http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/23/international/23ITAL.html?ex=1001822400&en=373a8d122051898f&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVER

OME, Sept. 21 — Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets here this week, just hours after Parliament approved a report absolving the police of wrongdoing during a meeting of world leaders in Genoa two months ago. The legislators acted even though reports of brutality there have never been seriously disputed.

The crowds appeared Thursday to protest globalization, which was the target of the protests in Genoa. But they also protested against terrorism, NATO and a proposed tightening of immigration laws.

With the terrorist attacks in the United States, the protesters' concerns seem to have evolved since the Genoa meeting in July. That is partly because there is deepening support among Italians for police action to assure public order.

The new concerns of the left include a proposed law that would impose jail sentences on people repeatedly caught entering the country without proper papers.

Proposed changes in the way that white-collar crimes are prosecuted have also given the protesters a chance to mobilize opinion against the center-right government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. His critics have complained, to little avail, that the law could have the effect of causing judges to throw out several accounting fraud cases pending against Mr. Berlusconi.







In recent days, though, there has been some real debate over whether a provision in the same group of proposed laws, one that makes it more difficult to follow money trails abroad, might benefit terrorists.

An article in La Repubblica said today that Parliament might make it "so difficult to exchange information with other nations that it would hinder investigations into terrorism."

Despite a police raid in the middle of the night on protesters at the July meeting in Genoa, and the death of one protester, this week's government report defended the police, saying that in Genoa the officers "did their utmost, paying a high price in terms of risking injury."