Italy: Regional governors oppose detention centres
01 May 2005
Regional governors and representatives of 14 of Italy's 20 regions held a meeting on 11 July 2005 in Bari (Apulia) to express their opposition to the network of detention centres for migrants, known as CPTs. The initiative followed an appeal issued by Nichi Vendola, the newly-elected
Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation party, PRC) regional governor of Apulia, which received the backing of 13 other regional governors after the regional elections in April 2005 saw the centre-left coalition winning in a majority of Italian regions. Representatives from all the southern Italian regions, with the exception of Sicily, which is governed by the centre-right, took part in the initiative. The
Mare Aperto national forum saw the governors and representatives of regional governments signing an appeal entitled "Ideas for opening the borders and closing the
Centri di Permanenza Temporanea (CPTs)", a policy which they criticise for framing the entire issue of immigration policy within the field of "repressive regulations", based on the questionable notion of "administrative detention". They criticised the treatment of immigration as a "public order" issue and the suspension of individuals' fundamental rights, describing the issue of CPTs as a way of re-opening the debate on immigration policy, because they represent the most "painful" failure in the policy choices made by Italy.
This initiative was particularly significant in light of charges made by interior minister Giuseppe Pisanu about its illegality. Pisano also criticised the call to close the CPTs by Piero Fassino, the leader of the
Partito dei Democratici di Sinistra (PDS, Democratic Left), the largest party in the centre-left coalition. He accepted that "CPTs are inhumane and fall below acceptable standards of civilisation", but argued that the solution is to "make them civilised and human for people who have to temporarily stay there and simultaneously efficient...to counter illegality" because "their existence is one of the conditions for being part of the [Schengen] system of free movement". Exponents of the centre-right, including Pisanu, stressed that the CPTs were established by a centre-left government, and that the use of terms such as "deportations", "lagers" and "mass expulsions" offend him, as an Italian and as the interior minister.
On 14 July 2005, nine activists were sentenced to up to one year in prison for "resisting a public officer". It was a ruling which Alessandro Merz, a regional councillor in the north-eastern Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region, called a "political judgement". He remembered that videos and testimonies showed clearly that "we were attacked by policemen and customs officers in riot gear", although the testimonies by the police apparently carried greater weight. The campaign was portrayed by prosecutors as a "premeditated criminal act organised in military fashion", rather than a "legitimate initiative by activists and citizens against a place where rights and democratic principles" are violated. At another trial on 22 July 2005 concerning ill-treatment suffered by detainees from Maghreb countries in the
Regina Pacis detention centre in San Foca di Medelugno (Apulia) after an escape attempt in November 2002 (see
Statewatch vol. 15 nos 1 and 2), 15 of the 19 defendants, who included the centre's director, the priest Cesare Lodeserto,
carabinieri, volunteers and doctors, were found guilty of offences including violence against individuals, misuse of coercive measures, failure to prevent ill-treatment and false testimony. Lodeserto received a 16 month suspended sentence; seven
carabinieri were also found guilty two, who forced detainees to eat raw pork (forbidden for Muslims) received 16-month sentences - while five others received a one-year sentence and four were acquitted; two doctors were sentenced for falsifying medical records to claim that the detainees had injured themselv