The Council of Europe's anti-torture committee on Friday released a report criticizing Italy’s treatment of migrants in local detention centers, citing cases of physical ill-treatment, excessive force and the use of psychotropic drugs on detainees.
The report by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) follows an April visit to four migrant detention and repatriation centers in Milan, Gradisca, Potenza and Rome.
Under Italian law, these centers are aimed at hosting migrants who try to enter the country without a visa, are not entitled to apply for asylum and are deemed “socially dangerous” by law enforcement.
The report details instances of “interventions" in the detention facilities, known as CPRs, and identifies shortcomings including “the absence of any rigorous and independent monitoring of such interventions and the lack of an accurate recording of injuries" sustained by detainees.
Italy has in the past defended the role of these centers as a deterrent to surging illegal migration, noting that some “prison elements” are necessary to prevent escapes from these facilities.
The far-right government led by Giorgia Meloni has also tried to export the Italian model abroad, sealing a contentious agreement with Albania to build and run two migrant holding centers in the eastern country.
The deal, however, has faced legal hurdles and has been suspended by Italian magistrates in its early stages.
In its report Friday, the CPT was also critical of the “widespread practice" of administering unprescribed psychotropic drugs to detainees in Potenza, one of the four centers visited.
The report also highlights “the prolonged handcuffing of persons apprehended on the territory during their transfer to a (holding facility).”
In its report, the anti-torture watchdog recommended Italy to remove the “carceral elements” from the centers and to ensure their proper maintenance, notably the sanitary facilities.
It also showed the critical lack of activities offered to migrants held in the centers, with minimal efforts to offer them “a few activities of a recreational nature.”
The report concludes that the committee's findings, “notably in relation to the very poor material conditions, the absence of a regime of activities, the disproportionate security approach, the variable quality of health care provision and the lack of transparency of the management of CPRs by private contractors,” call into question the application of such a model by Italy in an extra-territorial setting, such as in Albania.
The February death of a young detainee at Rome’s Ponte Galeria center brought renewed attention to the harsh conditions inside these de facto jails for migrants, which have been condemned by lawyers and activists as “black holes” of human rights violations.
From 2019 to 2024, at least 13 people had died — five by suicide — inside Italy’s detention centers, according to activists and aid groups. Hundreds of suicide attempts and self-harm incidents have also been reported.
The Italian government believes the detention centers, which were established in 1999, are essential to reduce the number of migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean and reach Europe.
In 2023, the government extended the maximum detention period from 90 days to 18 months.
In response to Friday's report, Italian authorities indicated that the described cases of physical ill-treatment “have not been the subject of criminal investigations and that several inspections have been carried out by the health authorities at the Potenza CPR in relation to the practice of allegedly widespread over-medication of detained persons.”
