Many more people are pushed back to Libya. Several resuce ships have been forced to stop activity, including recently the Aquarius, as no nation would give it a banner.
Demonstrations are being held in Torino, Neaples, Bologna, demanding the opening of the ports and that the migrants stranded at sea can finally land, and protests and solidarity actions continue in several other Italian cities.
The Italian right wing governemnt, de facto headed by Salvini, is meanwhile facing a revolt by mayors over the so called ‘decreto sicurezza’, a new package of restrictive measures against refugees and other migrants that has been ratified by parliament. The decree curtails the right to asylum and erases humanitarian protection, that allowed many who did not qualify for asylum to stay in Italy on a temporary basis. The Salvini decree also attacks the right to housing, and many migrants including families with young children have been evicted from their accommodation and thrown in the streets before Christmas. Drastic cuts not only to accommodation, but to language classes, services, everything that goes towards integration. A particularly controversial point is the lack of access to healthcare provisions for those who have no residence papers, including asylum seekers – healthcare is a right guaranteed by the Constitution, and healthcare provisions are a competence of the presidents of the Regions. The mayor of Palermo, Leoluca Orlando, the mayors of Neaples, Florence and a large and growing number of other Italian cities are refusing to implement such measures, as they consider their implementation likely to create a state of illegality. The presidents of some regions have joined the mayors in revolt. The new decree could now be examined by the Court in charge of overseeing the Constitution, as there are claims that the Salvini decree violates the Constitution on some points. Far from providing more ‘security’, as its name promises, the decree creates more insecurity, pushes people to the very margins, stuggling for survival, and leaves them open to exploitation.
The UN keep publishing reports and nothing changes. The UN has said it is not safe to return people to Libya, but they do not seem to act. People keep being sold in the slave markets or tortured to persuade their families to pay a ransom, else they get killed, slowly and in direct over the phone.
An asylum seeker who made it to the UK is taking the government to court over its participation in financing and mantaining the system of concentration camps in Libya, and the terrible human rights violations happening there. In fact the Libyan coastguard and the Libyan detention centres for migrants function with money and resources donated by Italy and Europe. The shameful price of policing the borders of Fortress Europe.
Questo articolo è stato pubblicato in Senza categoria il 6 gennaio 2019 da EXODUS - watchtheborders.