Italy’s interior minister has been urged to open an investigation into police in the northern city of Brescia amid allegations that seven female climate activists were made to take off their underwear and perform squats during questioning.
The activists were among 22 people brought to Brescia’s main police station on Monday morning after officers interrupted a protest held outside the Italian aerospace and defence firm Leonardo’s factory.
Activists have alleged that while there they were subjected to degrading treatment at the hands of police officers.
In a video posted online, one member of Extinction Rebellion, the global environmental movement, said: “They asked me to undress, take off my underwear and do three squats, ‘for checks’, according to them.”
The woman claimed the treatment was “only reserved for the females, not the males”.
A fellow Extinction Rebellion activist made the same claims in a separate video. The squat measure is usually only used on people suspected of crimes such as drug dealing.
The protest, which blocked the entrance to the Leonardo factory for a short time, was organised by Extinction Rebellion and its counterpart Last Generation, and the Free Palestine protest group.
The activists were held for about seven hours before being charged for the crimes of “seditious gathering” and for “unannounced demonstration”.
Gilberto Pagani, a lawyer representing the activists, said the seven women intended to make a formal complaint “in the next few days”.
After initially denying the allegations, Brescia police issued a statement saying that during the individual searches, carried out by female officers in the case of the women, the activists were asked to “bend down on their legs in order to find any dangerous objects”.
Rejecting any accusation of degrading treatment, it added: “The confidentiality and dignity of people were safeguarded at all times and the correct operating procedures were followed.”
Police accused the activists of “illegal conduct” that “undermined public order and safety”. This included forming a human chain blocking trucks from entering and leaving the Leonardo factory and “littering the walls with writing”.
The allegations by the women come as parliament debates a controversial security bill that takes aim at climate activists by criminalising people who block roads and railways, with fines and jail terms of up to two years. Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing government is calling for swift approval of the bill in the senate after it was passed in the lower house in September.
Marco Grimaldi, a politician with the Green-Left Alliance, has called on Matteo Piantedosi, the interior minister, to open an investigation into what occurred in Brescia.
Matteo Orfini, a politician with the centre-left Democratic party, claimed a similar incident took place in Bologna. “A woman was forced to undress and was treated in an unacceptable manner,” he added. “We ask Piantedosi to immediately verify and to intervene if [the allegations] are confirmed.”
Orfini questioned whether the alleged events were an indication of “a climate created by a government” that sought to aggravate the situation “and criminalise dissent”.