Per la libertà di movimento, per i diritti di cittadinanza

Verona – Coordinamento Migranti wins an important battle!

Residence papers are renewed in one day. An interview with Roberto Malesani, legal advisor

Renewal times are to be much shorter, in fact police headquarters in Verona accepted Coordinamento Migranti demands. In the last year – together with other groups in North east Italy – migrants, organisations and associations seriously started struggling against papers’ renewal times and against Bossi-Fini law, which – together with Biagi law – makes migrants’ lives precarious.
Thanks to Coordinamento Migranti and gruppo Mobilit/Azione Verona extended renewal times are just to be a sad memory.

We interviewed Roberto Malesani, legal advisor.

Question – How did you manage to obtain such great results?
Answer – We worked hard and we organised many initiatives, as a consequence of the net-work we started together with many group in Northern Italy. In Verona many important demonstrations took place in front of police headquarters. We took action through out all 2004 and finally, but also abruptly, headquarters chose to accept all our demands and they managed to change proceedings within few days.

Question – Papers’ renewal is fundamental to migrant citizens’ lives. Bossi-Fini law makes this very difficult…
Answer – You are right. Generally speaking renewals are migrants’ nightmare. Up to fifteen days ago in Verona migrants felt the same. This is a consequence of the relation between residence papers’ length, which Bossi-Fini law reduced, and Biagi law, which provides for temp labour, temping agencies where migrants are employed on basis of short terms contracts.
Migrants have hard times in finding employment that lasts longer than four/five months. As a consequence police headquarters started issuing papers on basis of labour contracts length. These are the reasons that lead to mobilisations all over Italy. The fact that in Verona headquarters fully accepted our demands – papers should last one whole year – is an extremely important result.

Question – What is it to happen when migrants go to police to have papers renewed?
Answer – Today police accept a limited number of renewal application forms, these are decided on basis of yearly data that are preventively calculated. Citizens go to headquarters, they leave their residence papers and renewal application forms. After few hours they are either issued a new permit or – in case they come from other police headquarters – they are being extended their former papers with a stamp printed on them. This extension lasts one whole year. Our demands were fully accepted and we believe that this is the only way of overcoming an unbearable to migrants situation.