ROME, July 5 (Xinhua) -- Italian lawmakers on Wednesday approved a bill making torture a crime, bringing to an end a debate that has lasted almost 30 years.
In 1988, Italy ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture, which was adopted by the international community in 1984.
Under Article 4 of that Convention, each signatory state "shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law." It has taken Italy 29 years to remedy that situation.
"The House gives definitive approval to the introduction of the crime of torture into the penal code," the Lower House tweeted.
The official tweet included a picture of the voting board that showed the motion passed with 198 in favor, 104 abstaining, and 35 against, out of 337 lawmakers present.
The new law punishes with up to 10 years in prison anyone who "causes acute physical suffering or verifiable pyschological trauma" to people in custody, according to the House caucus of the ruling center-left Democratic Party, which sponsored the bill.
It specifies that such conduct on the part of police, prison guards, medical personnel, and anyone else with power over detainees only becomes torture if it is reiterated, at which point it becomes "inhumane or degrading" treatment.
Critics of the new law, which include some small leftist parties and the populist, euro-skeptic Five Star Movement, say it doesn't go far enough and that its wording gives enough leeway for police brutality to go unpunished.
Opponents of the law, mostly from the right wing of the political spectrum, claim it will make it harder for police to do their job.
In April 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) condemned Italy for violating Article 3 of the Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.
The court ruled on a complaint over police violence against protesters and journalists during the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Genoa in 2001.
The court condemned Italy not only for what happened to the demonstrators, but also for lacking appropriate legislation to punish the crime of torture.
