"It's a plan I not only don't agree with, Minister, but I warn you, with the honesty and loyalty I've always shown you, that it's a plan I intend to oppose with all my strength." Pietro Pittalis, a Forza Italia MP from Nuoro, thus attacked the Meloni government he supported, addressing Carlo Nordio, head of the Ministry of Justice, in the Chamber of Deputies. The target of the attack is the plan to transfer prisoners under the 41-bis regime to Sardinian prisons.
In his introduction, Pittalis expressed "applause for the Government's renewed attention to the prison system, which is no longer considered a residual sector of the justice system, but rather an indicator of its reliability."
But there's a but: "I want to bring to the attention of all my colleagues here in Parliament the voice of the Sardinian community, the voice of Sardinian institutions and the Sardinian Church, which has spoken out and is mobilizing against this potential plan that, unfortunately, I too had to witness following the full publication of the minutes of the State-Region conference." The reference is to the declared plan "to transfer not just a few dozen inmates, as I had been told, but as many as a third of the inmates under the 41 bis regime, to three prison facilities in Sardinia, out of seven in total across the country, also transforming the Badu 'e Carros prison into a facility dedicated to this purpose."
Pittalis announced his firm opposition: "It's unthinkable that in an area like Nuoro in particular, which is experiencing social and economic challenges, with a healthcare system in disrepair that can't even meet the needs of its citizens, there could be a concentration of prisoners under the 41 bis regime."
Pittalis asks Nordio to "reevaluate the point and reconsider any decisions in this direction."
The Five Star Movement's response to the MP's words was swift: "We note that even the Honorable Pittalis, with a slight delay, has finally discovered what President Todde, the regional government, and the Five Star Movement have been denouncing for months : the Government has lied to Sardinia about Article 41-bis and is attempting to transform the island into Italy's Cayenne," wrote Sardinian Five Star Movement MP Mario Perantoni in a statement.
"Pittalis," Perantoni continues, "today speaks of a 'plan he doesn't agree with,' despite the fact that the plan was promoted by the government, which he himself supports, and was formally established in writing in the minutes of the State-Regions Conference of December 18th. The reality is that we're not talking about a few dozen inmates, but many more, without any real involvement from the Region and local communities."
"Now that even a section of the center-right admits the gravity of what is happening, we expect an apology to Todde and greater consistency in what is being said: less applause for Minister Nordio and more concrete action to stop a decision that penalizes Sardinia and humiliates its institutions. Therefore," concludes the M5S MP, "we wait for the rest of the Sardinian center-right to wake up after Pittalis, especially the representatives of the FDI (Italian Democratic Party), who for months have been talking about unnecessary alarmism. Sardinia is not a penal colony and cannot pay the price for the government's failures."
(Unioneonline/E.Fr.)