Doctors would not be forced to report illegal migrants under a crime bill being discussed by parliament, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said Monday.
Maroni said the bill, which moved last week from the Senate to the Chamber of Deputies, would merely lift a ban, imposed by a centre-left government in 1998, on reporting illegals.
It would therefore be up to individual doctors to decide what to do, he stressed.
''If a doctor doesn't want to report an illegal he doesn't have to but it isn't right to punish a doctor if he wants to tell the police about an illegal who has been wounded by a girl he has raped,'' Maroni said.
The minister, whose Northern League party has been accused of being anti-immigrant, said the measure would bring Italy into line with other European countries.
Germany went further than others in requiring doctors to report illegals, he said.
The bill is being pushed through parliament amid concern over crime committed by immigrants and a series of rapes.
Maroni said some of the recent rapes in and around Rome might have been prevented by another part of the bill, the authorisation of the kind of citizen patrols which have been operating in the north for some years.
''If there had been citizen patrols where those rapes happened, perhaps they wouldn't have happened,'' he said.
''These patrols are associations of citizens, armed only with cellphones, who simply report problems to the police.
''This boosts control over the local area, and centre-left mayors have authorised the (patrols) too, but when the League does it, it is accused of racism''.
''There's a lot of prejudice against the League but I want to do the things I believe are needed against crime''.
Centre-left politicians and human rights groups blasted the lifting of the doctor reporting ban last week, saying it would drive immigrants away from healthcare centres with risks for the wider community.
MPs also slammed the citizen patrols, who have in the past been criticised as ''vigilantes''.
Critics called the measures ''racist'' and ''fascist''.
