six Africans on February 3^rd in the small Italian city of Macerata.

Draped in Italy’s tricolor flag, Luca Traini, a 28-year-old Italian, shot six victims in drive-by shootings that he carried out for two hours before he was detained by authorities. He specifically targeted dark-skinned pedestrians.

Traini’s rampage was in retaliation to an 18-year-old Italian woman’s murder weeks before. A 29-year-old Nigerian immigrant has been charged in her murder.

“He did it out of an ill-conceived sense of revenge,” said Lt. Col. Michele Roberti, local commander of  Italy’s Carabinieri, an elite police force.

Traini has confessed to the  racially-motivated rampage. Italian authorities discovered a copy of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and other Nazi paraphernalia in a search of Traini’s home following the attacks.

An acquaintance of Traini said that he has become radicalized over the past six years. “More than a criminal, he’s an individual with psychological problems,” said Francesco Clerico, owner of the gym where Traini trained for a decade before being he was banned.

Italy has become one of a number of European nations to experience an influx of migrants who have come by way of crossing the Mediterranean. Since 2011, over 625,000 migrants have crossed into Italy, many having been rescued off of boats at sea.

Italy’s electoral campaign has become heated, with anti-migrant sentiments being a key theme.

Traini was an unsuccessful  candidate for Italy’s Northern League, an anti-migrant party that is now known simply as League, in elections in 2017.

As national elections approach on March 4^th, anti-migrant sentiments have become prevalent, with party leaders such as Matteo Salvini vowing to expel 150,000 migrants from the country and close off the border to newcomers.

Although he denounced violence as a solution to the problem, Salvini stated that “out-of-control migration brings chaos, rage, social clashes. Out-of-control migration brings drug-dealing, rapes, thefts and violence.”

Opponents of the League criticize Salvini’s rhetoric as inciting violence in the country. Laura Boldrini, president of the lower house of the Italian Parliament , said “what happened today in Macerata demonstrates that inciting hatred and excusing fascism, as Salvini does, has consequences.”

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni urged leaders on both sides of the debate to end the “cycle of violence… Hate and violence won’t be able to divide us.”

For more information, please see:

ABC News – Hitler Book, Supremacist Flag Found in Italy Suspect’s Home – 4 February 2018

CNN – Silvio Berlusconi Says Migrants Causing ‘Serious Social Alarm’ in Italy – 5 February 2018

Los Angeles Times – Italian With Extreme Right-Wing Sympathies Suspected of Shooting 6 Africans – 3 February 2018

The New York Times – Italy’s Populists Turn up the Heat as Anti-Migrant Anger Boils – 5 February 2018

Reuters – Opponents say Berlusconi to Blame for Italy’s Migrant Crisis – 5 February 2018

The Washington Post –  Man Shoots, Wounds at Least 6 ‘People of Color’ in Italian City Amid Tensions – 3 February 2018

The Washington Post – Italy’s Berlusconi: 600,000 Migrants ‘Ready to Commit Crime’ – 5 February 2018

The Washington Post – A Gruesome Murder. A Hate-Filled Shooting Rampage. And a Reckoning With Immigration Before Italy Votes. – 6 February 2018

By Jenilyn Brhel
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

LUXEMBOURG – The European Union’s top court issued a ruling requiring Hungary to reconsider the case of a Nigerian man whose asylum application was denied after psychological tests could not determine his sexual orientation.

Officials in Hungary administered improper psychological tests, “namely the ‘Draw-A-Person-In-The-Rain’ test and the Rorschach and Szondi tests,” on an unidentified Nigerian man seeking refuge in the country, according to the ruling. The man was seeking asylum due to feared persecution he faced in Nigeria on account of his sexuality.

In April 2015, the man, known as “F”, applied for asylum in Hungary. He was then subjected to several psychological assessment tests that were allegedly used to determined his sexuality. At the conclusion of the tests, the psychologist determined the results of the tests were inconclusive and the man’s asylum application was rejected.

Same-sex marriage is prohibited in Nigeria.  According to polls conducted in the country, 90% of citizens support a continued ban on same-sex relationships. Homosexual acts are illegal in most African countries.

The EU ruled in 2013 that asylum could be granted to those who were jailed because of their sexual orientation.

The European Union’s top court found that the tests amounted to “a disproportionate interference in the private life of the asylum seekers.”

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights reports that hundreds of asylum seekers seeking refuge in European Union are homosexuals fearing persecution in Africa, the Middle East and Chechnya.

In a similar case  in the Netherlands in 2014, the EU ruled that sexuality tests there violated the rights of asylum seekers.

The Court allows countries to seek expert opinions in assessing “the facts and circumstances relating to the declared sexual orientation of an applicant” but mandates that the procedures respect the EU Charter’s guaranteed fundamental human rights. Additionally, authorities may not base decisions on expert opinion alone and expert opinions must be considered as non-binding.

The use of psychological tests has been criticized for their intrusion into “the most intimate aspects of life”, according to the judgment. In 2010, authorities in the Czech Republic were criticized for their use of pornography in psychological tests.

The ruling has been called an “important step against one of the many problems and humiliations LGBT refugees still face in many EU member states” by Katrin Hugendubel, Advocacy Director for ILGA-Europe, a human rights advocacy organization in Europe.

The ruling is binding in the 28 member states of the EU.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Asylum Seekers Must not be Forced to Take ‘gay’ Tests – 25 January 2018

Newsweek – ‘Gay Tests’ for Refugees in Europe Should be Banned, Says Court – 25 January 2018

NPR – EU Court Rejects ‘Gay Test’ for Asylum Seekers – 25 January 2018

Reuters – EU Court Bars ‘Gay Test’ for Asylum Seekers – 25 January 2018

By Jenilyn Brhel
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

WARSAW, Poland – A controversial new Holocaust speech bill that would impose jail terms for individuals suggesting Poland was complicit in the Holocaust is drawing international condemnation.

In a 57-23 vote and two abstentions, the Polish Parliament passed the measure on Thursday, February 1, the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. The law must be signed by President Andrzej Duda before becoming law.

If passed, the law will impose at a minimum fines and at a  maximum three-year prison sentences for individuals who mention phrases like “Polish death camps.”

The legislation specifically states that “whoever accuses, publicly and against the facts, the Polish nation, or the Polish state, of being responsible or complicit in the Nazi crimes committed by the Third German Reich … shall be subject to a fine or a penalty of imprisonment of up to three years”.

Poland was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany in 1939. Death camps built by Germans were operated on Polish land. Three million Polish Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

Under mounting international pressure, President Duda has agreed to review the bill to determine whether he will sign it, but has stated that “we, as a state, as a nation, have a right to defend ourselves from an evident slander, an evident falsification of historical truth, which, in this case, for us is a slap in the face.”

Congress has urged Polish officials not to pass the bill, stating concerns that the bill will inhibit freedom of speech and threaten Poland’s international relationships.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister called the law “baseless; I strongly oppose it,” in a statement released on Saturday. “One cannot change history, and the Holocaust cannot be denied.”

International organizations such as Israel’s Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles have also condemned the legislation.

The bill has resulted in a resurgence of anti-Semitism in the country. Anti-Semitic comments on social media in Poland have increased, with minority groups calling on President Duda to “counteract all forms of xenophobia, intolerance and antisemitism.”

A number of Polish artists, journalists and politicians have signed an open letter calling for the bill’s repeal.

The pending legislation has been in preparation for more than a year. President Duda has three weeks to decide whether to pass the law.

For more information, please see:

ABC News – Minority Groups in Poland Decry Aggression, Anti-Semitism – 4 February 2018

BBC News – Poland’s Senate Passes Controversial Holocaust Bill – 1 February 2018

The New York Times – Poland’s Holocaust Blame Bill – 29 January 2018

The New York Times – Poland Tries to Curb Holocaust Speech, and Israel Puts up a Fight

Reuters – Pressure Mounts on Poland to Back Away From Holocaust Bill – 3 February 2018