The objectives of this new campaign are to close the so-called ‘Centres of Temporary Stay for Migrants’ (CPT) that under the new law assume a central role in the persecution, segregation and deportation of working migrants, guilty only of the offence of looking for better living and working conditions than in their country of origin. This demonstration joins and is promoted by the North-West Disobedients (Valle d’Aosta, Piemont, Liguria, Lombardy). As Disobedients from Turin, we extend an invitation to all civil society; workers, migrants, students, associations, collectives, cooperatives, political parties, unions, from Piemont (and elsewhere) to bring their consent and participation to make this mobilization on the 30th November the first siege against the wall that symbolizes a violence against humanity, the right to citizenship and the freedom of movement for men and women.
In our city, there exist places that are hidden from view, protected by walls that make them invisible, defended by armed soldiers and by high barbed wire fences. They are called by the name of the street that they are located in. In Turin; Corso Brunelleschi. In Milan; Via Corelli. In Rome; Ponte Galeria. In Bologna; Via Mattei. In Trapani; Serraino Vulpitta. And others that are and will be in Modena, Bari, Crotone, Santa Foca… A list of names that will be remembered with shame in our history. The government seeks to obscure and hide an unpleasant and brutal reality. For that reason they are called ‘Centres of Temporary Stay for Migrants’ (CPT), and sometimes they are presented by the media as migrant reception centres.
CPT, or to be more precise, cages for men and women guilty of existing. People who haven’t committed any offence, judged guilty for having crossed the borders, to look for a possibility to live, to live better, to freely choose where to live. Judged guilty for working illegally, for not being registered by their employer, judged guilty for having lost their job and not being able to find another. Deprived of documents they end up not being a citizen of any country. Locked up in a centre inaccessible to anyone, they end up disappearing into a black hole. The new immigration law extends the period of stay from 30 to 60 days and for all this time that the migrants are detained, they are deprived of more and more of their fundamental rights: from seeing relatives that are in Italy to having a real opportunity to defend themselves.
CPT: Cages, videocameras, enclosing walls, containers, barbed wire, gates, police and the Military Red Cross, all whilst waiting to be deported. CPT are spaces outside of normal rules and regulations which lock a bare existence inside. CPT, a new border within our city, an absurd contradiction in a world which breaks down all barriers in order to enable the free circulation of money, merchandise, financial flow, but fears the notion that human beings can be allowed to move freely, without control. CPT, the bad conscience of a Europe that proudly celebrates the fall of the Berlin wall and that has seen the negation of its internal borders as an affirmation of its civilization. CPT, the bad conscience of Italy that doesn’t even recognize the right to asylum and locks inside whoever seeks to freely determine their own life.
The CPT is a fundamental link in the chain around the neck of migrants that has been imposed by the Bossi-Fini law: Men and women reduced to mere manual labourers; to use for cleaning our houses, to look after our elderly and sick, to work in factories, to gather tomatoes and to accept working conditions of maximum exploitation. Precariousness and exploitation, clandestine and social invisibility, these are the conditions of the ‘contratto di soggiorno’ (contract of stay). When one job finishes, migrants have six months to find another job: or it’s get out, go, get lost. This is the prospect of a civilization designed by Italy for those who decide to enter the Europe of Schengen.
The Bossi-Fini law is not just the bitter fruit of the ideology of security but is a part of a larger project that extends from an attack on public health and education, on article 18 and on the statute of workers, to a redefinition of the concept of ‘public enemy’, to projects of ‘preventing war’. But opposition to the Bossi-Fini law is possible, as demonstrated by the protests in Genoa and Rome, the dismantling of the CPT in via Mattei in Bologna, the strike in Vicenza, the occupation of the steps outside Treviso Dome, the successive demonstrations against Gentilini, the ‘racist Piave’ Mayor from the Northern League, and the vast number of public declarations and initiatives by various Bishops, priests, union leaders, intellectuals, judges, social workers from migrant services, associations and citizens.
To oppose and take action against this law in Turin means making a radical criticism of the existence of the CPT on Corso Brunelleschi; a bleak site of segregation and injustice stuck into the heart of the city. To bring an end to the internment of migrants, to denounce the barbarity that they want to hide from our view and our conscience.
On the 30th November: Desert the war in our home! Let’s Paint, unveil, isolate, block, close the CPT!
The migrants group of the social forum
e-mail: [email protected]