Round-up of Italy's immigrant detention centres
01 January 2004
During the last week of January 2004, the carabinieri (Italy's paramilitary police force) conducted a search in the Centro di Permanenza Temporanea (CPT, detention centre) in Bologna, which resulted in the confiscation of food and medical documents. The investigation regarded the fraudulent alteration of foodstuffs, reported by former detainees when barbiturates were found in blood tests after their release from the centre although they had not knowingly been taking any medicines. They had eaten food from unsealed packages and several of the detainees reported that they tended to feel dizzy after eating their lunch. It is not the first time that the issue of the tranquilisers that detainees ingest in CPTs has come under scrutiny. Some doctors from Psichiatria Democratica (Democratic Psychiatrists) carried out a visit in 2003 to the Restinco (Brindisi) CPT, noting that most of the medicines available in the centre were tranquilisers, including strong sedatives. Around 90% of the internees were using these medicines.
Reports of ill-treatment
The Bologna detention centre, which has been in operation since 2002, has also been the scene of an alleged beating suffered by ten detainees after an attempted revolt on 2 March 2003. Five police officers, one carabiniere and a Red Cross official, who is responsible for running the centre, are facing charges after they were identified by the victims as their aggressors. They were accused of punching and kicking the detainees.
Other incidents involving the mistreatment of detainees in CPTs include the alleged beating received by 17 citizens from Maghreb countries in the Regina Pacis CPT in San Foca (Lecce) after an escape attempt on 22 November 2002. On 23 January 2004, a judge in Lecce decided that 19 persons will face charges for the violence, including charges of causing bodily harm, the misuse of corrective measures, failure to prevent the mistreatment and falsehood. The accused include the priest don Cesare Lodeserto, who is responsible for running the centre, eleven carabinieri and seven members of the centre's staff, including two doctors. The migrants told authorities investigating the allegations that they were "kicked, punched, spat at and struck with truncheons", and that "during Ramadan we were forced to swallow pork". As part of the punishment, someone was also reportedly handcuffed and made to stand naked in the courtyard, to discourage others from trying to escape. In Trapani's Serraino Vulpitta CPT in Sicily, where five detainees died as a result of a fire on 28 December 2001, six men who attempted to escape were also reportedly beaten with truncheons and handcuffs, and witnesses claim that they were held by the neck with laces.
On 11 July 2003, a group of MPs from the Democratici di Sinistra (DS, Democratic Left), Rifondazione Comunista (PRC, Communist) and Green parties, decided to establish an observatory on conditions in CPTs, "because one of the problems that we face on a daily basis is the lack of detailed information on what happens inside these structures".
MSF report on detention centres
In January 2004, the humanitarian doctors' organisation Medici Senza Frontiere (MSF) published a report on conditions in Italy's detention centres. The report showed that between July 2002 and July 2003, 16,924 persons were detained, of whom 13,232 were men and 3,392 were women. The report is based on interviews with people working in the centres and detainees. There are currently 11 official detention centres in Italy and five "hybrid" centres for the identification of asylum seekers. The CPTs are in Turin ("Brunelleschi"), Milan ("Via Corelli"), Modena ("La Marmora") and Bologna ("Enrico Mattei") in the north, Rome ("Ponte Galeria") in the centre, and Lecce (the "Regina Pacis" in San Foca di Melendugno), Brindisi (in Restinco), Lamezia Terme ("Malgradotutto"), Caltanissetta ("Pian del Lago"), Agrigento ("Contrada S. Benedetto") and Trapani ("Serr