Right of asylum ⁄ Open Migration

The shameful topicality of the Khlaifia case

November 29, 2021 - Gennaro Santoro

From 30 November to 2 December, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe will convene in order to assess whether Italy has implemented the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)’s compliance requests as expressed in the Khlaifia judgment. Italian Civil Society has been following, and participating in this procedure, as explained by Gennaro Santoro in this contribution.

COP26, climate change and migration: 5 questions with Marta Foresti

November 19, 2021 - Tommaso Fusco

On November 13, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, known as COP26, ended. Marta Foresti, Director for Europe of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) - one of the most influential global think tanks, based in London, and one that has been dealing with development and inequalities globally since 1960 - has closely followed the work of the conference.

CILD’s new report “Buchi Neri (Black Holes)” reveals the violations of human rights in Italian CPRs

October 27, 2021 - Oiza Q. Obasuyi

A lack of transparency, medical assistance and human rights: these are just some of the issues that have come to light in “Black Holes: detention without charge in Repatriation Centres for Migrants - Centri di Permanenza per i Rimpatri (CPRs)”, the first Report on Italian CPRs produced by CILD (Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights - Coalizione Italiana Libertà e Diritti Civili). An article by Oiza Q. Obasuyi, junior researcher and program assistant at CILD.

From a code of conduct to the administrative halting of humanitarian vessels: the new strategy to stop rescues in the Mediterranean

August 12, 2021 - Gennaro Santoro

The current government, in keeping with the previous Minniti and Salvini governments, is preventing humanitarian vessels from carrying out rescues by systematically subjecting the vessels to administrative compliance stops. In the vast majority of cases, Italian authorities are accusing captains of having rescued more people than are allowed to be accommodated on the ships according to relevant safety certificates.

Re-thinking the Representation of Refugee Children and Adolescents in the Media. Views from Italy’s frontline

March 9, 2021 - Valentina Baú

The narrative of refugee children and adolescents has been almost absent from the Italian media since the start of the migratory flows that have been crossing the Mediterranean. While these groups feature erratically in journalist reporting, media attention typically revolves around geo-political facts related to the areas of origin of minors, the hardship of their journeys, and crime-related news, particularly in relation to adolescents. Stories of refugee children and adolescents are seldom heard in the media, leaving them unknown to the public and forming a representation that alternates a frame of victimhood to one of poverty-related delinquency. This research-based article presents the views of some of the main inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations working on the migrant humanitarian response in Italy. Their experience, knowledge, and suggestions on journalist media coverage of refugee children and adolescents have been gathered and offered here through a series of critical points. This article also wants to be a useful resource to organisations involved in similar work and especially to media outlets, for a reflection on their present and future effort in communicating about refugee children and adolescents.

The transfer of men and women already present on Italian territory on “quarantine ships” is illegal and must be stopped

October 13, 2020 - Tommaso Fusco

The fear expressed by lawyers and rights-based associations month ago, at the time of the initial adoption of “quarantine ships” as a response measure is proving to be well-founded: the quarantine ships, now far from being an exceptional measure designed only for people rescued at sea, risk now becoming a new place for detention of documented migrants and potentially also for Italian citizens.

“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”.

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