Italian Migrant Policy and the 'State of Emergency'

In recent months the persecution of Roma migrants in the Napoli area has received some press coverage when a Roma settlement was attacked and set on fire. However, the widespread police raids across the country the same week where nearly 300 migrants were detained received scant coverage. As has the declaration of a 'state of emergency' in 3 Italian regions - Sicily, Apulia and Calabria - in July in response to a so-called 'refugee crisis'. This 'state of emergency' has now been extended across the whole of Italy.

Italian troops now carry out joint patrols with the Carabinieri outside "sensitive sites", which of course include immigration detention centres and administrative offices such as those responsible for migrants' documentation.

Even the Council of Europe are taken aback by the newly declared war against migrants in Italy and the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, has issued a strongly worded report criticising the Italian government's actions. He publicly criticised the decision to criminalise migrants’ entry and irregular stay, saying that he saw it as a worrying departure from established international law principles. “These measures may make it more difficult for refugees to ask for asylum and is likely to result in a further social stigmatisation and marginalisation of all migrants - including Roma” . "Commissioner Hammarberg also noted with grave concern that Italy had forcibly returned migrants to certain countries with proven records of torture."

No Border Patras

Greece has long been one of the frontier states of the Fortress Europe war against migrants. It is one of the countries where migrants suffer some of the harshest detention conditions. Medicins Sans Frontiers recently declared a number of humanitarian crises at the detention centres on Lesbos and Mytilini.

Many of the migrants in Greece are refugees from war-torn Afghanistan. In the Greek city of Patras a temporary settlement of migrants, originally set up by Iraqi Kurdish refugees and that has been in existence for about 13 years, is home to around 3000 migrants, mainly Afghans. The settlement has been subjected to constant police harassment for a number of years and is effectively under a state of siege.

In February this year police attempted to dismantle the settlement, causing what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees also labelled "a humanitarian crisis" when the settlement's 400 children were forced onto the streets of Patras. Most ended up sleeping rough znd having to fend for themselves.

No Border Patras have called for 3 days of actions and events on August 29th - 31st to highlight the situation in Patras. The english language call-out can be found at: No Border Patras.

Another Asylum Seeker Driven to Suicide

Nadir Zarebee from Iran hanged himself in a Manchester park on Tuesday 5 August after being asked to leave his home in Trafford by Home Office's NASS-appointed 'accommodation provider' MNQ.

An emergency demo in Manchester was called last Saturday 9th August by the International Organisation of Iranian Refugees (IOIR), supported by the North West Asylum Seekers Defence Group (NWASDG), and Manchester Revolutionary Communist Group/Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI) Anti-racists, refugees and supporters assembled in Piccadilly Gardens then march to the BBC who censor the racist treatment and brutal human rights abuses of migrants and refugees.

The march has the following demands:

No to deportations!
Stop starving asylum seekers!
No immigration controls!
For the right to work
No to destitution!

Iraqi Kurds on Hunger Strike at Campsfield Detention Centre 9th August

Press Release from the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees:

Fazzel Abdul reported to IFIR that On 9 August at 5pm 13 Kurdish asylum seekers detained at Campsfield detention centre started a hunger strike. To protest at their continuing detention.

Fazzel Abdul reported that Kawa one of the asylum seekers had collapsed earlier today (11 August 08). A doctor was called, but Kawa was not treated and is continuing the hunger strike.

Fazzel said we are calling:
1. to be released from the detention centre
2. to stop the policy of forcibly deporting Iraqi Kurds
Fazzel said 50 other asylum seekers from around the world also detained in Campsfield have joined the hunger strike today.

For further information contact Fazzel 07743 697993

IFIR and CSD Iraq asks that Human and refugee rights campaigners support the hunger strikers

International Federation of Iraqi Refugees
Coalition to Stop Deportations to Iraq
11 August 2008

IFIR:PO.BOX1575,Ilford, London, IG1 3BZ Tel:0044 7856032991

Dikili No-Border Camp 2008

Here is a link to the English call-out for the Dikili No-Border Camp on 3rd - 7th September at Alder Beach, Dikili-Izmir, Turkey:

Homeless earthlings’ camp at the border

Police immigration detention cells "squalid and unfit"

A joint report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons and the Inspector of Constabulary has condemned suite of 13 cells in Southwark, south-east London, unhygienic, unsafe and unfit for use. The inspectors found that some of the cells had congealed blood and human waste on their walls and recommended that the facility should be closed until the fundamental concerns were remedied. The report also said that the problems at Southwark arose from the fact that the UK Border Agency contracted the facility from the Metropolitan police, yet failed to provide any oversight to ensure acceptable conditions. [See:]

Australia ends detention regime for asylum seekers

Almost seven years after Australia sent commandos onto the MV Tampa to block the Afghans migrants on board from reaching the mainland after the fishing vessel sank in international waters, the government has said it will now abandon it's controversial policy of jailing all asylum seekers.

Chris Evans, Immigration Minister of the centre-left Labour government, said detention in often-remote immigration jails would now be used only as a last resort. "Desperate people are not deterred by the threat of harsh detention. They are often fleeing much worse circumstances."

The ending of ex-prime minister John Howard's so-called "Pacific Solution", under which asylum seekers were sent to special detention centres in the Papua New Guinea island of Manus and the tiny Pacific state of Nauru, had been a pledge in last year's election.