Newsletter – January 2016

– Hotspots, rejections and relocations: Fortress Europe controls and discriminates against migrants in flight
– “We are refugees but we are not free”: the Eritrean migrants’ protest continues, while Frontex declares a zero tolerance approach on identification
– A country which rejects people and a system which fails to welcome them
– News and events: the second edition of “Arte Migrante”

Hotspots, rejections and relocations: Fortress Europe controls and discriminates against migrants in flight

The Hotspots are tools of control and discriminatory selection of refugees based solely on nationality. Borderline Sicily continues to denounce the illegitimate practices which are detrimental to the right to asylum which are taking place within such facilities, such as deferred rejections, and request their closure. Meanwhile, the third such Hotspot on the island has been opened at Pozzallo, and new arrivals have increased.
http://siciliamigranti.blogspot.it/2016/01/hotspot-ovvero-come-cancellare-il.html#more
http://migrantsicily.blogspot.it/2016/01/the-cpsa-at-pozzallo-becomes-hotspot.html

Those who do reach Italy find themselves at the mercy of methods and practices which are the result of political choices, which operate beyond any norm of law and often through coercive techniques. The hope for freedom and independence to build a future can be smashed apart even for those who have risked life at sea and find themselves rejected, or forced to take a second voyage according to circuits preordained from above. In Europe, migrants do not find democracy, but only new barriers.
http://migrantsicily.blogspot.it/2016/01/fortress-europes-revolving-doors.html

“We are refugees but we are not free”: the Eritrean migrants’ protest continues, while Frontex declares a zero tolerance approach on identification

At Lampedusa the peaceful protests of around a hundred Eritreans continue, those detained on the island for over a month and who refuse to give their finger prints. Fleeing a ruthless dictatorship, after a voyage characterised by torture and horror, they are being refused from the possibility of choosing the country in which they can live out their future in freedom. Italy provides only military surveillance and control.
http://migrantsicily.blogspot.it/2016/01/an-evening-in-square-in-lampedusa.html

Borderline Sicily meets with representatives of Frontex in Catania, together with other anti-racist associations. The representatives of the European agency confirmed the identification of all migrants to be among their priorities, and also arguing for the use of force. It is planned an increase in the number of agents sent to Sicily to observe the control and management of refugees, treating them as mere numbers and not as subjects with the right to protection and safeguards.
http://migrantsicily.blogspot.it/2016/01/frontex-meets-with-associations-in.html

A country which rejects people and a system which fails to welcome them

Europe orders and Italy follows. Notwithstanding the continual accusations and meetings with the prefects and other institutional representatives, the deferred rejections continue in relation to hundreds of migrants excluded from every form of protection and safeguards. Women, men and children abandoned on the island, left to the mercy of every possible exploitation. The failure and the unsustainable nature of the inhumane European instruments becomes ever more evident, and frequently materialises into schizophrenic institutional practices; always and only at the migrants’ expense.
http://migrantsicily.blogspot.it/2016/01/lets-reject-everyone-or-even-better.html
http://migrantsicily.blogspot.it/2016/01/new-disembarkings-and-hundreds-of.html

There are still many refugees to whom the right of asking protection, and being promptly supported in the reception system, is still not immediately given, as the law is meant to provide. Even in these winter months around a hundred Pakistani and Bangladeshi migrants have been camping outside the CARA* at Pian del Lago. In waiting for access to the procedure, they are forced to survive in improvised tent cities and lacking every kind of humanitarian assistance.
http://siciliamigranti.blogspot.it/2016/01/caltanissetta-visita-negli-accampamenti.html

Those who do, on the other hand, manage to access the so-called ‘welcoming’ system, the risk of being broken down by the waiting is even greater. This is the case in centres such as “La Locanda”, in the province of Trapani, where dozens of migrants abandoned to themselves nonetheless find the force and courage to reclaim dignity and respect, without surrendering to the pervasive power of the exclusionary system in which they have ended up.
http://migrantsicily.blogspot.it/2016/01/a-barricade-in-limbo-occupiers-of-la.html

At the same time as the Prefecture in Trapani has given notice of the new tendering of the contracts for the management of the centres, there are still a range of investigations open into the bad management of the reception system in the very recent past. There needs to be a total reorganisation of the system, but the main preoccupation remains the identification of which can be a ‘hub’ in the future.
http://migrantsicily.blogspot.it/2016/01/immigration-call-for-reception-centres.html

News and events: the second edition of “Arte Migrante”

Young activists and students in Modica have organised the second evening of “Arte Migrante”, a moment to discover and share music, food, dancing and art, put on so as to activate the interaction and direct participation in the social life of whoever has been systematically excluded, and as such frequently does not manage to see the possibility of a future in our country.
http://migrantsicily.blogspot.it/2016/01/second-edition-of-arte-migrante-in.html

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*CARA: Hosting Centre for Asylum Seekers