AYS Special from Italy: 2020, not only Covid-19. Deportation, invisibility, detention and lack of reception. PART I
By: Are You Syrious
Tags: Lasciatecientrare, Hotspots, Lampedusa, Italy, Special

Hotspots

In several cases, dozens of Tunisians have landed on Italian shores and spent days without any rights in the hotspots of Lampedusa or in Pozzallo or even in the Bisconte barracks in Trapani. Those who arrive on the island of Pantelleria are imprisoned to “observe” the period of quarantine as established by the various Covid-19-related DPCMs (Decrees of the President of the Council of Ministers) of which there were many in 2020. Sometimes people are repatriated directly, or after a very short stay — 2 or 3 days — in a CPR, during which time they are not given access to their phones to notify their families or activists of their whereabouts. In the hotspots people are prevented from receiving information and from asking for asylum: “you will do it later” is the phrase that everyone receives in response to their requests.

Lampedusa Hotspot, November 2020

Hotspots are places of a totally uncertain legal nature. On one hand, they are proposed as first reception facilities, designed to assist and provide migrants who have just landed with a path towards inclusion in Europe. On the other hand — and this is the aspect that is most emphasised by the Italian government — they are a ‘jail’ from which one cannot leave and in which all police procedures are carried out. This includes identification and of course country of origin checks. It then acts as a space from which forced repatriations can take place without ever having had the opportunity to apply for international protection. The hygienic and sanitary conditions of these places have always been denounced by the “guests” as terrible and unworthy of a human being. (Read more on Lampedusa hotspot HERE, HERE and HERE)

Over the years there have been many protests and revolts due to the poor conditions, but nothing has changed. 2020 only represented a continuity in this shame, with the additional aggravation that they have also been used as places for quarantine, in accordance with the relevant DPCMs. The word quarantine should mean observational isolation for the purpose of understanding whether or not a person has an infectious pathology and should come with special criteria for hygiene, isolation and medical care. The photos sent to us by migrants clearly show that at most there are cages in which “to hold people”, without any respect of their rights or their humanity. No one knows the length of their stay, nor when they will be able to ask for asylum.

The Tunisians who have contacted us have succeeded in doing so only thanks to activists — including several other groups — and to the appointment of trusted lawyers. Many of them were returned home without ever understanding what had happened, their journey to Europe existing only as a nightmare that consisted of overcrowding, confused news, cages and anger.

One of the most striking cases that was reported to us at the end of November by family members concerned a Tunisian citizen and his child held in the Pozzallo hotspot. They were kept in pitiful conditions despite the seven-year-old having severe disabilities and paralysis. “My son pees his pants and we can’t even get a change of clothes”, the father repeated during the days of confinement in the hotspot. Letters to the competent bodies did nothing, it was necessary to involve journalists and lawyers to gain the attention of the relevant institutions and obtain their transfer. Men, women with children as well as unaccompanied children are all housed here. In one case a 16-year-old in her sixth month of pregnancy passed completely unnoticed. In this case the intervention of another lawyer, G. M. Pasqualino, was necessary in order for her to be transferred elsewhere.

These places have become even more inaccessible than they used to be. We have been denied access to CPRs for almost two years now because we are considered “hostile subjects”. Since March 2020, the “excuse” of quarantine has meant that no one apart from doctors and representatives of the national authority for the rights of persons deprived of their liberty can enter these places. Solicited parliamentarians prefer to “tread carefully” on immigration matters, “because the period is politically complex”. The only possibilities are therefore the phone — we have an SOS phone which people in difficulty in hotspots and CPRs can call or use to contact family members and activists in their countries of origin — and the intervention of the national authority for the rights of persons deprived of their liberty, to which we continuously submit reports.

CARA in Caltanissetta, Sicily, November 2020

Such inaccessibility applies not only to hotspots but also to CPRs and quarantine ships. It is a pity that in hotspots people are allowed to keep their personal phone but in CPRs (except for Gradisca) this is not allowed, which makes it complicated if not impossible to understand what is happening inside.

An example of this disturbing and routine denial of legal rights occurred on December 1st 2020 when 11 people from Tunisia were stranded off the island of Pantelleria. They didn’t know who to call, so they swam ashore. All this in the freezing cold. When they arrived on the mainland they asked for help, but in response they were locked up in Trapani’s barracks, and had their cell phones taken. Among them was an unaccompanied minor, immediately transferred to a suitable centre. After 13 days, without knowing anything about their destiny, they were transferred first to Trapani and then to Rome, where they were told they would be released, but instead they were locked up in the CPR of Ponte Galeria (Rome) to be repatriated after a few days without ever having had access to the asylum application procedure, except for one person who’s case we are still following with the lawyers Benzi and Ballerini.