Italy pushing further harsh policy on immigrants

[jelena grujic]

If is to judge by last year, Italian immigration and asylum seekers policy is becoming seriously discriminatory. This country is in the way to launch serial of very dangerous anti immigration lows and practice that are on the contrary with EU judiciary foundation. One of possible measures even is establishing border check again.
Most of immigrants in Italy are coming from Romania and Romanian prime minister paid the visit to Berlusconi some days ago confirming seriousness of the situation.
Have a look on following digest report by United against racism.
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The recently redeemed Italian government of Romano Prodi passed earlier this year an emergency decree that
- allows the deportation of migrants from other EU countries
- limiting procedural safeguards of deportations and
- introducing administrative detention for European citizens if they are considered a threat to public safety

The decree was issued after the alleged murder of an Italian woman by a Romanian of Roma origin. Mr. Frattini, ex Commissioner for Justice and Civil Liberties at the European Union declared: "What has to be done is simple. Go into a nomad camp in Rome for example, and ask them: 'Can you tell me where you live?' If they say they do not know, take them and send them home to Romania. This is how the European directive works. It is simple and safe. Romania cannot say they will not take them back, because it is an obligation that is part of being a member state of the EU".

On 13th April 2008 Silvio Berlusconi swept back to power for the third time, after the Italian general election gave him and his centre-right allies an overwhelming lead in the Senate as well as in the Chamber of Deputies. Immediately after his election victory he already warned Italians of tough times ahead and announced more hard-line policies and practices towards immigrants to combat associated crimes.

Yesterday, Thursday 15th May, the Italian police proudly broadcasted that they arrested nearly 400 people in a successful crack down on 'illegal immigration' throughout the whole country. This 'cleaning action' in mostly migrant shantytowns in major urban areas across the country can be seen as consequential result of Italia's backslide into the far right in its government. The main focus of Italian concern about immigrant crime lies with the Roma, general known as "nomads".
Mr. Berlusconi's party, The People of Freedom (Il Popolo della Libertà) party, promotes on their campaign homepage that they would empty illegal camps, and remove nomads who have no legal residence or means of subsistence.

During the 'anti-immigration' operation of the Italian police in 15 regions, from North-Italy to Naples, 383 persons were arrested, 268 of it were foreigners. 177 persons are accused of thievery, 111 are accused of illegal immigration, 92 are accused of drug trafficking and 3 are accused of prostitution. 53 of the arrested persons were deported immediately and 65 of them were transported to detention camps.

"The anti-immigrant sweep was a positive thing because that's what people want," said Umberto Bossi, the minister of institutional reforms and federalism. "People ask us for safety, and we must give it to them."

In Naples Roma camps had to be evacuated, because mobs of local people started to attack the camps after a 16-year-old Roma girl was accused of trying to kidnap a baby. From 14th to 15th May local vigilantes burned a Roma camp near Naples to the ground. It was the sad result of this week's constant assault of Roma camps around Naples, mostly by youths on scooters and motorbikes using iron bars and throwing Molotov cocktails.

These massive assaults against Roma people don't accrue coincidently, but are the devastating result of hate speeches of politicians, xenophobic media coverage and authorities and discriminative laws that are stigmatising an entire ethnic minority. For example Milan introduced a special commissary for the Roma issue creating the basis for a pogrom against the Roma and migrant communities in Italy - Rome and Naples aim to follow up on this policy. These alarming developments even activated the Council of Europe and Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights, came to the conclusion:

"The decision to institutionalise a body like the national commissary to control the Roma emergency is based on prejudices and it propagate these prejudices."

More information under:
OSCE - Press release
European Roma Information Office
Migration Policy Group - Segregation of Roma Children in Education
ASGI - Rom e Sinti - Contributo di Fulvio Vassallo Paleologo

Related Articles:
The Independent - Italian tolerance goes up in smoke as Gypsy camp is burnt to ground
BBC News - Italy police to protect Gypsies
BBC News - Italian police swoop on migrants
Int. Herald Tribune - Italian minister wants to bring back border checks

[Erle Frayne Argonza]

Thanks for this update. This anti-immigrant thing is bringing us back to the rise of Il Duce, and is just 1-2 steps closer to reviving groupthought (read: fascist) lynching of immigrants. I wouldn't be surprised that, with the signing of the Lisbon treaty, the whole of the EU would adopt a restrictive policy against immigrants, and use the immigrants as the 'bogey man' to go install a totalitarian regime there. Today Italy, tomorrow Europe. Shuddering!

[jelena grujic]

Thank you for showing interest, Erle Frayne. Europe is all ready on the road of plenty disappointing decisions. Have a look on few video's I posted some time ago, that are talking about consequences of readmission process in Europe, especially for youths born in immigration. All countries candidates for EU partnership were facing an ultimatum for signing readmission agreement, accepting by it their citizens forcefully expelled from EU countries after asylum status denial. Those people were in Western Europe for more then 15 years and many children were born there, nowadays attending in schools. By all standards, those people are all ready integrated in EU society and it is a brutal violation of their rights to kick them out after all. Above all, we are all in process of becoming a members of EU. Hard to get the EU point on this action.

[jelena grujic]

I would like to complete picture on this subject with the news from other part of the world, Israel: their parliament just passed first round in the way to vote for one of the worst lows ever elected in the civilized world. Have a look:

New bill would sentence migrants and refugees to five years in jail
By Shahar Ilan, Haaretz.com
Tags: Knesset, israel
Last update - 07:30 20/05/2008
The Knesset on Monday approved the first reading of a bill to prevent illegal entry into the country. The draft law, passed by a vote of 21-1, would impose a sentence of up to five years in prison on people who cross the border illegally, including refugees and labor migrants, while infiltrators from enemy states, such as Sudan, could be sentenced to as much as seven years behind bars.

The bill also authorizes the state to hold illegal entrants, including refugees, for up to 18 days without bringing them before a judge for arraignment. In addition, it would legally authorize "hot returns" of infiltrators back to Egyptian territory, a practice that endangers their lives.

MK Dov Khenin (Hadash), the sole dissenter in the plenum vote, called the bill draconian, while refugee rights organizations said it contained a number of "terrible" provisions. They also criticized the fact that legislation on such a sensitive subject was entrusted to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which does not have experience with migration issues and whose sessions are held in camera, despite the fact that in recent months, Israel has almost completely ceased to treat infiltrators across the southern border as a security threat rather than as refugees or labor migrants.
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Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai, who presented the bill to the Knesset, said it was needed because between the beginning of 2007 and the end of March 2008, over 20,000 people entered Israel by crossing the southern border from Egypt illegally. The state's effort to use the old law against border infiltrators met with judicial resistance because it was an emergency regulation enacted in 1954. The current bill is supposed to replace the old law. But since its provisions are extremely harsh, it is unlikely to be an improvement over the emergency law.

"We will turn the Darfur refugees that reach us as a result of a human holocaust and genocide into criminals" if the law is passed, charged Khenin. "These are terrible directives. We need a completely different law, a law that will recognize the rights of the refugees and their status, that is appropriate to an advanced, humanitarian society in the 21st century."

Among the bill's other provisions:

* The enemy states and territories from which infiltrators can be imprisoned for up to seven years include the Gaza Strip.

* An infiltrator who returns to Israel after being deported can be jailed for 7.5 years, or 10.5 years in the case of someone from an enemy state or territory.

* An armed infiltrator, or someone in the company of an armed infiltrator (including refugees who arrive with an armed guide), can be sentenced to 20 years. Knives are considered weapons for this purpose.

Attorney Oded Feller of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel objected to the fact that the bill would permit the detention of suspects for 96 hours without a court order and 18 days without arraignment. Moreover, he said, it would allow officers to issue deportation orders without ever meeting the subject, based only on reports written by a soldier.

Related articles:
# Success notwithstanding
# African migrants arrested while attempting to cross into Israel
# Some 2,400 African refugees have entered Israel this year
# PM: Israel to send back refugees who infiltrate from Sinai