Italy to allow doctors to turn in illegal immigrants

ROME, (AFP)

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Friday threw his weight behind a legal amendment that would allow doctors to breach professional secrecy to turn in illegal immigrants.

Berlusconi said that if the legislation is adopted, "doctors would have the possibility of reporting illegal immigrants, something they were prohibited from doing before" if they believe "there is a public health risk".

It was also a matter of "personal conscience", he added.

The amendment was approved by the Italian Senate on Thursday as part of security law at the instigation of the anti-immigrant Northern League, an ally of Berlusconi's People of Freedoms party.

The legislation, which still must be approved by the lower house of the Italian parliament, has drawn quick criticism from doctors and Catholic groups.

The measure "risks causing immediate dangerous effects on public health and provoking a climate of fear," warned the Catholic charity Caritas.

"It is unthinkable that a doctor who has treated an ill person in a fragile state would then go denounce them as illegal immigrants," said Vincenzo Sareceni, president of Italy's association of Catholic doctors, on Radio Vatican.