Introduction 

On 28 January 2026, the association “A buon diritto” presented the “Report on the State of Rights in Italy”, covering the year 2025, to the Chamber of Deputies. The result of work carried out by sixteen researchers, the document offers a stark picture of the state of human rights in our country.

The document is divided into 17 chapters: freedom of expression and information, religious pluralism, health and therapeutic freedom, the environment, education, work, the individual and disability, refugees and asylum seekers, migration and integration, Roma and Sinti, LGBTQI+, women’s self-determination, minors, prisoners, mental health, sensitive data, and the right to housing. 

This analysis emerges against a political backdrop characterised by a strong security-driven agenda and a tendency to externalise borders, factors that place a severe strain on democratic stability and constitutional safeguards. The overarching theme remains the critical state of the system: Italy is slipping down international freedom rankings and struggles to guarantee decent standards within its institutions. Below, we will analyse the most problematic issues highlighted in the document, with particular attention to violations that undermine the fundamental freedoms and security of the most vulnerable groups.

Freedom of Expression and Information

Freedom of expression in Italy is currently undergoing a period of decline that affects both the practice of journalism and the right to political dissent. 

Press freedom in Italy is experiencing a dangerous decline, as evidenced by the country’s 49th place in Reporters Without Borders’ 2025 World Press Freedom Index. This ranking is not the result of a single event, but of a hostile climate that is affecting the right to report on multiple fronts: on the one hand, physical violence and intimidation from mafia organisations and extremist groups (with 81 incidents recorded in the first six months of 2025 alone); on the other, legislative pressure that limits the ability to inform citizens accurately.

Legislative Decree of December 10, 2024, known as the "Legge Bavaglio", marked a point of no return by amending Article 114 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. By introducing a generalized ban on the publication of pretrial detention orders until the closure of investigations, the law creates an "information blackout" on judicial acts that heavily impact public life and personal liberty. This legislative intervention does not appear to be a protection of privacy, but rather an obstacle to the press's function of monitoring judicial and political power.

In parallel, the right to dissent has been transformed into a phenomenon to be repressed through Law No. 80 of 2025 (conversion of Decree Law 48/2025). Yet another "security package," passed by emergency decree, has introduced disturbing legal concepts such as the punishability of passive resistance and the disproportionate stiffening of sanctions for road blockades. Expressing one's thoughts through non-violent protest now risks leading to heavy criminal consequences. This shift in the balance between public order and constitutional freedom creates a "chilling effect" that discourages democratic participation, reducing the critical space necessary for an open society and transforming dissent into a public order problem rather than a civil resource.

Refugees and Asylum Seekers

The management of migratory flows in 2025 was characterized by a dichotomy between official rhetoric and factual reality. Although the number of arrivals seems to be decreasing, the "A buon diritto" Report clarifies that this reduction is the product of forced externalization practices and a systematic violation of the right to asylum at the borders. The Mediterranean remains a zone where rights are suspended: Missing Migrants data speaks of 1,873 dead or missing in 2025 alone, a tragic figure that does not take into account those who lose their lives along desert routes or in Libyan detention centers.

Italy has chosen to renew the Memorandum of Understanding with Libya for another three years, despite overwhelming evidence of torture and inhuman abuse in detention centers. Delegating the task of intercepting migrants to the Libyan Coast Guard means, in fact, financing pushbacks by proxy, violating the principle of non-refoulement established by international conventions. Added to this is the experiment of the Italy-Albania Protocol, which in 2025 showed all its legal and structural limits. The externalization of asylum procedures to Albanian territory has been challenged by the Italian and European judiciary: 70% of the people detained in Gjader had to be brought back to Italy because judges did not validate the detentions, deeming them incompatible with European guarantees.

This "delegated management" strategy not only fails to resolve the complexity of the flows but creates a parallel system of arbitrary administrative justice. The Report highlights how new European rules are attempting to provide a framework of legitimacy for these confinement practices outside national borders, putting the very right to seek asylum at risk. Migrant management is thus reduced to a matter of policing and geographical containment, where human dignity succumbs to the political need to show apparently impermeable borders, at the cost of thousands of lives submerged in institutional indifference.

Prisoners 

The chapter dedicated to the deprivation of personal liberty describes a dramatic 2025 for the Italian prison and para-prison system. As of November 30, 2025, the prison population reached 63,868, an increase of over 1,400 people in just one year. The most alarming data concerns overcrowding: the national average rate is 138.5%, but the statistics hide local realities where it exceeds 200%. Living in these conditions means denying any possibility of rehabilitation, transforming the sentence into inhuman and degrading treatment, as repeatedly denounced by Antigone observers.

The failure of the system is measured by the number of suicides: 79 voluntary deaths during the year. This is a silent massacre that primarily affects inmates awaiting trial or those with serious mental health problems, highlighting the inadequacy of psychological and healthcare support within the walls. The REMS sector (Residences for the Execution of Security Measures) is also collapsing: ten years after the closure of criminal psychiatric hospitals, the system is unable to manage waiting lists, forcing inmates who should be treated in healthcare facilities to remain in prison without specific assistance, in a state of clear illegality.

An equally relevant critical profile concerns the CPRs (Repatriation Centers). Here, the limitation of liberty is not a consequence of a crime, but of an administrative irregularity. Sentence 96/2025 of the Constitutional Court issued a very severe warning to the legislator: detention in CPRs affects personal liberty under Article 13 of the Constitution and cannot continue to take place in a normative vacuum lacking a primary-level law that strictly defines its methods. The Court highlighted the need for immediate procedural protection and a competent judge to guarantee the detainee the means to defend themselves. Until the State intervenes, the CPRs will remain "grey zones" of the law where an individual's freedom is subject to police logic devoid of democratic guarantees.

Women’s Self-Determination

Women’s self-determination in Italy is currently under attack on several fronts: cultural, economic, and sanitary. The 2025 Report highlights how gender-based violence is not a transient emergency, but a structural phenomenon rooted in patriarchal dynamics. The data from the "Non Una Di Meno" National Observatory is ruthless: 84 femicides and 78 attempted femicides monitored in the last year. However, institutional "silence" is also worrying: the Ministry of the Interior has reduced the frequency of statistical updates, making independent monitoring more difficult and weakening the communicative force necessary to promote effective counter-policies.

Regarding other forms of violence, the situation is equally grim. 73% of women who call the 1522 anti-violence number choose not to report to the authorities. This distrust stems from a judicial system that often revictimizes those who report, questioning the survivors' accounts or slowing down protection measures. Furthermore, the political class has approved reforms such as Law 181/2025 while maintaining the "neutral economic impact" clause: fighting violence is promised without allocating new funds for operator training or strengthening anti-violence centers, effectively hollowing out the impact of the regulations.

Finally, reproductive autonomy remains a battlefield. Conscientious objection continues to paralyze the application of Law 194 (provides for maternity protection and regulates voluntary termination of pregnancy) in many regions, but to this are added new forms of institutionalized psychological pressure. The Report documents practices such as the mandatory listening to the fetal heartbeat for women requesting an abortion and the entry of pro-life associations into public clinics. These interventions, combined with political resistance toward education on affectivity and consent in schools (often labelled as "indoctrination"), demonstrate a will to obstruct a full path of self-determination, relegating the women’s issue to purely repressive or propagandistic management, devoid of real support for freedom of choice.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the picture painted by A Buon Diritto’s report for 2025 leaves no room for interpretation: the human rights crisis in Italy is not merely a series of isolated incidents, but a reflection of structural problems that permeate the relationship between the state and the individual.

However, the report’s significance lies in the fact that it does not stop at mere condemnation. Through its specific recommendations, the association charts a clear course for institutions, offering concrete solutions to reverse the trend. These proposals represent more than a mere wish: they are the necessary tool to transform the hope for change into effective and universal protection of the rights of every person in Italy.