Italian state institutions prepare to approve a security decree containing a series of laws that are xenophobic, racist and contrary to the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Milan and Florence, May 7th 2009. Both the official opposition leader Dario Franceschini and the ex-magistrate and now leader of the "Italia dei valori" party, Antonio Di Pietro, compared the decree to the Racial Laws passed under Fascism.
The decree is being opposed by all Italian human rights organisations for its profoundly discriminatory and xenophobic content and its instigation to violence. The Interior Minister Roberto Maroni responded by saying that, “All the laws we have introduced were discussed with the European Commissioner.” (corriere.itl).
EveryOne is asking the European Commissioner if this is true and, if so, condemns the approval of the decree by one of the central figures in the EU, who in doing so is staining himself with guilt in providing institutional support for a provision that is damaging to the fundamental rights of ethnic and racial minorities as well as immigrants and refugees. All the same, we doubt that a man who is known and respected throughout the world for his moral stature, a man who places human rights at the heart of EU policies, could have authorised such an aberration of law and the democratic European tradition.
The decree establishes illegal immigration as a crime: in other words, for the first time in the history of European law, an action that infringes no human law (fleeing poverty, illness, war and oppressive regimes) can be considered an illegitimate act.
The decree requires foreign citizens to pay a much higher fee (from 80 to 200 euro) to obtain or renew their resident’s permit: this is an exorbitant demand with no legal basis that penalises the most vulnerable and discriminated-against sector of Italian society.
The decree allows citizens to form vigilante groups that in reality already exist (taking their cue from the Lega Nord, Forza Nuova or other extreme right-wing groups) and have gained a reputation for mass murders (e.g. the Livorno arson) or attempted mass murder, violence, abuse and intimidation of Roma, immigrants and the homeless, but also homosexuals and transgenders in various Italian cities and towns (Rome, Milan, Florence, Naples, Verona, Padua, Bergamo etc.).
The decree, unable to arm these vigilantes, will permit the sale of pepper spray. One vigilante group in Milan, operating under the name of “Death Company” has already attacked (early May 2009) a number of Romanian ethnic Roma citizens with pepper spray: a kind of dress rehearsal for new form of legalised ethnic cleansing;
The decree establishes an “integration agreement” that foreigners will have to sign; this is a form of discrimination like the “legality pacts” that turned the Roma into second-class citizens. By the same logic why should Italian citizens not have to a sign a “racial tolerance pact”?
The decree establishes a "tramps register": as happened at the time of the racial laws, a public office for the homeless problem (referring to the Interior Ministry) will carry out a census of the homeless.
The laws that were going to require doctors and head teachers to report citizens without resident’s permits were dropped, but this is a false concession to democracy, since no foreign citizen, transformed into a criminal by the article that establishes the “crime of illegal immigration”, is going to go to hospital or take his children to school since he’d be exposing himself to the risk of expulsion or prosecution. Emblematic of this is the case of the Moroccan woman whose three-year-old child died in her arms, in front of a number of passers-by, because the woman was afraid to take the child to hospital (www.ilgiornale.it/). EveryOne is receiving a growing number of report of seriously ill people who are not making use of the health service for fear of being reported (it is not unusual to find the police checking A&E waiting rooms, often acting on tip-offs from anonymous informers).
The decree increases sentences for gang rape or rape in schools, deliberately ignoring the fact that rape and abuse of children occurs in 70-80% of cases within the family, at home. The decree makes it more difficult to obtain citizenship following marriage. The foreigner who marries an Italian citizen will have to remain in Italy for at least two years before obtaining citizenship.
The decree opposes human rights organisations, raising the prospect of dissolving organisations that aren’t recognised, on the grounds of a “suspicion of terrorism" whose formulation is not at all clear; it also allows for the closing of internet sites that defend or instigate delinquency: “delinquency” in the government’s book means defending the lives and rights of immigrants, refugees and Roma (it’s no coincidence that the most active organisations in this field are already being intimidated by the authorities, while Roma activists are often assaulted or intimidated by uniformed police).
EveryOne maintains that each of the points outlined above constitutes a serious violation of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and asks the European parliament, the Council of Europe and the European Commission to use the most efficient legal means at the EU’s disposal to re-establish an equitable and respectful formulation of the law that govern the lives and rights of all citizens without regard for race, ethnicity, culture, religion or social status. In particular, we feel it is urgent and pressing that the illegitimacy of the decree on security be clearly established, thus nullifying immediately its discriminatory and persecutory effects on minorities towards whom the Italian institutions appear to be obstinately hostile.
Gruppo EveryOne
Tel: (+ 39) 334-8429527 (+ 39) 331-3585406
