Sicily requires public hospitals to hire doctors who perform abortions
Sicily’s regional authority on Tuesday passed a bill requiring public hospitals to hire doctors who do not object to performing abortions, as large numbers of women across the southern region continue to face difficulties in accessing pregnancy terminations.
Abortion has been legal in Italy since 1978, but doctors can refuse to perform the procedure by citing conscientious objections.
In practice, this means that access to abortion is very limited in many parts of the country, including Sicily.
Of the 55 hospitals with a gynaecology department located in the region, abortion is performed in only 47 percent of them – below the national average of 61 percent, according to Italy's health ministry.
In 2022, 61 percent of all gynaecologists in Italy were conscientious objectors, with the figure rising to 81.5 percent in Sicily.
The bill was proposed by Dario Safina, a member of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
Safina hailed its approval on Tuesday as a "historic moment" for the region.
"Our goal is that the right to abortion is real, not just theoretical," he wrote on Facebook.
"With this rule, we lay the foundation for a health system that is fairer, more efficient and respectful of the rights of all," he added.
Council of Europe urges Italy to investigate racial profiling by police
The Council of Europe's human rights monitoring body has urged the Italian government to commission a study into cases of racial profiling in law enforcement to assess the exact extent of the problem, Ansa reported on Wednesday.
"Our recommendation to the Italian government is to conduct an independent study on the phenomenon of racial profiling in its police forces as soon as possible,” the head of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), Bertil Cottier, said.
In a report published on Wednesday, the ECRI said that racial profiling, which sees law enforcement officials act on ethnic background, skin colour, religion or citizenship rather than objective evidence, persists across Europe both in stop-and-search policing and at border controls.
Though the latest report didn’t name any specific countries, “we can certainly say that [racial profiling] is an issue frequently encountered in Italy and France," the ECRI’s vice president Tena Šimonović Einwalter said, referring to previous findings.
A 2024 ECRI report on Italy found evidence of “numerous accounts of racial profiling by law enforcement officials, targeting especially Roma and people of African descent”.
Based on the findings, the ECRI recommended that Italian authorities “subject police stop and account/search practices to independent review” to identify “any pattern indicative of institutional racism”.
The report sparked outrage among members of Italy’s government in October last year.
Interior minister Matteo Piantedosi said it was an "unacceptable" attack on the “women and men who with dedication put their lives at risk every day to guarantee citizens’ safety," according to AFP.
Deputy PM Matteo Salvini said the report was “shameful”, calling the Council of Europe a “useless institution”.
Italy calls on Israel to stop strikes in Gaza, respect humanitarian law
Italy's foreign minister Antonio Tajani on Wednesday urged Israel to stop its strikes in Gaza, while warning that expelling Palestinians from the territory "is not and never will be an acceptable option".
"The legitimate reaction of the Israeli government to a terrible and senseless terrorist act has unfortunately taken on absolutely tragic and unacceptable forms that we ask Israel to stop immediately," Tajani told parliament, referring to Hamas's attack against Israel on October 7th, 2023.
"The bombings must stop, humanitarian assistance must resume as soon as possible, respect for international humanitarian law must be restored," he said.
The minister also urged Hamas to “immediately free all the hostages who are still in its hands today, and who have the right to return to their homes”.
Besides calling for an immediate end to hostilities, Tajani condemned US President Donald Trump's plan for US control of Gaza and the forced displacement of the Palestinians living in the territory.
"I want to reiterate today with the utmost clarity: the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza is not and will never be an acceptable option," Tajani said.
"This is why we wholeheartedly support the Arab plan led by Egypt for the recovery and reconstruction of the [Gaza] Strip, which is incompatible with any hypothesis of forced displacement."
With reporting from AFP.
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