Immigration & Integration ⁄ Open Migration

“Selective, punitive and symbolic”: the state of administrative detention in Italy

September 4, 2020 - Paola Petrucco

For our column on alternatives to detention, Paola Petrucco interviewed Giulia Fabini, Adjunct Professor and Research Fellow at the University of Bologna, and Assistant Editor at the European Journal of Criminology. Here is what she told us about the “selective, punitive and symbolic nature of administrative detention in Italy”.

Covid pandemic jeopardizes burial for the Muslim community

April 30, 2020 - Daniela Sala

Under Italian law, a person may only be buried in the Municipality of residence or in the Municipality where he or she died. On top of that, Islam forbids its believers cremation and burial in a sealed casket: the body must be buried, with the face towards Mecca. But out of 8,000 municipalities, only some sixty have a cemetery area dedicated to Muslim worshippers. Daniela Sala tells us how the Muslim community in the Lombard provinces most affected by the virus is getting organized to bury their loved ones.

Migrant detention in Covid-19 times

July 20, 2020 - Flaminia Delle Cese

What is the point of holding foreign nationals in immigration detention centres at a time when the limitation of international mobility prevents returns? Does it make sense to deprive of their personal liberty individuals who have not committed a crime and who in 50% of cases will be released from detention centres as irregular migrants? What sense is there in providing for quarantine periods on ships for persons landed on the Italian coasts, when the thousands of people arriving by air or across land borders are no longer obliged to undergo this measure? With its dossier, the Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights aims to demonstrate the ineffectiveness, inutility and huge cost - in human and economic terms - of places of detention for foreigners.

Bergamo and the Seriana Valley, the solidarity of foreign communities in the Covid emergency

May 21, 2020 - Ilaria Romano

Three communities from three different corners of the globe, three different religious creeds, three different cultures, united by the health emergency that has affected the country where they have decided to live. Ilaria Romano tells us about the sympathetic response of foreign communities from the Seriana Valley - Bergamo.

Rome: the invisibles of Piazzale Spadolini

May 7, 2020 - Serena Chiodo

Piazzale Spadolini was an empty space, then it was turned into a parking lot in 2011, when the railway station was renovated. It is now a hub for those travelling on the underground or trains, who leave their cars parked there. The area was isolated even before the Covid-19 emergency, and it is practically invisible now: much like those living there, at least for institutions. Serena Chiodo and Valerio Muscella visited the people who are forced to take shelter around Tiburtina railway station and the volunteers who help them.

The agriculture emergency in Italy: three proposals to solve the crisis and protect everyone’s rights

April 23, 2020 - Sara Manisera and Janos Chiala

During the health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, much was said about “essential workers”, meaning those people whose job cannot be halted without serious repercussions on society. This category includes farm labourers, the invisible people who, often times exploited, work in Italian farmlands to ensure an uninterrupted supply of fruit and vegetables. Sara Manisera and Janos Chiala, from the Taurianova ghetto, explain how this crisis could be solved protecting everyone’s rights.

Regularisation of migrants. One step forward, but much more could be done

May 18, 2020 - Andrea Oleandri

The impression that many gathered from the proposed measures to regularise foreign workers is that it they are targeting more “us” and our needs (fruit and vegetables that risk staying unpicked in the crops, the elderly and the sick who will need assistance when the people they live with go back to work), than “them” and their right to dignity. It is one step forward, that is for sure, but with how many missed opportunities? Andrea Oleandri analyses them.

Immigration & Integration