It went quite well, a dozen protesters turned up - from No Borders, No One Is Illegal, Crossroads Women Centre/ All Africa Women's Group and others... We stood there from 4.30pm to 6pm, making a nice bit of noise and chanting slogans (in English, Italian and even Portuguese) saying 'no borders, no nations, stop deportations', 'no one is illegal, stop deportations', 'Italian government, racist government, stop deportations', 'migratns say: stop deportatins', 'Roma say: stop deportations' and something naughty about Berlusconi.
A few speaches were made over the megaphone, highlighting the arbitrarity of the 'emergency decrees' that give the Italian right-wing government unlimited powers to lock up and deport Roma and migrants without papers, and generally do whatever they like, outiside legality and without the authorisation of Parliament. It was remembered that over 1800 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean since the beginning of the year, as a result of the racist policies of Italy and Fortress Europe, and that the borders are the problem, in Italy as well as in the UK and in the rest of the world. Hundreds of leaflets were distributed to interested and generally sympathetic passer-byes. Two policemen came to have a look and left peacefully after making sure we weren't obstructing the pavement or anything naughty. We also heard good news: that the Berlusconi government is on its way out, after suffering a major defeat at the local elections, and that a charter flight from UK to Iraq was stopped yesterday, thanks to legal action but partly also thanks to direct action by 30 protesters who blocked the way to the two deportation centres where the Iraqis were held.