A/HRC/4/19/Add.4
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foreign minors not born in Italy, the draft law foresees three requirements for the acquisition of
citizenship: (i) an application by the natural or legal parents (if one of them was born in Italy or
had legally resided there for five years) or an application of the minor on turning 18 years;
(ii) uninterrupted legal residence of the minor for at least five years; and (iii) completion by the
minor of a school cycle or vocational training or one year’s work. The second major change
would reduce from 10 to 5 years the period of uninterrupted residence required to qualify for
naturalization, provided that the income requirements are met and that in all cases involving
adults a test determining a degree of linguistic and social integration is passed. Last, regarding
naturalization by marriage, the draft would extend the original six months of residence in Italy to
two years from the date of marriage, with a view to countering so-called “marriages of
convenience”.
G. Combating racism in sport
31. Decree Law 162/2005 was adopted to provide new measures aiming at preventing and
repressing dangerous behaviours during sports events. This decree also set up a National
Observatory on Sports Events, whose tasks are first, to monitor acts of violence and intolerance
committed at sports events; second, to promote initiatives for the prevention of violence and
intolerance in collaboration with associations and local, public and private bodies; and third, to
publish an annual report on acts of violence and intolerance during sports events. The Code of
Justice in Sports was amended in September 2006 to introduce disciplinary and pecuniary
sanctions for those who directly or indirectly offend, denigrate or insult on grounds of race,
religion, colour, etc.25
32. UNAR has directly addressed racism in sport by launching awareness-raising campaigns
for TV and mass media, as well as among the members of the Football Federation and its
associated leagues, that led to the establishment of a working group to identify the existing
regulations and to design new ones to combat racism in football. In addition, during one of its
awareness-raising activities - the Week of Action against Racism - UNAR undertook numerous
activities at sports events.
IV. VIEWS OF CIVIL SOCIETY AND CONCERNED GROUPS
A. General legal and institutional framework to combat
racism, xenophobia and discrimination
33. Civil society denounced the following major obstacles: the lack of a national action plan
to combat racism, xenophobia and related intolerance; the need to improve the implementation
of current anti-discrimination legislation by increasing the knowledge of judicial and law
enforcement officials about existing legislation, as well as publicizing and informing about the
civil and criminal remedies available to victims of racial and ethnic discrimination; the
instrumentalization of racism by some political parties; the lack of electoral rights (active and
passive) preventing political parties from taking the interests of non-citizens fully into account;
and the lack of independence of UNAR as a body within the Ministry of Rights and Equal
Opportunities, in contravention of article 13 of the Racial Equality directive. In the field of
25
See article 9 bis of the Code of Justice in Sports (Codice di giustizia sportiva).