Because the centres on Lampedusa are detention centers, they both lack
the prerequisites and documents needed to operate. Like the Trapani
Vulpitta centre, where in 1999 six migrants lost their lives due to a
fire in a cell which was locked with bolts and iron bars, so is the
new reception center on Lampedusa on the Loran base and the old
reception center, now known as the CIE (Center for identification and
expulsion) of Imbriacola contrada. Both centres lack the fire
certificates and alarm systems required by law.
In particular, it seems that there are no fire escapes or exits in the
former Loran base. If they had existed, the two women who escaped the
flames that night, at the cost of being injured in the fall from the
window from which they jumped, would probably have avoided injury.
The Minister Maroni is trying, in every way, with disparate alarms, to
draw attention away from his personal failure in the mission to
Tunisia, and from the situation of indecent illegality of the centres,
which the same Home Office has “created” (now administrative
detention) on Lampedusa. We, however, request all competent
authorities to check the legal conditions and agreements, on the basis
of which centres have been handed over to private management
organisations.
We also demand the text of the Decree of the Minister of Interior,
who, presumably, in cooperation with other ministries, with a simple
stroke of a pen, would turn the reception center in Lampedusa into a
CIE. This would be done without adapting the structures, which are
already collapsing due to the high number of migrants, to conform to
current legislation. We demand the immediate closure of all detention
facilities located on the island of Lampedusa, and the restoration of
a true asylum reception and first aid center with the exclusive
purpose of ensuring more rapid transit of immigrants landed on the
island to other structures in Italian territory.
Furthermore we also demand to know whether on the date of expulsion
order given to migrants detained in the center of Contrada Imbriacola,
the decree establishing the CIE had already been published in the
Official Journal. As of last 26 January the official refoulement
decrees, together with the detention decrees, already recognised the
existence of the “Center for identification and expulsion”. If the
decree establishing the CIE, was not published in the Official Journal
before that date, all detention measures, issued as a result of
deferred refoulement, adopted by the Police of Agrigento (Questura),
would be totally null and void.
It is hard to see how, as the press reports, Justices of the Peace
could have validated hundreds of, probably invalid, detention
measures, presumably in the presence of an interpreter, in such a
short time. It is also hard to understand how none of the public
defence lawyers monitoring the judges, entered the Lampedusa CPA /
CIE, with a large police escort, raised objections to the legality of
detention and refoulement orders, prepared more than thirty days after
the entrance of migrants into Italian territory.
Regarding “The validation of administrative detention, public
defence, and the right to defence” the Sicily ASGI, in collaboration
with the University of Palermo, will promote a study initiative, on
Wednesday February 11, in Agrigento.
Translated by Chris Bonfiglioli