Serenissima Ristorazione Spa furnished meals to via Mattei’s detention centre in Bologna. In spite of being in Vicenza the firm held a contract with the cpt and it everyday took food to the centre.
Food… January 2002 Nas was ordered by the Republic Prosecutor to search the detention centre after sedatives were found in detainees’ blood. Charged crime was fraudulent alteration of food in a way that was dangerous to health.
Tuesday April 26th in the morning the initiative took place in solidarity with migrant detainees’ hunger strike, about a hundred activists from Rete Precariato Sociale and from Cub Rdb blocked the entrance of a Serenissima Ristorazione branch.
Banners were hung and posters attached, they all said: “They are on a hunger strike to conquer freedom and dignity, today you strike as well”, the entrance were closed with barbed wire.
Activists reclaimed that the firm pledges itself not to supply meals to detention centres.
Serenissima officially declared that from April 1st it does not anymore supply meals to Bologna’s detention centre and it produced a press release that states that they won’t run for such contracts in the future. From April 1st on via Mattei’s detention centre is managed from Misericordia, whose president is Daniele Giovanardi. Italian Red Cross is not anymore in charge of the centre and therefore the meals’ contract moved from Serenissima to Concerta SpA, which is from Modena (in Strada Vignolese).
We interviewed Francesco Pavin, Rete Precariato Sociale.
Question: The initiative at Serenissima denounced the business that lays under the management of detention centres.
Answer - This morning many movement’s groups met outside Serenissima. This action is part of EuroMayDay countdown process. We today talked about an important part of the precariat world: migrant citizens. Why did we take action? Because Serenissima supplied via Mattei’s detention centre with meals and therefore it was part of the businesses that earn much money out of detention centres where migrants are caged. We acted in the same spirit of Blue Panorama Airlines and Misericardia’s initiatives: our aim is to boycott all structures that speculate on the life of migrants.
Question - Which are your objectives?
Answer - The initiative’s aim was to be sure that this firm will not anymore run for the management of meals inside detention centres. Serenissima declared that they are not to run for contracts and that they stopped furnishing meals past April 1st. I believe that we obtained a great result: a press released was written and signed by Serenissima. The press release says that it won’t anymore run for such contracts. We think that this kind of initiatives are very important because they are reproducible.
Question - How does this action fit in local situation?
Answer - The initiative was to us the chance of talking about migrant citizens rights in Vicenza, which we should not forget is very similar to Treviso. Here migrants have no place where to go and stay, migrants are everyday being evicted from their homes. Social affairs councillorship has recently refused to help families that had serious health problems. We want to have those situations solved!
