Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni says it rather
bluntly: "We have to be mean towards illegal migrants." The minister
from the separatist Northern League announced a new and restrictive
measure on Monday. His party has submitted legislation which would
require doctors to report illegal migrants to the police. They are not
permitted to do so under current law.
[radionetherlands.nl] The minister’s Northern League is a right-wing party which wants to end
the constant stream of illegal migrants entering Europe via Italy’s
southern coasts.
His proposal is an amendment to a package of security measures which
will be discussed in the Italian Senate on Tuesday. It has led to a
stream of protests from doctors. They say it would destroy
doctor-patient confidentiality. Dangerous situations could arise if
doctors are required to report patients; illegal migrants could even
die because they feared to seek treatment.
Protest
"The risk of being reported could prevent immigrants without residency
permits from seeking help, even when they really need it," wrote the
chairman of Doctors Without Borders in Italy, Raffaella Ravinetto in an
open letter to the Senate. The letter has also received the endorsement
of national organisations of doctors, nursing personnel and midwives.
The regional administrations of Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna have also
voiced objections to the measure: "The right to medical help cannot be
traded for the need for public order."
The mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, supports the measure "since the
police must know who is staying in our hospitals and hotels and why".
However, the city council has come out against the measure following a
complaint by the chairman of the public health commission, the noted
immunologist and city councilor Fernando Aiuti.
Xenophobia
There is a good chance the amendment will be approved, since
the centre-right has a parliamentary majority. Nearly every day Italian
television shows pictures of Africans landing on the island of
Lampedusa. The immigration, combined with the economic crisis, is
causing feelings of xenophobia. Immigrants are seen as potential
competitors on an increasingly slinking job market. The crisis is
especially evident in north-eastern Italy, where there are 177,000
legal immigrants. Italians are beginning to apply for factory jobs,
work which was previously done by foreigners. The trade union
federation CGIL has called on the government to reduce the number of
legal immigrants.
Gang rapes
The climate has worsened in recent days following the gang raping of
Italian girls by groups of illegal Romanian and Moroccan immigrants.
The incidents, which have received extensive media coverage, have
helped to increase support for measures which make life difficult for
illegal immigrants.
In the town of Guidonia, not far from Rome, gangs have attacked
foreigners. On Monday, three young extremists in the port city of
Nettuno poured petrol over a sleeping Indian and set him on fire. He is
in hospital suffering from serious burns. A number of towns in northern
Italy want to ban restaurants which sell ‘foreign‘ food, in particular
those which sell shoarma.
Source: http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/region/europe/090204-italy-immigrants
