The Lower House on Tuesday
approved a bill introducing denial of the Holocaust into the
criminal code as an aggravating circumstance in hate crimes.
The motion passed with 340 in favor, 107 abstaining, and
one nay.
The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, the rightwing,
anti-immigrant Northern League and the small rightwing Brothers
of Italy (FdI) parties abstained.
The bill introduces denial of the Holocaust as an
aggravating circumstance when connected to crimes involving the
instigation to violence or discrimination based on race,
ethnicity, nationality or religion.
It provides for stiffer sentences in cases in which
propaganda, instigation and incitement are based "in whole or in
part on denial of the Shoah (Holocaust), that is, denial of the
crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes" as
defined by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
The Lower House amended the bill with a clause that the
Holocaust denial must be proven via a previous ruling in any
international court or body that Italy is a member of.
The bill now goes back to the Senate for another reading,
because it was modified in the House.
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