Germana Carobene

The "kafala" is an institution for the protection of children, which may have different meanings in different social contexts. The legal problem is related to the delicate balance between the imperative to protect children adoption procedeeings, and respect for public order. It is also necessary to evaluate the coexistence of multiple factors, inter alia, such as the linkage of kafala to religious freedom based on a Koranic precept

AA. VV. (Pierluigi Consorti, Giancarlo Anello e Mohamed A. ‘Arafa, Federica Botti, Rossella Bottoni, Cristina Dalla Villa, Maria d'Arienzo, Luigi Mariano Guzzo, Maria Luisa Lo Giacco, Adelaide Madera, Enrica Martinelli, Cristiana Maria Pettinato)

C ontributo sottoposto a valutazione . I l contributo e destinato alla pubblicazione nel volume degli Atti del Corso di formazione giuridica in materia di pari opportunita e violazione del divieto di discriminazione di genere, organizzato dal Comitato Pari Opportunita presso il Consiglio dell'Ordine degli Avvocati di Napoli, ottobre 2013- giugno 2014 SOMMARIO: 1. I reati culturalmente motivati e il tentato omicidio per causa di “onore” - 2. Il concetto di onore nella cultura e nella tradizione giuridica dei Paesi mussulmani - 3. L'aggravante dei futili motivi nel nostro sistema penale - 4. Considerazioni conclusive. ABSTRACT The crime of honor and the aggravating factor of the trivial reasons' culturally (and religiously) motivated A recent case law of the Italian Court of Cassation, on 2013, ruled that, in the case of the attempted murder of a daughter, trivial reasons cannot be considered based on the honor of the family and the violation of a fundamental religious pre...

SOMMARIO: 1. Il caso della Chiesa di Scientology davanti alla Corte Europea dei diritti dell’uomo - 2. La particolare evoluzione dei rapporti potere politico - fenomeno religioso nella storia russa - 3. Scientology e le problematiche di identificazione di una ‘confessione religiosa’ - 4. I rilievi dei giudici europei: violazione della liberta religiosa e necessita di intervento nella domestic jurisdiction.

SOMMARIO: 1. Sulla nozione di religione, confessione, setta - 2. La Chiesa di Scientology e il suo inquadramento - 3. Problematiche giurisprudenziali nel riconoscimento di Scientology - 4. La configurazione del reati di associazione per delinquere - 5. Il plagio e l'abus de faiblesse - 6. I movimenti "anti-sette". Considerazioni conclusive. Scientology. Religious narrative and legal rules ABSTRACT: Scientology is an exemplary case, in the definition of "religious confession", both because it is a movement of rupture with respect to the common religious feeling, and because its recognition as confession has taken place, in Italy, following a process that developed, with alternating events, for twenty years, until the final judgment of 2000. It is particularly interesting to reflect on the alleged crimes, which are anomalous if they relate to a religious context, but also on similar trials that have taken place in France and, more recently, in Belgium. In addit...

End of life bioethics includes a wide range of issues, all of them dealing with the value of human life, on human dignity, on the idea of justice and good. In the field of medical sciences, the recent technological progress has deeply changed traditional concepts such as life, death, vegetative state and imposes a rethinking and a distinction between biological and biographic life. The paper aims at comparing the doctrine of the Roman catholic church with and Protestant theology, which is more adherent to a secular ethics with regards to the safeguard of human dignity. The goal of this analysis is to underline the complex dilemmas that a modern and pluralistic society is called to deal with in a context of mutual respect and tolerance. KEYWORDS: Bioethics; end of life issues; scientific debate; roman catholic doctrine; protestant ethic. SOMMARIO: 1. Bioetica e dilemmi del fine vita-2. Problematiche del fine vita nella pratica medica-3. La dottri-na cattolica-4. Etica protestante-5. ...

SOMMARIO: 1. Interventi legislativi della Regione Lombardia sui luoghi di culto - 2. La sentenza della Corte costituzionale n. 504 del 2019 sulla l.r. Lombardia del 2005 - 3. Pianificazione urbanistica secondaria e politiche regionali - 4. Considerazioni conclusive. The so-called "anti-mosque" legislation between governance policies and protection of religious freedom ABSTRACT: A recent intervention by the Constitutional Court of 2019 continued in the path intended to dismantle the Lombard legislation, also known as the "anti mosque" law, underlining the danger of a federalism, producing a growing fragmentation in a matter of such delicate constitutional relevance. The Court has currently canceled the obligation to regulate, through a Plan for religious equipment (PAR), the opening of any place of worship and the need to associate this Plan with the PGT (Territorial Government Plan). A territorial governance project, in fact, from the point of view of urban plann...

SOMMARIO: 1. Gli interventi contro i Testimoni di Geova nella Federazione Russa - 2. La presenza storica dei Testimoni di Geova nel Paese - 3. La libertà religiosa nella normativa dell'Unione Sovietica - 4. Le leggi sulla libertà di coscienza degli anni '90 - 5. La legislazione "anti estremismo" e antiterrorismo - 6. Considerazioni conclusive. "Anti-extremism" Legislation and Religious Freedom in the Russian Federation. The case of Jehovah's Witnesses ABSTRACT: The application of "anti-extremism" legislation to minority religious groups in the Russian Federation has led to a progressive institutional tightening of the persecution and heavy discrimination, especially against Jehovah's Witnesses. Although many of these legislative instruments have existed for over a decade, the Russian government has only recently begun to use them in sustained campaigns designed to punish or exclude "non-traditional" religions and movements. In ...

Anti-extremism legislation has existed in Russia for over a decade, but only recently has it been used to discriminate against, persecute, and eventually "liquidate" the Jehovah's Witnesses. The article reconstructs the history of anti-minority legislation in Russia, from the Soviet Union to the liberal post-Soviet reforms of the 1990s and the retrenchment in the Putin era. Jehovah's Witnesses have been the victims of a notion of the Russian nation granting a de facto monopoly to the Russian Orthodox Church, and regarding religious minorities, particularly those headquartered in the West and proselytizing among Orthodox believers, as a threat to national integrity.

In this article, we have described to what extent migration and secularization  undermined the traditional views of Islamic complementary gender roles and determined various forms of gender-related attitudes among migrants coming in Italy from diverse parts of the Muslim world. This issue supports the necessity to consider both religion and origin country in the analyses and not to assume that belonging to specific religion, such as Islam, is associated with unique behaviors or attitudes. Gender traditionalism is not synonymous with Muslim affiliation.
Even if relevant individual characteristics and behaviors are taken into account in the analyses, immigrants from a gender egalitarian country hold more egalitarian attitudes. In this origin country globalization and modernization have increased women’s educational and social opportunities and eased their entry into paid employment, a role traditionally reserved for men. Our findings also suggest that religious Muslims hold less gender egalitarian attitudes than more secular individuals. However, according to the literature, the factual explanatory power of migrants’ religiosity lags far behind its prominence in
public debates: religious commitment is just one among several factors and not even a particularly important one.

... Il binomio laicità-libertà religiosa nel sistema francese ed in quello italiano di fronte alle problematiche dei nuovi movimenti religiosi. Autores: GERMANA CAROBENE; Localización: Il Diritto ecclesiastico, ISSN 1128-7772, Vol. 115, Nº 3, 2004 , pág. 699. Fundación Dialnet. ...

End of life bioethics includes a wide range of issues, all of them dealing with the value of human life, on human dignity, on the idea of justice and good. In the field of medical sciences, the recent technological progress has deeply changed traditional concepts such as life, death, vegetative state and imposes a rethinking and a distinction between biological and biographic life. The paper aims at comparing the doctrine of the Roman catholic church with and Protestant theology, which is more adherent to a secular ethics with regards to the safeguard of human dignity. The goal of this analysis is to underline the complex dilemmas that a modern and pluralistic society is called to deal with in a context of mutual respect and tolerance.

In the juridical area of the post colonial Maghreb, a heterogeneous melange of juridical structures, characterized by the coexistence of "western" legal norms with those based on religious foundations, has been established. An example of this is the 2004 Family Code, the Moudawwanah Al- Usra, approved in Morocco and based on the 'interpretative activity of justice and equity. It has profoundly innovated, while fully respecting Sharia and the importance of maintaining the sacred values of the family, as regards divorce, marriage, education and child custody by canceling the wife's obligation to obey her husband. It has paved the way for female emancipation by overturning the cultural meaning of marriage in the Islamic universe

The mgf expression refers to ritual practices, such as lesions of the body, found mainly in Africa, related to the interpretations of cultural/religious principles which have based their own legal and social legitimacy. It has became an official word, in international documents, just starting from 1990, with a negative meaning strongly supported by Western culture. At first those has been considered as dangerous methods according to a medical-sanitary opinion, then as a serious violation of women’s and girls’ rights. In Italy the specific offense has been granted by a law in 2006 and there is just one case law processed by the Court of Verona in 2010. This matter focuses on the most significant issues of the current policies in a multicultural society with reference to the value that the legal system must give to cultural conditioning on people for criminal conducts due to membership. It must underline that these cases involve the most serious crime of permanent and irreversible inj...

Anti-extremism legislation has existed in Russia for over a decade, but only recently has it been used to discriminate against, persecute, and eventually “liquidate” the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The article reconstructs the history of anti-minority legislation in Russia, from the Soviet Union to the liberal post-Soviet reforms of the 1990s and the retrenchment in the Putin era. Jehovah’s Witnesses have been the victims of a notion of the Russian nation granting a de facto monopoly to the Russian Orthodox Church, and regarding religious minorities, particularly those headquartered in the West and proselytizing among Orthodox believers, as a threat to national integrity.

... Il concetto di diritto ecclesiastico ei rapporti Stato-Chiesa nella produzione scientifica di Domenico Schiappoli. Autores: Germana Carobene; Localización: Il Diritto ecclesiastico, ISSN 1128-7772, Vol. 115, Nº 2, 2004 , págs. 459-479. Fundación Dialnet. ...

The Italian literature of migration offers an interesting perspective for reflection on the themes of interculturality, pluralism, but above all on the ethnographic encounter. Migrant literature creates osmotic processes with its mixture of religions, cultures and languages. Analysis of this literature reveals a defense of the rights of the individual against those of collective identity, highlighting the triggering of a phenomenon termed 'creolization'. This concept, borrowed from linguistics, describes the hybridization process to which all traditions are subjected, the continuous exchanges and reciprocal influences among them, and the way in which the migrant searches for and incorporates charascteristics of the culture with which he comes into contact, recombining his reality. Creolization, if interculturally experienced, requires that the heterogeneous elements placed in relation with one another be inter-valued and that the encounter between cultures generate a meaningful opportunity to relativize the drive for identity, without diminishing the value and richness of the different cultures. This can directly affect the social landscape. While migrant writers in Anglo-Saxon contexts today constitute an established literary category, in Italy such writers are a more recent phenomenon, emerging in the 90s. The first published works are socially focused and reveal all the difficulties associated with integration. In the second period, however, broader narrative plots are highlighted which are not limited to a narrative modeled on the expectations the second culture. This second and current phase is represented by the so-called 'second generation / new Italians', children of immigrants who arrived in Italy in the 70s and 80s. The narration of the foreigner in these writings is a political and social choice, capable of initiating a much deeper dialogue and a reflection on dichotomization, especially as it relates to the psychology of identity and related ways of claiming and the means of accessing rights.

Anti-extremism legislation has existed in Russia for over a decade, but only recently has it been used to discriminate against, persecute, and eventually "liquidate" the Jehovah's Witnesses. The article reconstructs the history of anti-minority legislation in Russia, from the Soviet Union to the liberal post-Soviet reforms of the 1990s and the retrenchment in the Putin era. Jehovah's Witnesses have been the victims of a notion of the Russian nation granting a de facto monopoly to the Russian Orthodox Church, and regarding religious minorities, particularly those headquartered in the West and proselytizing among Orthodox believers, as a threat to national integrity.

The Istanbul Convention of 2011 established a clear link between the objective of gender equality and the elimination of violence against the 'female' gender and regulated directly the issue of forced marriages. Currently, in Italy, the reference legislation is represented by Art. 7 of the so-called 'Codice Rosso' approved in 2019, in a wider normative project dedicated to the criminal protection of victims of domestic and gender violence. This issue, from a strictly legal-positive point of view, must be correctly framed among the limitations to the freedom of individuals, especially women, determined by habits, customs, collective and relational value systems that put subjectivity second. However, a normative intervention that is limited to the classification of the case as a crime, on the basis of certain external morphological aspects, risks failing to grasp, in a truly inclusive and inter-cultural dimension, the plurality of meanings and the multiple relevance that individual behaviours could assume, with respect to the constitutional norms and the variety of values encapsulated in them. The repositioning of formal profiles, in which the semantic and normative dimension of the cultures to which they belong could be involved, could provide useful tools for a normative qualification/translation that better contextualises these practices, tracing 'other' meanings and, in relation to them, emancipatory solutions that do not bring into play the subjectivity of the 'victim' and his isolation from the social groups to which he belongs. Abstract La Convenzione di Istanbul del 2011 ha stabilito un chiaro legame tra l'obiettivo della parità tra i sessi e quello dell'eliminazione della violenza nei confronti del genere "femminile" ed è intervenuto direttamente sulla questione dei matrimoni forzati. Attualmente in Italia la normativa di riferimento è rappresentata dall'art. 7 del c.d. "Codice Rosso" approvato nel 2019, in un più ampio progetto normativo dedicato alle tutele penali delle vittime di violenza domestica e di genere. Tale problematica, sotto il profilo strettamente giuridico-positivo, deve essere correttamente inquadrata tra le limitazioni alla libertà degli individui, soprattutto delle donne, determinate da usi, costumi, sistemi di valori collettivi e relazionali che mettono in secondo luogo la soggettività. Tuttavia, un intervento normativo che si limita all'inquadramento come reato della fattispecie, in base ad alcuni aspetti morfologici esteriori, rischia di non riuscire a cogliere, in una dimensione realmente inclusiva e inter-culturale, la pluralità di significati e la molteplice rilevanza che singoli comportamenti potrebbero assumere, rispetto alle norme costituzionali e alla varietà dei valori in esse incapsulati. Il riposizionamento dei profili formali, in cui possano essere coinvolte la dimensione semantica e normativa delle culture di appartenenza, potrebbero fornire utili strumenti per una qualificazione/traduzione normativa che contestualizzi meglio tali pratiche, rintracciando significati 'altri' e, in relazione a essi, soluzioni emancipative che non mettano in gioco la soggettività della "vittima" e il suo isolamento dai gruppi sociali di appartenenza. CALUMET-intercultural law and humanities review

The institute of the kafala highlighted new legal issues in Italy following the ratification of the Hague Convention on Protection of children in 2016, between the right to the protection and respect of public order.The use of special legal forms of adoption is likely to foster dangerous discriminatory phenomena according to religious subjects and would impose the lesser legal protection "weakened" on the basis of religious choices of their parents. The only possibles olution is therefore that founded, not only on the adoption of a clear italian legislation, but on  the prediction of bilateral agreements who can guarantee the supreme interest of the child, based on  the actual understanding and respect for the meaning and objectives kafala abd adoption intend to porsue in the respective jurisdictions

The legal constroversy, started in France, on the  prohibition of the Islamic veil in school/universities, "neutral" places, shows interesting judcial profiles regarding the freedom of individual choises, even if considered conservative and strongly discriminatory. The analysis of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights underlines the inability to manage new emerging social issues. The veil, in fact, has assumed, in "wesrwern" thought, an altered value that has led to denying the multiple meanings that is has actually assumed in the Islamic culture, or in a certain part of it. The polysemic value of the veil must, in fact, necessarly refer to religious practice but also to the tradition and role of women in society. In our vision, distoted ans simplicist, we have reduced its symbolic value by associating it with fundamentalism, with a retrograde and misogynist culture. The project of democratic secularism should, instead, be aimed at the realization of a space that it truly  open to all and of all in which religiosity consitutes a vaue of social cohesion only if it lays down any "claim of infallibility" ans if it does not confuse the need for "dialogue cooperation" with that of "occpation" of the legitimate spaces of pluralism, which defines a socially and legally multiple reality

Migratory phenomena have led to cultural changes, with important legal implications. Just think of how to build family bonds. The family can in fact be defined as a natural paradigm of social organization, a complex phenomenon, an aggregate of people founded on blood ties, a place of convergence of individual interests between people linked by kinship or marriage ties. The constitutional reference in our legal system is to articles 29 and 30. In Italy a notable evolution has begun to delineate since 1967 with the law that introduced the innovative principle according to which the adoption has the purpose of giving the child, deprived of family, the right to have one. An organic reform, which intervened many years later with Law 184 of 1983, highlighted the minor's right to a family. The last intervention is that of Law 219 of 2012 which definitively sanctioned the uniqueness of the status filiationis. The best interest of the child principle enshrined in international documents is part of this regulatory framework. Some religiously oriented family institutions such as kafala or culturally delineated such as Fosterage question the traditional family model

A recent intervention by the Criminal Court of Nuoro, in July 2017, allows us to rethink the problems of protecting individual freedom and, in particular, the affiliation to religious movements. In the case in question, it was debated whether joining a minority confession could be related to the kidnapping and mistreatment of a young woman. Although having obtained enough media visibility, centered on the dangerousness of the movement, the judicial assessment allowed, however, to totally exclude this hypothesis, declaring that "the fact does not exist" and that the movement was totally extraneous to the facts.
Since the seventies of the last century, the attention of public opinion, prompted by sensational news stories, has been directed towards the observation of new religious movements, with the elaboration of theories on "brainwashing". In Italy the debate had a particular resonance, with the decision of the Constitutional Court of 1981, which declared the unconstitutionality of plagiarism, excluding its punishment but not its existence, in the face of the impossibility of outlining a legal figure with outlines clear and defined. It is known, however, that France and Belgium have recently introduced specific criminal rules to condemn 'sectarian drifts' and, above all, to protect against abus de faiblesse.
In the face of criminalizing attitudes of the new religious movements, it would be more correct, however, to frame the individual cases in the mainstream of common law and penalize only criminally deviant behaviors. The value of secularism, in a democratic, tolerant and pluralistic society must, in fact, be based on a fundamental axiom: believe in man's ability to act freely in full respect of his ethical values

The kafala is an institution for the protection of children, wich may have different meanings in different social contexts. The legal problem is related to the delicate balance between the imperative to protect children adoption procedeeings and respect for public order. It is also necessary to evaluate the coexistence of multiple factors, inter alia, such as the linkage of kafala to religious freedom based on a Koranic precept

For the majority of countries, the systems of State-Church relations in Europe are linked to the concordat scheme, or based on bilateral regulation which can be negotiated with mandatory consultation or finally negotiated with prior consultation. To a lesser extent there is the presence, according to different methods and typologies, of an Established Church and only France is constitutionally oriented to the principle of "laicité"/secularism. The current concordats represent not only the most suitable instrument that the Holy See has to preserve spaces of freedom, but also, at an international level, it allows it to reaffirm its presence in the global geopolitical balances.  The current concordat form has taken on the regulatory structure of a "neutral" instrument. The Italian model has highlighted the function of bilateral bargaining that can be contextualized in a secular and democratic regulatory framework with a clear separation of powers

In the juridical area of the post colonial Maghreb, a heterogeneous melange of juridical structures, characterized by the coexistence of "western" legal norms with those based on religious foundations, has been established. An example of this is the 2004 Family Code, the Moudawwanah Al- Usra,  approved in Morocco and based on the 'interpretative activity of justice and equity. It has profoundly innovated, while fully respecting Sharia and the importance of maintaining the sacred values of the family, as regards divorce, marriage, education and child custody by canceling the wife's obligation to obey her husband. It  has paved the way for female emancipation by overturning the cultural meaning of marriage in the Islamic universe

La cosiddetta normativa "anti moschee" tra politiche di governance e tutela della libertà di culto * SOMMARIO: 1. Interventi legislativi della Regione Lombardia sui luoghi di culto-2. Sentenza della Corte costituzionale n. 254 del 2019 sulla L.r. Lombardia del 2005-3. Pianificazione urbanistica secondaria e politiche regionali-4. Considerazioni conclusive. 1-Interventi legislativi della Regione Lombardia sui luoghi di culto Un progetto di governance del territorio, sotto il profilo della pianificazione urbanistica, deve includere la disciplina giuridica della religiosità sociale, contestualizzando tale intervento con la necessità di una previsione di spazi di aggregazione, aperti a tutte le istanze religiose e laiche, concretamente presenti nel tessuto sociale. La realizzazione degli edifici destinati al culto religioso, anche definiti "attrezzature di interesse comune per fini religiosi" 1 , è una materia per sua natura sospesa tra la tutela della libertà religiosa-anche nella sua estrinsecazione di diritto collettivo-e la normativa urbanistica. Il collegamento tra l'esercizio del diritto costituzionalmente tutelato ex art. 19 e la concreta disponibilità dei luoghi di culto ha legittimato da tempo l'intervento dello Stato e il suo sostegno economico all'edilizia * Contributo sottoposto a valutazione. 1 Tale sintagma è stato definito con il decreto del Ministero dei lavori pubblici n. 1444 del 1968, attuativo della legge del 1967 (cosiddetta "legge ponte") in tema di urbanistica che ha fissato una dotazione minima inderogabile di aree per abitante da destinare a spazi pubblici/attività collettive, all'interno delle quali si collocano le "attrezzature di interesse comune" individuate, inter alia come "religiose" (art. 3). Come è noto la sacramentalità del luogo di culto è definita dalla stessa confessione, secondo parametri propri, con una deputatio formalis ad cultum che delimita uno spazio, spirituale, nel quale si esercitano gli atti liturgici. Cfr. I. BOLGIANI, Attrezzature religiose e pianificazione urbanistica: luci ed ombre, in Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale, Rivista telematica (www.statoechiese.it), 2013.

The noteworthy impetus given to Catholic associations in the wake of the innovative doctrinal elaborations of the Second Vatican Council, normally outlined in the c.j.c. of 1983. This sector represents the semantic field of freedom of organization within the Church and the consequent responsibility of the faithful in their commitment to Christianization. This phenomenon, in addition to the interesting findings of canon law, also invests multiple civil profiles for some of these associations that have decided to use the legal schemes typical of the Third sector. Currently, the juridico-economic debate is centered on the need to recognize the essential role of the subjects of the social economy, to take measures to simplify the constitution process and to guarantee its financial support to support its development. This lies in the specific recognition of the contribution that the social economy guarantees to modern societies, ie that of developing the quality of the social dimension of the public sphere, through the provision of public services and the strengthening of the community trust, consolidating at the same time the economic dimension.
A particularly interesting perspective view is offered by the AGESCI, Association of Italian Catholic Guides and Scouts which, having established itself as a voluntary association, with the entry into force of law 383 of 2000 has been structured as a.p.s., association of social promotion. The AGESCI can be defined as a non-commercial entity of an associative type that performs non-profit activities, operates in the Third Sector, mainly offers services to its members and is endowed with the prevalent character of mutuality.  The recent reform of the Third Sector of 2017 has given considerable impetus to the matter, even for ecclesiastical associations

Belgium, according to the French model, has meant to have a policy of prevention against sectarian organizations based on a Report on the topic and the creation of the CIAOSN (Center d'Information et d'Avis sur les Organizations Sectaires Nuisibles). The starting point is represented by attempting to define the concept of "sect", in order to delimit the State's repressive action, between a concept of primary and secondary criminality. Compared to the activities of sectarian religious movements, three issues emerge, which have influenced the reaction of public institutions: the need for the protection of children / vulnerable subjects; the link with crime / terrorism; the media amplification linked to some extreme phenomenon. It’s important to avoid , however, a simple criminalization of the "different" religious phenomenon, regardless of identification of a criminal offense.
Methodological and political choices have led to the adoption in 2011 of a law against abus de faiblesse, very similar to that approved in France ten years ago, to protect individuals from the abuse of sectarian movements. However, there have been different ways to deal with the problem in both countries : for example the long process against Scientology ended differently in the two countries, since in Belgium, it was discarded in 2016 while condemned in France four years earlier instead. Mostly the jurisprudence has emphasized that within the autonomy of criminal law, the assessment of the religious profile of a movement can not be limited to the definition of the concept of religion, indefinable and misleading, but must more properly analyse the pursuit of non-lucrative purpose, even from a fiscal point of view. The difficulties are all centered on the subject-religion - which seems to be simply named differently nowadays. This has brought to the attention of the Belgian public opinion the semantic profile of the State's neutrality and the particular configuration of secularism/laicità that constitutional reform has placed among the ideological components of society.
KEYWORDS: Belgium, religious movements, sectarian organizations, secularism/laicità

The concepts of blasphemy and sacrilege have traditionally been etymologically related to religious vocabulary. In the current language of secularized contemporary societies it would be preferable to term them as provocation, incitement to hatred, insult. The tangled relationship between disrespect and freedom of expression must therefore be renewed. The issues at stake cannot be considered as mere problem of contents but also include modalities of expression and practical limits. Therefore, the related analysis should start by pointing out the importance of both free expression of thought and artistic freedom through a critical examination of European case law. Moreover, it should aim to grasp an insightful understanding about democracy and its concepts so as to support an improving interpretation of freedom. So, it may be preferable to follow the guidelines already developed by racial and anti-discrimination studies and to assume " human dignity " rather than public policy as the main legal interest to be protected by the provision of the so called " hate crimes "

The crime of honor and the aggravating factor of the trivial reasons' culturally (and religiously) motivated
A recent case law of the Italian Court of Cassation, on 2013, ruled that, in the case of the attempted murder of a daughter, trivial reasons cannot be considered based on the honor of the family and the violation of a fundamental religious precept. The evaluation of these cases then relates to that, of a much broader scope, linked to the concept of 'cultural crimes' or cultural defence. It is necessary, however, to perform a careful balancing between guilt and offensiveness proportion on the one hand and, on the other hand, to consider the extent to which the author of a culturally motivated crime can enjoy a punitive treatment, though attenuated compared to those who commit the same crime without a cultural motivation. A judgment intrinsically linked to a cultural and ethical relativism, cannot be accepted that though respecting the multiculturalism of the western society in general, and of the Italian one in particular, must always find its legitimacy by submitting to the principles and values on which the Italian Constitution is founded.
KEY WORDS: honor killings, culturally motivated crimes, the concept of honor in Muslim countries, irrelevance in Italian legal system