The Council of Europe has come under fire from Italian leaders after the publication of a report accusing the country’s police force of racist and homophobic abuse.

In its latest snapshot of Italy, published on Monday, the ECRI, the council’s independent human rights monitoring body, said that during a visit to Italy its delegation learned about “many accounts of racial profiling by law enforcement officials that impacts especially the Roma community and people of African descent”.

The accounts of “frequent stop and account activities based on ethnicity” were substantiated by reports from civil society organisations and international monitoring bodies, the report added.

Furthermore, the ECRI claimed that Italian authorities “don’t seem to be aware of the relevance of the problem and have not considered the existence of racial profiling as a potential form of institutional racism”.

The report cited a study conducted among immigrants in 2022 in which 45.8% of respondents said that out of all public institutions, they experienced the most discrimination in police stations. Common examples were having their asylum applications rejected without reason, having their documents destroyed, being verbally abused and in some cases violently abused. Police were also accused of verbal and physical abuse during operations in Roma camps.

The ECRI also said “little or not action” hade been taken in recent years “to ensure better accountability in cases of any racist or LGBTI-phobic abuse committed by state police officers, carabinieri and other law enforcement officials”.

The report concluded by asking Italy for a complete and independent study on the situation.

But Italian leaders did not welcome the accusations. The prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, whose far-right government has projected a tough attitude towards law and order since coming to power in October 2022, fervently defended the police force, saying it “deserves respect, not such insults”.

Meloni said in a post on social media: “Our security forces are made up of men and women who every day work with dedication and self-sacrifice to guarantee the security of all citizens, without distinctions.”

The Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, expressed his “astonishment” at the report’s accusations during a call with police chief, Vittorio Pisani, while reiterating his esteem for the police force, Mattarella’s office said.

Antonio Tajani, a deputy prime minister and the foreign affairs minister, said he had instructed Italy’s representative in the Council of Europe, Roberto Martini, to express the government’s “profound disdain” over the report.

“I don’t agree with a word of what was written,” Tajani said. “There is no racism within the Italian police force. We must respect those who serve the country, working day and night for everyone’s safety.”

Matteo Salvini, who along with Tajani is deputy prime minister, said the police force had been “dragged through the mud” by a “useless” organisation.

While the ECRI accusations against the police struck a nerve, the report delivered an unflattering view of Italy in other areas, too. It noted “with serious concern” that “Italian public discourse has become increasingly xenophobic in recent years, and political speech has taken on highly divisive and antagonistic overtones particularly targeting refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, as well as Italian citizens with migration backgrounds, Roma and LGBTI persons”.

The report said a number of derogatory and hateful statements had come from “high-profile politicians and public officials, especially during election periods, both online and offline”.

While the report did not mention politicians by name, it referred to examples, such as a councillor in Florence who before the 2022 general election posted a video online of a Roma woman alongside a caption encouraging people to vote for his party in order to “never see her again”.

The report also referred to a book published by an army general in 2023 that contained racist and homophobic comments. The person in question was Roberto Vannacci, who was elected as an MEP in this year’s European elections.