Italy: Immigration and citizenship
01 January 1991
Italy: Immigration and citizenship
artdoc April=1995
Immigrants `living conditions provides excuse for arrest and
deportations
Is the squalor of immigrants living conditions being used as a
reason for sending them home asks Il Manifesto? In his election
manifesto, Berlusconi pledged: `Our country must welcome as many
immigrants as it can maintain with dignity.'
A council on the outskirts of Florence have threatened to
bulldoze a squatters camp, home to over 1,000 Bosnian refugees,
immigrants and Romanies. At the camp, babies and children have
been attacked by hungry rats, and poisonous chemical waste was
found on a rubbish tip (Il Manifesto 2.7.94). One hundred and
twenty police officers were deployed to clear immigrants out of
an occupied former hospital in Mentena, on the outskirts of Rome.
The stairs of the home to 50 immigrants were then bulldozed, to
prevent the homeless returning. Twelve of the immigrants living
there were found to be without documents and are to be deported
(Il Manifesto 6.8.94).
Cleaning firm refuses to employ non-immigrants
A Bengali worker has been sacked because he is not an Italian
after the cleaning firm where he has worked for four years was
taken over by a new company. The head of Pulitecnica denies that
he doesn't like blacks but claims that he is merely activating
article 3 of the firm's statute which says: `The cooperative
consists only of Italian citizens.'
A petition has been organised by workers at the firm in support
of Golam Mowla. La Sapienza University, where Golam was a
cleaner, has promised to give him a job if the firm does not take
him back (Il Manifesto 23.6.94).
IRR European Race Audit, Bulletin no 10, September 1994. Contact:
Liz Fekete, Institute of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street, London
WC1X 9HS. Tel: 0171 837 0041