For the attention of the MEPs; the Members of the European Commission, the Council of Europe, and the European Council; the Members of the International Court of Justice, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the International Criminal Court of the Hague (in reference to our report no. n. OTP-CR-8/08 concerning crimes against humanity being carried out by the Italian institutions);
To the High Commissioner for Human Rights;
To the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees;
To Members of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights;
To the European Commissioner for Human Rights;
To Members of the Parliamentary Assemblies
and Governments of the European Union;
To World Health Organization;
To human rights organizations working against racism, the discrimination of minority groups and ethnic persecution;
and for the attention of the Supreme Council of the Magistracy
Sirs:
We have enclosed an EveryOne Group analysis of Law 773B recently approved by the Italian Parliament. The so-called security package contains a number of provisions that will deny immigrants the same rights Italian citizens have to basic public services, including access to medical care, besides severely restricting personal liberty and limiting the livelihood of economically or socially disadvantaged foreigners or those in need of humanitarian aid on Italian territory.
Law 733B: new racial laws approved by Italian Government, ratified by Parliament and signed by President Giorgio Napolitano
July 2009
The Italian Parliament approved Law 733B, the so-called security package, introduced by Silvio Berlusconi, President of the Council of Ministers, Roberto Maroni, Minister of Internal Affairs, and Angelino Alfano, Minister of Justice. The bill passed Parliament despite the chorus of protest from human rights organizations, democratic movements, the Roman Catholic Church, and the High Council of Magistrates.
Unquestionably, Law 733B may be defined a racial law that contrasts with the principles of the Italian Constitution, European directives on immigration and freedom of movement, the European Union Charta of Fundamental Rights, international conventions of human rights, including the Geneva Convention, the New York Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The bill was drafted according to the dictates of the Lega Nord, a right wing party that has widened its constituency basis employing strategies ominously similar to those the Fascist movement waged during the 1920s: staunch opposition to a multiethnic society; xenophobic and homophobic propaganda; intolerance toward faiths other than Roman Catholicism and toward foreign customs. Lega Nord has scored increasing success thanks to the support of the Popolo delle Libertà, a center right party that has veered farther right to embrace extremist views, such that Mr. Berlusconi stated, “I strongly endorse this decree.”
Lega Nord shares many of the homespun ideologies dear to the Hungarian Guard, a neo-fascist party that made important gains in European elections but was recently disbanded by order of a Budapest appeals court because of the discriminatory acts guardsmen perpetrated against the Hungarian Roma people. The persecution of Roma in Italy by Lega Nord has been no less ferocious.
The enactment of Law 733B will set the stage for no end of legal anomalies: the provisions that define illegal status as a criminal offense will make criminals out of non-EC migrants seeking to escape poverty, famine, war and persecution, thus providing the legal basis for detention and deportation. Migrants without a valid residence permit may be fined from 5000 to 10,000 euros, held in identification and detention centers, brutal prisons referred to as “lagers” by Mr. Berlusconi himself, while awaiting deportation to their country of origin. Under the provisions of Law 733B, detainees may be kept at the center up to 6 months before being deported. The living conditions at these centers are notoriously harsh: accounts of routine harassment by guards and self-inflicted injury by detainees can be found at the EveryOne Group website (www.everyonegroup.com) or by running a Google search using the key words “beatings at CPT” or “beatings at CIE”.
Currently, 10 migrant detention centers are operated in Italy, with a total capacity of 1219 places. With the allocation of additional funds by the national government, capacity will be raised to 4640 places. But since detention time will also be extended from 60 to 180 days, the risk is that the capacity at the centers will quickly prove too small. Already, the living conditions are completely inadequate for the number of people detained, with acute shortages of medical and psychological care, legal and orientation services, number of trained interpreters/mediators, space for recreational activities and consultation, as well as overcrowded rooms and lavatories.
Within the centers, a myriad legal and social situations co-exist side by side, along with various different human and social circumstances. Added to this is the number of ex-inmates. Taken together, these factors weigh heavily not only on those detained because of an expired residence permit but also on the weak and vulnerable most in need of social assistance who, instead, are exposed to intimidation and retaliation.
Law 733B also requires that Italian citizens report illegal migrants to the authorities (delation being the legal term), harking back to the methods the Nazi regime used against the Jews and the Roma people: under the provisions of art. 331 of the penal code, public officials, including health care operators and school principals, are responsible for reporting illegal migrants to the authorities. The new law also establishes that no civil act may be performed unless a foreign national has a valid residence permit. The means that such foreigners cannot file claims not even for criminal offenses, cannot be summoned to testify in civil or criminal court cases, and cannot access public services. Parents cannot register the birth of their children, rendering the children “illegal aliens” at birth, cannot enroll them in a crèche or in school or seek medical attention for them. If the children are brought to hospital, they will be denounced as illegal migrants, along with their parents and other family members.
Accounts have been reported of severely ill mothers and children who have died because of these barriers against seeking medical care or because they feared that if they did seek care, they would risk having the family separated by the social services plus the penalty for their social status. In this connection, according to a recent EveryOne Group survey of major hospitals in Rome (San Gallicano, Policlinico Umberto I, San Camillo Forlanini, Policlinico Tor Vergata, Ospedale Grassi di Ostia) and Milan (Niguarda, Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, San Paolo, San Carlo Borromeo), the percentage of migrants attending the emergency departments fell by 35% after the expected approval of Law 733B was announced. And for precisely the same reasons, numerous recent episodes of assault and rape have gone unreported by migrants.
But Law 733B has also impacted on the conditions of the migrants’ families back home: without a valid residence permit, migrants cannot transfer money outside of Italy. Italians have exploited this situation by threatening and intimidating the illegal migrants. Without a valid residence permit, foreigners cannot marry. And anyone attempting to help an illegal migrant, even in desperate situations, will be accused of and punished for aiding and abetting illegal migration, according to Law 733B art. 1, and risks from 6 months to 3 years prison.
With the introduction of a point-system-based residence permit, legal migrants will be effectively reduced to second class citizens. If, according to the authorities, a migrant “behaves poorly”, he will have points deducted from his residence permit; when records show a zero score on the permit, the migrant will be deported. This system, associated with the reintroduction of insulting a public official as a criminal offense, will inevitably lead to abuse of office by the authorities and the public institutions, blackmail and other forms of discrimination against foreigners in Italy. Accounts are given at the websites listed below:
http://www.stefanomencherini.org/; http://www.informa–azione.info/;
http://www.infoaut.org/; http://napoli.indymedia.org/; http://www.repubblica.it/; http://www.informa; http://www.osservatorioantigone.it/
To obtain residency, a foreign national needs to apply for a residence permit and a suitable housing certificate (or occupancy certificate). If the apartment or house, already difficult for a foreigner to find or afford since outrageous rents without a lease are often demanded, is not certified as suitable, the migrant becomes an illegal alien and can be prosecuted and deported. The charges for obtaining a residence permit or citizenship have risen sharply.
Alarmingly, Law 733B has also provided for the organization of “patrols” composed of xenophobic, homophobic and racist militias. Set up according to the dictates of Lega Nord and other extremist political movements, these vigilantes are considered legal by the Berlusconi government and other rightist parties (Forza Nuova, Azione Giovani, Fiamma Tricolore) in the ruling majority in Parliament.
Since Parliament’s approval of Law 733B, the EveryOne Group has submitted the text to international legal organs with the appeal to have it declared illegal with respect to international regulations against social discrimination, apartheid, and racism. The EveryOne Group has also petitioned the Italian government on two emergencies that require immediate attention. The first is the 500,000 caregivers and illegal workers currently without a valid residence permit: an act of indemnity is urgently needed to give them a legal status and to prevent them and their employers from falling outside the law.
Recently, Carlo Giovanardi, the undersecretary of the President of the Council of Ministers and responsible for family matters, admitted the seriousness of the problem and solicited an emergency bill similar to that enacted in 2002, before the enactment of the Bossi-Fini laws and the migrant worker quotas which continue to hinder establishing legal status for caregivers. Mr. Giovanardi also stated that Law 733B, which provides that illegal migration is a criminal offense, was approved to placate Lega Nord and xenophobic groups. He went on to say that it is a racial law and an unjust one in terms of citizens’ rights and social equality.
Our fear is that the government will establish provisions for legalizing the status of caregivers and domestic help working for Italian citizens to appease voters, offering them “slaves”.
The second issue the EveryOne Group has called to the attention of the Italian government is to enact measures that will resolve the widespread fear of public authorities among migrants, forcing them to live outside society for fear of being reported, detained and deported. Currently, thousands of foreign nationals, either in families or as individuals, live in such conditions: without being able to access to medical care, to register births, to report episodes of assault and rape. Illegal workers are often victims of blackmail and threats, pay withheld for work done, or among women, demands for sex by their “employers”. This new form of slavery is the result of xenophobic and racist policies that public institutions have pursued, a type of state-condoned slavery that has become even more entrenched with the approval of Law 733B. Roberto Calderoli, Minister of Simplification, though recently admitting that the sex market involves thousands of caregivers, exploited this tragedy for the purposes of xenophobic propaganda, comparing the victims to sex workers.
For further information see:
Another problem the EveryOne Group has called attention to is the risk of epidemics among migrants, citizens of the European Union and around the world. Completely excluded from the rest of society, the illegal migrants, because Law 733B makes their status a criminal offense, are forced to remain hidden and live in appalling hygienic conditions. This will make it impossible to carry out any effective public health intervention (prevention, quarantine, active intervention) in case of an outbreak of infectious diseases. Without medical care, without vaccination or adequate treatment, an atypical influenza virus may spread and mutate rapidly, claiming lives throughout the community and beyond. A good example is the recent report of cases of leprosy in Milan and Genoa. Prompt treatment and public health interventions prevented the disease from spreading. But this will no longer be possible after the enactment of Law 733B. Two cases of suspected leprosy, which had gone untreated because of fear of being denounced to the authorities, were reported in Milan. The threat of epidemics, a known by-product of today’s globalized world, can be met when citizens trust public health care services. Otherwise, the risk is a return of the rampaging plagues of the Medieval ages. This is a further demonstration of the irresponsibility of the new law. And one dares not think of what might happen in case of an outbreak of the Ebola virus, which is not so improbable, given that many refugees come from countries where the virus is endemic.
Together with a human rights organization network and engaged politicians who embrace the principles of the Italian Constitution and the international regulations protecting fundamental human rights, the EveryOne Group appealed to Giorgio Napolitano, the President of the Italian Republic, not to sign Law 733B; however, whether out of fear or complacency, he has followed the course of the public institutions.
The EveryOne Group has also protested that the Italian government put an end to these racist barbarities, which are a source of shame within the European Union, whose Charter of Fundamental Rights and directives point in the exact opposite direction: building a society based on toleration, acceptance and human rights. Except for dissenting opinion voiced by Gianfranco Fini, President of the Chamber of Deputies, and Mr. Giovanardi’s initiative, there is growing like-mindedness among majority politicians, like the complicity that united the Nazi hierarchy, that the Lega Nord’s xenophobic mindset reasons in the country’s best interest.
The EveryOne Group believes that unless the international authorities and the other Member States of the European Union adopt a strong stance, Italy will inevitably evolve into a totalitarian state ruled by new laws that will weaken any gains in civil and human rights and, as recent instances show, will turn the country into a dangerous example for the rest of Europe. In Italy, not only have activists’ voices been arrogantly laughed down, but the activist themselves have received intimidations and threats even from higher institutional echelons. So it is not by coincidence that EveryOne Group spokespersons were among the few Europeans invited to take part in the 2009 Dublin Platform for Human Rights Defenders, held under the auspices of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, and addressed to activists whose lives are endangered. The Roma activists of the EveryOne Group have been repeatedly attacked, beaten, also by the police, threatened, and followed. Accounts can be found at the websites below:
http://www.everyonegroup.com/ (link1); http://www.everyonegroup.com/ (link2); http://www.everyonegroup.com/ (link3)
And it is not coincidental that rights activist Mauro Zavalloni, after joining the Everyone Group and announcing it publicly, in a claim filed with the Court of Strasbourg in which he describes his case:
http://www.everyonegroup.com (link4)
of an activist submitted to an increase in forced psychopharmalogical treatment (compulsory pharmacotherapy), although he is a healthy, balanced person and poses no danger to himself or to others.
A final but important point as regards Law 733B is that it will create circumstances for migrants to seek their livelihood in the Mafia as a way to survive. Furthermore, xenophobia-driven exploitation, enslavement, rape and sexual abuse, aggression and killings, disappearance of children, already a huge problem in Italy, will spread, further worsening the condition of the weak and vulnerable, the emarginated and the poor. The Everyone Group sincerely hopes that this compelling call to action by the international authorities and institutions will not go unheard or result in admonishments, resolutions and appeals to the Italian institutions, which have proven completely ineffective, as during the Nazi era in Germany, when the authorities replied with pretences and lies to the requests for official explanations about the treatment of minorities the regime disliked.
You can visit EveryOne Group website (www.everyonegroup.com) and download dossiers, press releases, testimonies and information about the issues addressed here.
Sincerely,
EveryOne Group
Gruppo EveryOne
Tel: (+ 39) 334-8429527 (+ 39) 331-3585406
