Conference of Italian missionary institutes (CIMI)
Commission for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation of CIMI
MISSIONARIES / EE
NOT IMMIGRANTS CAN WE BE SILENT
Florence, June 30, 2010
"Today the most visible form of poverty in Italy and dramatic-wrote the courageous Bishop Emeritus of Caserta, R. Nogaro - is that immigrants and Roma. In the name of an imaginary 'social security' is being built, especially in our country, the factory of fear towards anything that could harm the peace of the city. This disturbing prospect of having the accused is an immigrant and is the rom, they naturally considered subjects of crime. "
In a few words lapidary Bishop Nogaro, who well knows the problems of immigrants in Caserta and Castelvolturno, there has put before our eyes the drama of these brothers and sisters, immigrants in our country.
The European context
We live in the era of greater mobility of known history. Over 214 million international migrants, there are approximately 740 million displaced persons, some IDPs. This means that one in seven people in the world is a migrant. (Peter Schatzer, the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants, Rome, May 2010).
In the 27 EU countries are calculated 24 million migrants, for the most part from the same countries of the Union. According to recent estimates of migrants 'illegal' range between 4.5 and 8 million, with an estimated increase between 350 and 500 000 per year.
In fact, Europe, feeling 'fortress' siege, defensive tackles the phenomenon of mobility. The 'governance' of migration and the fight against illegal immigration are proposed as the main solution to provide security to European companies entering the immigration control in order to combat terrorism ... and is thus unacceptable proposal and reiterated the trilogy: 'immigration - crime and terrorism - insecurity'. For this reason, the migration policy in Europe said the closing of borders to people, but freedom of movement to information, goods and capital. Is spreading a political attitude of rejection of immigrants, while the economy continues to demand recruitment. Perhaps we will soon see new drop iron curtains, with tightened border patrols and new measures to protect the coast.
There are those who dare to say that strengthening the borders and not just in the first place to stop the migration, which in fact-but continue to be defined as irregular migrants who cross them, giving them an identity that places them in a position of inferiority and lack of rights: an army of invisible blackmail and exploitable (Mons.Antonio M. Veglio, VIII Congress Eu, Malaga, April-May 2010).
The Italian Xenophobia
upright
We missionaries who have been long-hosts of the African peoples, Hispanics, Asians are witnessing now home to an unprecedented fury against immigrants in our midst. We are witnessing a massive and increasing violations of human rights against them. And that is the indifference on the part of Italian citizens, oblivious to what our migrants had suffered. Are we not repeating on immigrants in our midst what our grandparents have suffered even when they migrate?
We can not accept that the head of the Italian Government states that: "A reduction of non-EU forces means less going to swell the crime." It 'a very serious statement. The secretary of the CEI, Mgr. Crusade has rightly replied: "Immigrants offenders as much as the Italians. It is true that reducing illegal immigrants also reduces crime. " A lie, but echoed by a national press that incites fear "other." In this country we are witnessing a crescendo of statements, laws, regulations that do nothing but stir up a growing racism and xenophobia strong.
part of all political
And not only today but for almost 20 years. Starting with the Turkish-Napolitano Law (1998) which is the basis of the Consolidated Law on Immigration and started the detention centers (CPT), which later proved to be the actual concentration camps. Followed in 2002 by the Bossi-Fini law, which amended the Consolidated. This law introduces the employment contract, attached to the granting of residence permits, providing for the expulsion by reasoned decree, initiated by the Quaestor and decreed penalties (to prison) for disobedience to the order of the public official.
We consider immoral and non-constitutional, the Bossi-Fini law, because it does not recognize immigrants as subjects of law, but recognizes them as labor, paid at a low price and send the item back when no longer needed. The Bossi-Fini is a very serious legal in key (several courts have declared unconstitutional!), But especially in key ethics.
Package Security Act (94-2009) introduces in the Italian of the aggravating penalty for illegal immigrant smuggling, reclusive penis up to three years for those who disposes of property in an illegal immigrant, transforms the CPT in Identification and Expulsion Centres (CIE), which prohibits illegal to give birth in a hospital to recognize the child as his, imposes a tax on a residence permit and restrictive rules on family reunification. In this way, for the first time, the underground becomes a criminal!
In this context, the ordinances are also part of the Prime Minister, who declared a state of emergency for the nomadic communities of the Roma-Lazio, Campania and Lombardy, and impose the shameful act of filing of Roma through the collection of forced fingerprints for identification and a census of the inhabitants of the camps.
agree with Famiglia Cristiana, the security package when he called the "evil into law."
institutional racism
This legislation involves a very heavy burden on the shoulders of immigrants: the payment of contributions to obtain costly residence permits and citizenship, the requirement to submit a document attesting to the legality of the stay for the celebration of marriage, the review by the City of sanitary conditions of the property and the heavy penalties for failure to produce documents.
If all this is added the aggravating circumstance of secrecy that gives rise to the third sentence, the dozens of orders for the 'urban quality' of local authorities (prohibition from carrying bags to those against the washer!) That create a "special right" reserved to the areas of urban poverty and immigration, we really have the impression of being faced with laws that reflect "institutional racism, as the philosopher L. Ferrajoli, which is to stir up the mood of xenophobia and racism endemic nell'elettorato these rich countries. "
to the above must be add the last two innovations: a report card that points to an immigrant can obtain Italian citizenship (adopted a draft regulation in May 2010) and then the decision 11 / 03/2010 of the Supreme Court that illegal immigrants should be deported, even if they have minor children attending school. Unbelievable but true: the rule of law prevails over the border need to protect the right to education of children. From all this comes out
compromised our democracy itself. "Today, the novelty of the criminalization of immigrants - said the philosopher L. Ferrajoli meeting held in September 2009 in Lampedusa, on" The frontier of rights. The right to the border - fundamentally undermines the democratic identity of our country. Since it has created a new figure: that of the person illegal, only outlaws because such non-person because they have no rights and therefore exposed to any type of harassment: intended to create a new proletariat, therefore, legally discriminated against, and not just as the old immigrants, economically and socially. "It 's the same Ferrajoli to pull the findings:" These rules and practices in fact reveal a genuine institutional racism ... They express the image of immigrants as' thing', as a non-person whose only value is that low labor price for humiliating or dangerous or strenuous activities: everything but a human being, entitled to rights like the citizens. "
And at the same conference in Lampedusa, the well-known magistrate Livio Pepino added:" The criminal law, in turn, takes on a new curve, not against migrant criminals, but against the migrant as such. In fact, with the introduction of the crime of 'illegal immigration' is setting continues to punish not a fact, but a personal condition: the migrant becomes a crime. "
we say that all this legislation is the result of a world political right and left has pilloried window washers, street vendors, Roma and embodies a xenophobic and racist culture that is leading us into the abyss of exclusion and rejection of the 'other', especially the Muslims. The new lager
Other painful chapter of the legal immigrants who are in the centers before they were called detention centers (CPT) and that the new legislation calls for Identification and Expulsion Centres (CIE), where immigrants are locked up for six months (the first was sixty days). The CIE
situation is even worse than that of CPT. We know from reliable sources that the CIE multiply the violence and abuses, while successive revolts always repressed violent beatings.
"These are real places of detention centers - writes L. Ferrajoli - a prison for more serious and more painful than prison, since it is subtracted from all the guarantees provided for prisoners, beginning with the supervisory role played by the judiciary supervision. They were created so the concentration camps where inmates are "people who have done nothing wrong, but who are deprived of any rights, and subjected to punitive treatment, even without the rights and guarantees associated with the same penalty of imprisonment. "
Even more dramatic the situation of immigrants in camps in Libya, which are real concentration camps.
He's right Professor L. Melillo Orientale of Naples in a recent book, A distance of offense (edited by A. Edwards and L. Melillo) wrote: "It seems clear risk of a drift that makes the racist foreign body of the scapegoat of the crisis in our society. "
points of shame
inhuman and finally treatment workers and laborers that immigrants suffer in the country, both at work and in homes. Places like Castelvolturno (Caserta), S. Nicholas Varco (Salerno), Rosarno (Reggio Calabria), Cassibile (Syracuse) are now entered in the Italian collective. These are the places of shame home to agricultural laborers who collect our tomatoes, oranges, potatoes, ...
The best known is certainly Castelvolturno in Caserta with a population of at least 15,000 inhabitants of whom 5,000 are immigrants who work in the countryside of Caserta and Naples. Their living conditions, housing, work is really degrading. As missionaries, and we have often complained about the situation, which then exploded Sept. 18, 2008 when six Ghanaians were brutally murdered by the Camorra. The Africans took to the streets of Castelvolturno rebelling against the massacre.
Castelvolturno just the way immigrants are treated, is a powder keg that could explode at any time. How exploded Rosarno where they lived over a thousand laborers who worked in the Plain of Gioia Tauro. We have often been able to visit the shanty towns where the immigrants were forced to live, unique places of squalor. The immigrants themselves, then fled from Rosarno, wrote: "We lived in abandoned factories, without water or electricity. Our work was underpaid. Leave the places where we slept at 6 in the evening to re-enter only at 20:00, for 25 € which all ended up in our pockets. Sometimes we were not, after a hard day's work, to make us pay. We were beaten, harassed, hunted down like animals ... "
Harsh words, written in the aftermath the tragic story of Rosarno (7-9 January 2010) when some "good guys" shot against the Africans, who, tired of so many abuses of power, rebelled. The result was a veritable revolt (just see the images on the DVD of The oranges Rosarno).
"They shot him for fun or for the interest of anyone-have-written. We could not anymore. Those who were not wounded by bullets, were injured in their dignity, their pride of human beings ... We are invisible to the authorities of this country. "
It seems only right in this context to remember his father Carlo D'Antoni, pastor of the Forest Minniti (near Cassibile), which upheld it in its Parish migrants: was arrested on charges that he signed certificates of hospitality that enable laborers to have a roof. And now he expects the process!
Same situation in the slums of St. Nicholas Varco, the town of Eboli (Salerno), where a thousand North African laborers living in a situation of great human degradation. On November 19, 2009 these immigrants, engaged in agricultural work in the Valle del Sele, were hunted down and destroyed because the slum to be declared unfit (and it's true!), But without offering them another place to go to sleep. Useless to protest that we made and the Prefect of Police of Salerno. Today there is a shanty town in St. Nicholas Varco, but we have hundreds of laborers who sleep where they can into the valley of the Sele.
All these workers are the labor force, paid a low price, at the mercy of corporals who are also through to the mafia. And this brings us to the painful chapter of working conditions. Among
corporals and mafias
On 26 April 2010 there were, in Rosario, about thirty arrests, wind farms seized and sealed to two hundred pieces of land worth ten million Euros. And this is for the investigation of the prosecutor in Palmi (RC), born after the revolt of Rosarno. They end up in handcuffs so
foremen and owners of orange groves and the Piana di Gioia Tauro, accused of criminal association for the exploitation of labor induction and illegal immigration. Profiteers of the desperation of foreign laborers, forced to work for a few Euros per day.
E 'Italy of foremen, bosses neoschiavismo who impose their law and do a roaring trade at the back of 60 - 70 000 migrant laborers who live in poor conditions similar to those found in Rosario. Second Flai
the CGIL, the illegal immigrants employed in agriculture in the south are all close to 90%. They work ten hours a day and sometimes the pay does not reach € 15. The percentages improve in the middle (50%) and North (30% ).
According to the Italian Farmers Confederation, the "place of shame", 40% of foreign laborers living in abandoned buildings and crumbling, over 50% without water, without electricity 30%, 43% without sanitation. Collectors of vegetables by the piece are between 16 and 34 years. 80% never saw a doctor. A note
deserves the province of Foggia, where the harvesting of tomatoes is in the hands of the racket that immigrants pay € 10 per day.
the North is building a land of conquest of the other corporals. Here one in four workers working in the informal economy: 700,000 illegal immigrants employed in companies (in this we first in Europe). We are at the forefront in Milan in Piazzale Lotto Lambrate or applying for a day in the yard. A regular worker costs € 21 per hour, if there is half of the intermediary is less than half. The rest goes to the corporal. And the foremen in the North are increasingly Egyptians, Moroccans, Romanians and Chinese also manage their compatriots at work and in life. Another shameful chapter!
Rejections
racist laws were not enough, there were also the people back in the sea during which thousands of people have been ruled out, risking their lives in camps in Libya or in their countries of origin, where they wait for another ordeal.
as missionaries and witnesses who are pushing this migration, from Africa, which attempts to cross the Mediterranean, is due to the turbulent situation of the African continent, especially Eastern and Central Africa. The situation of poverty, oppressive regimes, wars taking place in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad propel thousands of people to flee across the desert to arrive in Tunisia and Libya, where they are exploited as slaves. Most of these immigrants are political refugees and are entitled to political asylum, among other things mentioned twice in our Constitution. And what is the government's response? Close the borders and stop this 'invasion'. And that is why Berlusconi's government has signed agreements with Libya and Tunisia. On January 5, 2009, the Italian Senate approved the treaty with the government of Libyan Gaddafi to prevent the so-called 'tramp' of the sea come to Lampedusa on the Italian coast. Thousands of immigrant deaths in the Mare Nostrum. According to a study by G. Visetti, journalist of La Repubblica, from 2002 to 2008 were killed 42 thousand people, thirty immigrants a day, swallowed by the sea in front of the fortress Europe. (Not to mention the thousands of migrants who die crossing the Sahara desert)
face of such horrors, how do you sign a treaty with Libya's Gaddafi, a true dictator, which is so shameful that the immigrants who come to you? How to rig with patrol boats and lots of weapons (in 2009 we have sold military equipment worth 111 million euro!), A country that uses anti-immigrant? The same is true for Tunisia, which in 2009 we sold weapons to more than 3 million €. On 27 January 2009, the Minister Maroni, met with his Tunisian namesake for the same reason, namely the rejection of migrants.
Italy is now paying flights departing from our South, but also from Malta or Libya, and that immigrants bring to their country. It means to bring torture or death. Just seeing the video of the Espresso journalist F. Gatti, "The friend Isaiah" and "Eritrea: Voices of torture" to realize how tragic the situation is and how little the Christian Gospel and the behavior of the Italian government.
Famiglia Cristiana has rightly compared these rejections to the Holocaust.
In this regard, Professor. Antonio Esposito Orientale of Naples, in the book Remote offensive weapons, puts it this way: "So men and women end up not landing more in Lampedusa. Stuck in Libya by Rome-Tripoli and returned to the desert. Abandoned on the sand, just across the border. Sometimes they are forced to walk. Other times you lose. Fall face down, exhausted, hungry, thirsty and no one will find more of their bodies (as reported by F. Gatti nell'Espresso). Italy, as Europe tries to build his fortress. The intangible enclosure walls are erected with the cards that make the laws, are held together by feelings of indifference, contempt and disdain false, your common sense. Left out women, men, old men, children, parties chasing a horizon of dignity. "Denial
human rights
And these rejections occur not only off our coasts, but also in our most important ports. We are sure that the ports of Ancona, Brindisi and Naples, thousands of immigrants who are rejected each year. We made direct experience with the nine immigrant ship 'Real D', which docked in Naples April 7, 2010. The order of the Minister Maroni was peremptory: it could not!
"These rejections - said Luigi Ferrajoli - meeting held in 2009 in Lampedusa - are illegal in several respects. They have violated, first of all, the right of asylum provided for in Article 10 (paragraph 3) of Constitution for the 'stranger who is denied his country in the effective exercise of democratic freedoms', as the Italian ships with which immigrants are reported in Libya Italian territory, whether in territorial waters or high seas. And they have failed twice, as these desperate people who are rejected in those camps are camps in Libya, where they intended to remain indefinitely and in violation of basic human rights.
have violated, and secondly, the guarantee of habeas corpus established in Article 13 (paragraph 3) of the Constitution: these rejections were in fact resolved in bringing persons to court, not subject to no judicial validation
Finally ... have been violated international conventions that Italy, in Article 10 of the Constitution, it is committed to: Article 13 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights on freedom of emigration, and Article 14 of the same declaration on the right of asylum, Article 4 of Protocol 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights which prohibits collective expulsions. "
With these rejections are in front of a massive violation of human rights by the Italian government. The Navi
Pellay, High Commissioner for UN Human Rights, meeting at the Interior Ministry of the Interior Minister Maroni our said: "Immigrants are not toxic waste, should be saved and protected. It 'an obligation for the authorities to save lives in danger. "
And he added:" Immigrants should not be stigmatized it' criminalized. Rather be created mechanisms to promote their integration and inclusion in society. Migrants can not be perceived as a threat to security because it only serves to increase the fears of citizens. "
The 2010 report of Amnesty International condemns Italy as racist.
Trafficking
Another aspect of 'immigration in Italy is the stretch of women for prostitution. According to reliable estimates, on the roads we have from 30 to 50 000 Nigerian girls who are victims of trafficking in our country. Not to mention the other women in Albanian, Rumanian, Latin-American ... that dot our streets for the nine million Italians (70% of them is married!) Who buy sex on the street. It 'is clear that this is the result of international and Italian mafia racket that add exploitation to exploitation.
And there are very specific political responsibilities.
"How to stop them? - Asks a missionary, Father Franco Nascimbene, who has worked extensively in Castelvolturno - is a complex situation, with the connivance of and corruption that only institutions, governments and police forces could effectively address. There are already laws that affect those who exploit prostitution, but one gets the impression that lacks a strong political will to stop the infernal machine that produces slavery and destroy the future of thousands of girls.
•-If the institutions invest more in the activity investigation, employing more men to stalk madames. Exploiters, and the Camorra mafia,
•-se would create more links with the police of origin of the girls,
•-whether to control the flow of money from prostitution, which come from Italy through Western Union and other agencies (as was done in other areas, where there was political will to stop certain expressions of the crime), you could at least slow down or stop the trafficking of women for prostitution.
Prisons
As for the prison issue, we want to say that 37.1% of the prison population is of foreign origin (24,922 to 67,452 at April 21, 2010) and highlight some specific issues related to the life imprisonment of foreigners ... for example, language difficulties, poor economic conditions also because of the remoteness of the original families, the absence of a network family and friends ... (Antigone, 1 (2009), 25).
We think that, as the missionaries, we meet here, in prison, part of the reality that we have got to share elsewhere. We believe we can offer an extremely valuable contribution and a possible point of reference in terms of human and the spiritual / held at s and prison staff.
The prophetic voice of the Churches of Africa
We are encouraged, as missionaries, and the fact that African bishops gathered in Rome for the Second African Synod (4-25 October 2009) have had the courage to speak in their interventions in the classroom. They have tackled this issue, the bishops: G. Martinelli (Tripoli, Libya), BD Souraphiel (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), W. Aveny (Makurdi, Nigeria), GC Palmer - Buckle (Accra, Ghana), G. 'Leke Abegunrin (Osogbo, Nigeria) and finally the TA Cardinal Sarr (Dakar, Senegal) (To see an Africa reconciled - Memory of the Second African Synod by Anna Wells).
"Africans will continue to come in Europe - said Bishop W. Aveny - by all means, even at the cost of dying in the desert or sea, until the economic and environmental balance between Africa and the rest of the world will not be restored by those who are responsible and that is the West! "
no less explicit Archbishop of Addis Ababa, Souraphiel: "I hope that this Synod for Africa explores the underlying causes of human trafficking, displaced persons, exploitation of domestic workers, refugees, migrants, especially of Africans arriving in boats and what sort of asylum seekers and positions and concrete proposals to show the world that the lives of Africans is sacred and not without value as it seems to be presented and seen by many media. "
No less Abegunrin heavy intervention of the Bishop of Osogbo (Nigeria):" The voice Church's prophetic pro-poor and the oppressed must never be compromised or sacrificed on the altar of friendship religious or material gain. "And he applies now that the issue of immigrants: "One of the biggest challenges that this synod should tackle is the fate of a large number of African immigrants in all countries of the West. Since the beginning of this economic crisis, many Western countries have developed laws and defensive structures in support of their economies. Unfortunately for this purpose were approved laws that are very close to denying even the human rights of immigrants. Especially in Italy, illegal immigration has become a crime! "
E 'then hit the Archbishop of Dakar, Cardinal Sarr analyze in depth the phenomenon of immigrants:" I would like to emphasize the detector the phenomenon of illegal migration. Such a risky adventure of illegal migrants is a real cry of despair, which proclaims to the world the seriousness of their frustration and their ardent desire for greater prosperity.
We perceive this cry of despair and let it penetrate our hearts so as to try to understand the meaning and scope? "And the cardinal concluded," Because we know that they are not the police barriers, as can be impassable , to stop illegal migration, but the actual reduction of poverty will get the promotion of economic and social development which would extend to the masses of our country. "
E 'was finally Archbishop of Accra, Palmer - Buckle, in a speech to express the heavy "feel" of the African bishops at the Synod attacking xenophobic tendencies in Europe that "consider Africans as if they had rights."
And ironically concluded: "How do you Europeans talk about universal human rights?" We are committed
Even under the migration we missionaries and we propose a reading full of faith and hope because, Apart from the dramatic implications that accompany the stories of immigrants, their faces and their stories bear the seal of salvation history and theology of the 'signs of the times'.
The Church in fact intends to raise the culture of respect, equality and valuing diversity, able to see migrants as bearers of values \u200b\u200band resources. It invites us to revise policies and regulations affecting the protection of fundamental rights ... also expressed strong disagreement with the increasingly restrictive practice regarding the granting of the 'status' of refugees and the increasingly frequent recourse to detention and deportation migrants.
The presence of immigrants among us reminds us that, from the biblical point of view, freedom and prosperity are gifts and how these can be maintained only when shared with those without. The foundations of respect and acceptance of migrants are found for us believers in the Word of God (Veglio, oc.).
This
• Invited by the documents of the Magisterium want to learn to read Migration as 'a sign of the times', for the Church and Society.
• Let us make our statements of the Second Synod of African Bishops of Africa (Rome, 5 to 24 October 2099). •
. We are on the side of immigrants, ours is a choice: the choice of the latter.
• We believe that it is not enough to denounce. As a missionary institutes, included in the local churches, we are called to act through the provision of appropriate staff and support of adequate facilities for work with immigrants, favoring the joint work with the Committee Migrantes national and local levels.
• We urge the IEC to prepare a document that, beyond the denunciation of cultural drift with respect to the issue of migration, provides appropriate guidance to the Christian communities. We
missionaries and we firmly believe, as said the great martyr-bishop of Oran (Algeria) Pierre Claverie, that there is humanity, if not the plural.
Conference of Italian missionary institutes (CIMI)
Commission for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation of CIMI.
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