Serious cases of abuse taking place in the Italian CIEs: open letter (and report) to the institutions and international authorities

Rome, September 22st, 2009. In the CIE (Centre for Identification and Expulsion) of Bari Palese the reports of ill-treatment, abuse of power, and inhumane and degrading treatment towards immigrants awaiting expulsion are getting more and more frequent. The analogy of an “illegal” refugee to a criminal is turning life into a daily hell for human beings now branded as “clandestini”, people living without any rights, who often prefer to be deported back to dramatic humanitarian situations, (with wars, persecution, and famine) rather than remain in the CIE prisons any longer. Thanks to some activists, who were able to get behind the institutional curtain which conceals the dehumanization of these “clandestini”, we are able this time (as requested by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture) to supply facts with the full names of the victims. Two nights ago, in the Bari centre, a young detainee, falling prey to desperation due to the intolerable conditions in the detention centre and the prospect of being repatriated back to hell, started to shout and protest in the middle of the night. He then made cuts on his arms and body in an extreme gesture of rebellion against the persecution and terror he was experiencing. His fellow detainees awoke with a jolt and tried to stop him: “No, brother, you have to hold out. Don’t give them the satisfaction”. The guards rushed to him straight away,” said a detainee, “but instead of worrying at the sight of all that blood, they were angry at being disturbed. They opened the cell and started to beat him. One boy, called Karim Brahimi, asked one of the guards to help the wounded man who was losing a lot of blood. But instead of listening to him, the guards beat him repeatedly with a truncheon. Not satisfied, the two guards started to hit out at another boy, called Said Hasen”.
“I saw him go by, he was on a stretcher. It looks as though he had been hit by a tram, on his face”, another detainee added, in tears. These are the conditions the immigrants in the Italian CIEs are experiencing. Their assailants know that once they have been sent back to countries where humanitarian crises are rife, none of the immigrants will ever report the ill-treatment they have been subjected to back in Italy. Many of those awaiting deportation originate from countries tormented by wars, ethnic persecution, famine and epidemics. EveryOne Group has asked to see the files of the detainees coming from these countries - together with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees - convinced that a considerable number of applications for international protection and political asylum have been turned down without a reason. How can they send back such vulnerable human beings to Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea? Or even Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia, where according to Amnesty International too, “human rights are respected only in word”? Italy must abide by the Geneva Convention or it will be committing brutal crimes against humanity. As for the inhuman and degrading treatment in the CIEs, we are sending this report to Navi Pillay (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights), to Antonio Guterres (UN High Commissioner for Refugees), and to the European Committee Against Torture, asking that an end be brought to this barbaric treatment, once and for all – a situation that involves thousands of detainees. EveryOne Group also asks for the setting up of a body which will allow refugees to appeal, with the relevant assistance, if they have been unjustly denied their right to international protection and political asylum, or to report (without the fear of reprisal) any cases of ill-treatment .

In the video: the signs of ill-treatment on the body of a detained in the Cie of Bari-Palese:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FU4zXPs19M

For further information:
EveryOne Group
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