Ai- New Powers

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The new law on "public order" adopted by the Italian Parliament last week, was voted in with the support of virtually all except the Communist Party.

Despite the fact that it has been widely described as aimed at dealing with the numerous episodes of violence and provocation by the extreme right wing the Bill got the support of the main fascist party, and the only one with seats in Parliament, the MSI. The new law gives the police much wider powers of arrest and investigation and in particular it "widens" the circumstances under which they are officially permitted to use their firearms. As well as greatly strengthening state powers of repression; the law also forms part of a strategy of anti-communist manoeuvre on the part of the right wing of the Christian Democratic Party (the main capitalist party) and, in particular, party Secretary Fanfani a former apologist for Mussolini's corporate state.

Fanfani intends to strengthen the Christian Democrats' parliamenlary position through a "law and order" campaign in the run up to the regional elections next month.

The futility of attempts to deal with the threat of fascism through the capitalist state and its bodies of armed men was underlined at the beginning of May by the release on bail of General Vito Micel former chief of the military intelligence services (SID). Miceli was arrested in October 1974 on charges of conspiracy with an illegal right wing group. Later, he was also accused of complicity in the plans for a coup d'etat hatched by the fascist Prince Borghese. On the same day as Miceli was granted bail, police moved against the left wing organisation called Avanguardia Operaia (Workers' Vanguard) in Milan, accusing them of publishing subversive pamphlets on resisting police attackes on demonstrations