[statewatch.org] On 23 January 2009, a number of Italian associations and migrant
support organisations – Amnesty International Italia, Arci, Asgi,
Casa dei diritti sociali-Focus, Centro Astalli, Cir, Comunità
di S.Egidio, Federazione delle Chiese Evangeliche in Italia,
Medici Senza Frontiere, Movimento migranti e rifugiati di Caserta,
Save the Children and Senzaconfine – issued an appeal that warn
about the situation that is developing in Lampedusa, the largest
of the Pelagian islands which is little over 110 kilometres away
from the Tunisian north African coast.
The document provides
a legal critique of the violations of fundamental rights that
are taking place and are likely to occur in the near future as
a result of the choices that the Italian government is adopting
to manage this "crisis" which has been partly caused
by its own decision to suspend the practice of transferring migrants
from the first aid and reception centre to other suitable structures
in Sicily or mainland Italy. The implications of this have included
the presence of 1,800 people in a centre meant for 381 (extendable
to a capacity of 804) and the government has announced fast-track
practices for their removal and the future establishment of an
identification and expulsion centre in Lampedusa against which
the island’s population is currently demonstrating, with the
mayor Bernardino De Rubeis declaring that "We don’t want
to be Europe’s Alcatraz".
UNHCR has also expressed
its "growing concern" about the situation, as Interior
Minister, Roberto Maroni, has stated that around 150 people (Egyptians
and Nigerians) have been repatriated directly from Lampedusa
since 1 January 2009. This document focuses on the alarming conditions
in Lampedusa’s CSPA (first aid and reception centre) and how
its legal nature is incompatible with the use to which it is
being put, the risk of arbitrary detentions, the impossibility
for migrants to turn to judicial authorities to argue against
their detention or possible expulsion orders that may be issued
against them, the implications of the transfer of the Territorial
Commission for the recognition of the right to asylum of Trapani
to the island, entailing a likely impossibility of submitting
appeals against denials of refugee status or humanitarian protection,
the uncertainty of identification procedures, the situation of
unaccompanied foreign minors and particularly how their age is
established through tests (x-ray scans of the wrist) that are
"uncertain" in that they have a considerable margin
of error that could lead to the expulsion of children from this
legally protected group and the likelihood of collective expulsions
taking place, which are illegal under international law and for
which Italy was condemned by the European Parliament in 2005,
in the case of mass expulsions from Lampedusa to Libya.
"Appello
alle istituzioni sul grave e imminente rischio di estese violazioni
dei diritti fondamentali dei rifugiati e dei migranti presenti
a Lampedusa", original, in Italian.
Source: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2009/jan/04italy-lampedusa-appeal.htm
