Saving drowning people, a crime?

This 13 August 2018 by the (right-wing) Daily Mail from Britain says about itself:

Rescue ship Aquarius saves 141 migrants off Libyan coast

More than 140 migrants rescued by an aid group as they drifted in the Mediterranean have claimed five ships passed them by without plucking them to safety.

According to international law, all ships are obliged to save people at sea in distress.

The migrants, including 67 unaccompanied minors, were mainly from Somalia and Eritrea and were believed to have been at sea for about 35 hours on a small wooden boat that had no motor.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Ship Aquarius stops its Mediterranean rescue missions

The rescue ship Aquarius is no longer operating in the Mediterranean. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) who manage the ship together with partner SOS Méditerranée reports this.

Since 2016, tens of thousands of migrants on their way to Europe have been rescued from the water or from often not seaworthy boats.

Ideally, Médecins Sans Frontières would like to continue with the Aquarius, but the organization says that Italy has made it impossible. “The Italian government, supported by other European countries, has labeled our aid as illegal, smeared it and blocked it by withdrawing the registration of the ship, so the Aquarius can not sail.”

So, apparently, the xenophobia of Mussolini-loving Italian deputy Prime Minister Salvini of the extreme right Northern League party is the ‘new normal’ of the European Union.

‘Black day’

Director Nelke Manders of Médecins Sans Frontières calls this a black day. “Stopping the Aquarius means that people will die avoidably at sea”, she says.

The Aquarius was the last rescue ship to sail off the coast of Libya until September. Last year there were five organizations with ships active in that area. The Aquarius has been in the port of Marseille since October, because the ship lost its Panamanian flag registration.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says that more than 2000 people drowned in the Mediterranean this year.

There are still ships stopping refugees’ small boats in the Mediterranean. However, these are not the Aquarius or other rescue ships. They are warships of Salvini and his NATO allies. They will either let the refugees drown, contrary to international law; or bring the refugees back to Libya. Back to the Libyan hell of slavery, torture prisons and militias killing each other and civilians.

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Tony Blair-Italian racist pipeline collusion

This 26 October 2018 video says about itself:

Anya Parampil examines criticism of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for his refusal to cut ties with Saudi Arabia in the face of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.

Blair has been paid nearly $12 million by the Saudi kingdom for “consulting” services since he left office. Former Member of U.K. Parliament and presenter in the documentary The Killing$ of Tony Blair, George Galloway, joins In Question to discuss Blair’s legacy.

By Ben Cowles in Britain:

Thursday, November 29, 2018

What do Blair and the Italian far right have in common? A commitment to destroying the environment

Despite the global epiphany that climate genocide is only 12 years away, a controversial gas pipeline is set to go ahead, writes BEN COWLES

MOST of the British corporate press covered a meeting between Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini and Tony Blair in September after the far-right leader posted a picture of himself with the former PM on Twitter.

“Tony Blair has ‘friendly, positive meeting’ with Italy’s Matteo Salvini,” was the headline to the Guardian’s report on the story, which focused on the rank hypocrisy of Blair — who now runs a charity aiming to combat “populism” and restore faith in the political “centre” — meeting with the far-right “populist.”

As this blog has explained again and again, ‘populist’ is a wrong term for extreme right racists. So, it is correct that in Cowles’ article ´populist´ is between snigger quotes.

This is not the first time Blair is on excellent terms with an Italian far right politician. Before this, he was the buddy of then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, not only a Mussolini lover like Salvini, but also involved in child prostitution, the Mafia and corruption.

And while the irony of that is somewhat interesting, the story glossed over the much more intriguing point mentioned in the subheading: “Far-right minister believed to have discussed Azerbaijani gas pipeline project with ex-PM.”

Seeing how my flatmate is a political refugee from Azerbaijan, this immediately had me wondering what this pipeline project is and why Blair, who seems to spend all of his time attacking Jeremy Corbyn these days, is talking to a fascist wannabe about it?

The project in question is called the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), a 2,200-mile enterprise costing around £34 billion bringing fossil gas from Azerbaijan to Italy. It links two pipelines to one currently under construction.

The first piece of the project is called the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP). It begins under the Caspian sea, runs through Azerbaijan and Georgia and finishes at the Turkish border.

The second part is the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (Tanap), which runs the length of Turkey and under the Marmara Sea.

The final piece of the project is the as yet unfinished Trans Adriatic Pipeline (Tap), which will run through Greece, Albania and end in Italy.

So what’s Blair got to do with any of this? His involvement goes back to 2014 when BP hired him as a consultant, a fitting position for a man who reopened Iraq’s oil fields to Western corporations

and to the South Korean oil corporation which paid Blair millions.

BP is the lead partner in a consortium of dodgy oil companies — including the fantastically corrupt State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (Socar) — drilling up the fossil gas from underneath the Caspian Sea and essentially running Tap and the SCP.

According to a September article in the New Civil Engineer magazine, the reason Blair met with Italy’s far-right leader was “to lobby Salvini over the benefits cheaper gas would bring to Italy.”

There has been fierce opposition to Tap in Italy, particularly in the southern town of Melendugno where a Unesco-protected olive grove with 500-year-old trees stands in the way of the pipeline.

In November last year, the Italian government used a Mussolini-era law to put the entire town on lockdown to prevent the people from protesting against the pipeline.

Salvini and his anti-migrant, anti-”globalist” League party appear to be fully onside with the pipeline. In a television interview last month Salvini said: “We need Tap because energy will cost less for Italian families.”

However, Salvini is but the deputy prime minister and his League is the minority party in Italy’s coalition government. The largest party, the Five Star Movement, campaigned on protecting the environment and initially opposed Tap.

Late last month, however, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte approved Tap’s construction saying it was “no longer possible to intervene in this project,” and that his government has “done everything we could but now the time has come to take the necessary decisions.”

The SGC is now due to start pumping Azerbaijani fossil gas into Europe by 2020.

Surely, given the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s warning that we only have 12 years to stop a climate catastrophe, the EU should now be giving up on fossil fuels and investing in renewable energy. And, surely, British newspapers should stop giving Blair a platform, hold him accountable for the bloody consequences of the Iraq war and focus on climate change.

So far humanity has released an estimated 2.2 trillion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution, causing average global temperatures to rise 1°C.

This rise has already begun to melt the polar ice caps, raise sea levels and drastically alter weather patterns; cause extreme storms, blizzards, heat waves and droughts; set arctic forests on fire; kill off entire species; acidify the oceans; displace people from their homes and much more.

So, how does the EU justify increasing its reliance on yet more polluting fossil gas and striking a deal with the human rights abusing government of Azerbaijan?

Well, as far as I can tell, it hasn’t even bothered to address the latter, though it falls over itself to thrust money at Azerbaijan. In February this year the European Investment Bank lent €1.5bn (£1.3bn) to Tap, and followed this up in March with €932 million (£822m) to the Turkish section, Tanap.

In July the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development lent Tap a further €500m (£442m).

The EU classifies the SGC as one of its Projects of Common Interests, which the bloc defines as “key infrastructure projects […] that link the energy systems of EU countries.”

These Projects of Common Interests, it claims, “are intended to help the EU achieve its energy policy and climate objectives,” which are “affordable, secure and sustainable energy for all citizens, and the long-term decarbonisation of the economy in accordance with the Paris Agreement.”

Remember the Paris Agreement? The governments of the world are supposed to be limiting “the rise of global average temperatures to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue “efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C,” as Article 2 of the agreement states, by 2030.

Our planet is currently on course to warm up by an apocalyptic 3.4°C by the end of this century, according to Climate Action Tracker, an independent project tracking global government progress to stick to the Paris Agreement.

The EU is sort of attempting to kind of stick to the Paris Agreement, though Climate Action Tracker currently ranks its efforts as “insufficient.” Its low-carbon economy roadmap is looking at (but not planning or implementing) “cost-efficient ways to make the European economy more climate-friendly and less energy-consuming.”

The roadmap aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 40 per cent of 1990 levels by 2030, 60 per cent by 2040 and 80 per cent by 2050.

How does the SGC project fit into the EU’s low-carbon economy roadmap? Well, it doesn’t.

According to a January 2018 study by the environment and human rights campaigners Bankwatch, no climate impact assessment has been made public by any EU institution involved in the SGC’s promotion or financing.

In fact, the Bankwatch’s analysis shows “a high risk that the gas from the [SGC] would be as climate-damaging as coal” — the dirtiest fossil fuel — and its annual carbon dioxide emissions would be “comparable to the annual emissions of Bulgaria.”

The SGC is a dangerously short-sighted project. Not only will the EU’s financial support for the project enrich fossil fuel companies and prop-up awful governments of Azerbaijan and Turkey, it will also lock the continent into decades of fossil fuel dependence.

But as the UN’s scientists point out we don’t have decades. We have 12 years.

Italian filmmaker Bertolucci, RIP

This is a scene of Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci‘s 1976 film Novecento. Police attack striking workers and poor farmers; as working class women sing ‘La Lega‘.

Another well-known film by Bertolucci is The Last Emperor, on China in the twentieth century.

Bertolucci died on 26 November 2018.

Protests against Italian right-wing government

This video says about itself:

Residents of Rome protest against worsening condition of city

27 Oct 2018: Thousands of Roman citizens gathered at the Capitoline Hill on Saturday demanding a cleaner, more livable city. The demonstrations, called “Roma Dice Basta” meaning “Rome says enough” were organised by six women frustrated with the conditions of the streets and roads of the Italian capital.

Referencing the thousands of people who joined in the demonstrations, one of the organisers, Tatiana Campione, said “the city has worsened a lot, otherwise we wouldn’t have had so many citizens here today.” Campione blames the worsening conditions of the city on Rome’s administration, led by Five Star Movement’s Virginia Raggi.

In the video, the song Bella Ciao plays; a song from the World War II fighters against the fascist Mussolini government.

By Allison Smith:

Protests and strikes signal mounting hostility toward Italian government

1 November 2018

A wave of strikes and protests across Italy this month reflects widespread and increasing hostility toward the coalition Five Star Movement-Lega government and increasing concerns over the rapidly deteriorating standard of living for the vast majority of Italians.

This past Saturday, nearly 10,000 Romans marched to protest against the crumbling infrastructure in Italy’s capital city. The protest, organised by a group of women that founded Roma Dice Basta (Rome Says Enough), put forward demands for Rome to return to a city that is “inclusive, liveable, welcoming, and forward thinking.”

There is widespread disgust for Rome’s mayor, Virginia Raggi of the Five Star Movement, who was elected on an anti-establishment campaign with promises to clean up the city and significantly improve its infrastructure, but has been mired in scandal since taking office and hasn’t fulfilled any of her election promises. Raggi was indicted last month on charges of making false statements regarding the appointment of Renato Marra as director of Rome’s tourism department.

Residents and visitors are rightly shocked that garbage has been left to pile up, to the point that rats and wild boar regularly feast on the fetid mess, and that maintenance and improvement of transport services has been all but abandoned, with 35 percent of the bus and tram fleet out of commission and at least 30 buses in the city’s aging fleet catching fire between 2017 and 2018.

Rome’s problems, however, began many years ago, and since the onset of the 2008 world financial crisis, the city has been faced with increasing challenges as its administrators have either sought to find short-term solutions or been involved in shady financial derivative transactions that have further deepened the Eternal City’s budgetary crisis.

Contrary to the common mantra echoed by the servile media that workers as well as inept administrators are the main cause of Rome’s budget imbalances, the role of finance capital and derivative schemes is largely responsible for Rome’s—and Italy’s—crisis. Raggi is merely a continuation of this trend.

The protest in Rome followed on the heels of a 24-hour “Black Friday” general strike by public sector workers in transportation, hospitals, and schools across Italy who walked off the job in protest over “salary, welfare, representation in the workplace, universal rights, against privatisation and liberalisation, for the abolition of inequalities, and health and safety.”

The four largest unions (USI, CUB, SGB, COBAS), sensing unrest among their membership, put forward workers’ requests for “real increases in pay, provisions for sufficient staff, respect for the dignity of staff, and the right to retirement at 60 or with 35 years of contributions.”

Since the 2012 Jobs Act, pushed through by the Democratic Party, public sector workers have faced increasingly harsh conditions. Citizens interviewed by local media outlets on the day of the strike were overwhelmingly sympathetic with the strikers, even as they expressed frustration over service interruptions.

Last month’s protests and strikes took place as the coalition government continued its crackdown on immigration and submits the latest austerity national budget for approval by the European Union (EU).

While there is widespread concern among Italians about immigration, there is also mass sympathy for the plight of immigrants and an understanding that the significant increase in immigration is due to the unending wars and economic destruction abroad.

Last week, upon visiting the site in Rome where a young woman was allegedly murdered by a group of Italian and immigrant men, Lega Party leader Matteo Salvini was met by hundreds of protesters who roundly jeered him as a “jackal” for taking political advantage of human tragedy to further vilify immigrants.

At the beginning of October, nearly 6,000 people demonstrated in Riace (southern Italy), Rome and Milan, to denounce the arrest of Riace’s immigrant-friendly mayor and the “fascist” anti-immigrant policies of the coalition government. Contrary to the government’s accusation that Riace’s immigrants represent a threat to Italy, the town’s immigrant policies are widely viewed as a role model for how immigrants can be integrated into society.

As the Italian government builds up a vast police state apparatus to carry out mass deportations of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, it is implementing further austerity through the latest national budget that pledges billions of euros for the military and the police, and tax breaks for businesses, while promising a miserly €780 per month “basic income” for Italian citizens, which comes with so many strings attached that it will be virtually impossible to qualify.

On October 24, the WSWS noted that a violent struggle is set to unfold on the summits of European bourgeois politics, as both pro-EU and far-right … forces fight to impose their version of austerity while trying to avert a financial panic that could provoke an Italian and global market crash. The central question is a perspective for independent political opposition by the working class, uniting workers’ struggles against austerity in Italy and across Europe.

Italian far-right government deports refugees from hospitable village

This 6 October 2018 from Italy is about a pro-refugee solidarity demonstration in Riace, Italy, against the arrest of the pro-refugee mayor.

By Marianne Arens:

Italian Interior Minister Salvini orders removal of migrants from Riace

19 October 2018

Italy’s right-wing coalition government and its fascist Interior Minister Matteo Salvini have ordered the removal of all refugees from Riace, known as the “village of hospitality”, in southern Calabria. On October 2, the mayor of Riace was placed under house arrest.

Last Saturday, the Interior Ministry issued a circular declaring that all migrants living in Riace should leave the village and move into various state refugee camps. Initially, the measure was to be executed this week but on Monday the deadline was extended for a period of sixty days. This leaves the refugees to an uncertain fate.

A week ago, several thousand people demonstrated against the detention of Mayor Domenico “Mimmo” Lucano and denounced the government’s fascist immigration policy.

Due to Lucano’s initiative to welcome migrants and refugees into his village, the former ghost town of Riace has been imbued with new life and is now known throughout Europe. In 2010, Wim Wenders shot his short film “Il volo” (The Flight), in which he honored the model-town on the Calabrian coast and its mayor.

This is video of Wenders’ film Il Volo.

Lucano has been awarded several international prizes, including last year’s Dresden Peace Prize.

Of the approximately 2,000 inhabitants of the village, more than 400 are immigrants and another 500 have returned from emigration. The first migrants came from Kurdistan twenty years ago and have largely adopted Italian citizenship since then. Refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Syria, Ghana, Eritrea, Somalia and other countries came later.

About 200 of them are directly threatened by the announced deportation. The Interior Minister’s decree has caused great concern amongst the immigrant population. On Sunday, a group gathered in front of Lucano’s house, where they kept emphasizing: “We don’t want to leave Riace. Our new life is here.”

The locals support the immigrants, as Riace has gained greatly from its new inhabitants. Thanks to the influx of new residents, the local school did not have to be closed. Dilapidated houses were rebuilt and the whole town—with its cafes, shops, studios and services—was given new life. Lucano, who initiated the project twenty years ago as a teacher, was elected mayor in 2004.

For two weeks he has been prevented from leaving his house or receiving any visits. The government is demanding that the municipal council submit a new bill for all additional expenditures incurred by immigration, regardless of the fact that Riace has not received any state funds for special expenses in more than a year.

Thousands are taking to the streets against the government’s pitiless refugee policy. On October 6, 6,000 people gathered in Riace to express their solidarity with the mayor; further demonstrations took place in Rome and Milan the same day. Several thousand school and university students also showed their solidarity with the migrants of Riace and its mayor on the October 6 and 12.

However, all these opposition protests have no voice in politics. Reports about them can be found almost exclusively in the blogs or Twitter accounts of the relevant initiatives and networks. The mainstream media either report them very scantily or not at all.

The merciless position of Salvini is an expression of the crisis and weakness of the government. It seeks to divide and intimidate the population while also diverting attention from itself as it prepares massive attacks on the entire Italian working class.

Salvini justified his tough stance in Riace by attacking mayor Lucano, stating, “Irregularities in the use of public funds cannot be tolerated.” This is all the more preposterous as Salvini’s own party, the far-right Lega, has misappropriated 49 million euros of taxpayers’ money in just three years (2008 -2010) and must now repay it in annual installments, as confirmed in September by the highest court in Italy, the Cassation Court.

This is awkward for the coalition partner M5S, which has always claimed to be against corrupt politicians and whose voters do not fully support Lega’s witch-hunting of refugees. As a result, several M5S leaders have attempted to cautiously distance themselves from Salvini in public. While Roberto Fico (M5S), the President of the House of Representatives, has not distanced himself from Salvini’s decree in Riace, he has criticized his migration policy in the past.

Salvini had recently praised the decision of Sarah Casanova (Lega), the mayor of Lodi, to exclude refugee children from school meals if they did not pay the maximum contribution. In a very short time, more than 60,000 euros were collected via the Internet for foreign children’s school lunches in Lodi. Fico then called upon Lega politicians Salvini and Casanova to rescind their decision in Lodi, to apologize and to ensure “that these children return to the school canteen.” In the case of Riace, the M5S has openly welcomed “the end of a model”, as of October 7.

Fico is certainly not worried about the refugee children of Lodi, but rather the crisis of the Five Star Movement, which is visibly losing its support base. While it was still the strongest party in Italy in April’s general election, it has now fallen behind, with 28.5 percent, trailing the Lega (33.8 percent).

While the Lega mobilizes its fascist supporters through its brutal immigration policies, Beppe Grillo’s party owes its rise to a slightly different clientele. Claiming to be “neither right nor left”, it benefits the most from the demise of the social Democratic Party (PD). According to the polls, the PD would currently only achieve 17 percent.

The M5S will not be able to fulfill its campaign promises to withdraw the Fornero pension reform and introduce an unconditional basic income. Italy’s budget deficit, at 133 percent of gross domestic product, is already more than twice the EU target. This week, the Italian government must submit its budget for 2019 in Brussels and calm the financial markets to avoid the Milan Stock Exchange crashing.

To counter the growing popular opposition, PD and other opposition politicians and union leaders are responding to the inhuman government policy in Riace with hypocritical protests. For example, Naples mayor Luigi de Magistris described the decision as a “shame” and called on the government to “take action against the Mafia” instead.

The mayor concealed, however, that Salvini’s refugee policy draws upon that of his predecessor, Marco Minniti (PD), and the decisions taken by the EU that have caused thousands of people to drown in the Mediterranean, die of thirst in the Sahara or suffer in the torture camps of Libya. …

The previous government of the Democratic Party (PD) under Matteo Renzi had already canceled the special tax revenue for the village of Riace.

The case of the threatened deportation of the inhabitants of Riace demonstrates that the working class in Italy must become active independently of the old organizations. If it wants to defend its social and democratic rights and protect the refugees, it must join forces with the international working class and not with the nationalist parties and bureaucratic apparatus of Italian politics.

Big Italian protest against arrest of pro-refugee mayor

This 6 October 2018 video says about itself:

Live: Demonstration in support of Riace’s arrested pro-migration mayor

A demonstration in support of the Mayor of Riace, Domenico Lucano, takes place in the south Italian village on Saturday, October 6 under the slogan ‘We do not stop Riace’. Riace Mayor Domenico ‘Mimmo’ Lucano was put under house arrest on Tuesday, October 2 in relation to allegations of aiding illegal immigration. Riace administration has been frequently lauded as a ‘model’ for the way migrants were integrated into the local community and made a positive contribution to it giving a new life to a village, which was previously mostly abandoned.

By Allison Smith:

Italy: Arrest of Riace mayor sparks protests

10 October 2018

The arrest of Domenico Lucano, the mayor of Riace, a small town in the Calabria region of Italy dubbed “hospitality town”, sparked pro-immigrant protests across Italy this past weekend.

It is estimated that nearly 6,000 people demonstrated in Riace against Lucano’s arrest by the Italian tax police on charges of faking marriages of migrant workers and abusing public funds. Protests also took place in Milan and Rome. Many supporters took to Twitter to denounce his arrest and the “fascist” anti-immigrant policies of the coalition government.

According to authorities, in a wiretapped conversation Lucano and his partner Tesfahun Lemlem admitted to arranging the marriage of a Nigerian woman to avoid her deportation. Lucano also allegedly … awarded rubbish collection contracts to companies that support immigrant workers, which angered the local Mafia.

In 1998, Lucano welcomed the first immigrants and asylum seekers to Riace—a boatload of Kurdish immigrants that washed up on its shores—to save the town from total economic collapse and save the immigrants from deportation. Since then, the town’s population has grown to 1,500, including 400 immigrants from 20 countries. Migrants are given housing and jobs repairing roads and houses, baking bread, reopening cafes, or setting up shops for local crafts. His policies have attracted international attention and the ire of the Italian authorities.

Lucano’s arrest occurs in the wake of a European Union (EU) immigration summit accord in Brussels this past June where the Italian coalition government of the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the League (Lega) insisted on provisions for EU funding for refugee prison camps in Turkey and North Africa. They called as well for building closed detention camps in Europe for those seeking asylum and the construction of more such camps, named “regional disembarkation platforms”, along shipping lanes for migrant vessels.

The EU accord also agrees to block refugee movement between EU countries. Finally, the plan calls for rewriting the so-called Dublin Accords on EU asylum law, which mandate that refugees apply for asylum in the first EU country they reach. Italy is a first destination country for thousands of immigrants, and the Italian government is working to prevent migrants from seeking asylum when they reach the Italian border.

In recent years, the government has enacted laws to criminalize immigration. In 2002, then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his coalition partners, Gianfranco Fini of the neo-fascist National Alliance and Umberto Bossi of the far-right Northern League (predecessor of Lega), launched a joint attack on poor immigrants, passing the “Bossi-Fini Law,” which introduced criminal sanctions for persons caught illegally entering the country or who return after being expelled.

Under the law, an immigrant who is stopped without a residence permit is expelled immediately. Immigrants are also subject to arrest and detention of six to 12 months, followed by immediate deportation, if caught attempting to re-enter Italy before the expiry of a re-entry ban. A second offence is punishable by up to four years imprisonment. The law also increases the time limit for seclusion in detention centers whilst waiting for extradition. This was extended from 30 days to 60 days and asylum seekers are placed in detention while awaiting asylum review, in contravention of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states, “Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person.”

Subsequent administrations, including center-left, have never acted to repeal this draconian measure.

While the bourgeois media have expressed a degree of sympathy for Lucano as well as their concern about Italy’s moves toward an authoritarian state, they speak for the same center- and pseudo-left forces that paved the way for the current government’s immigrant policies.

M5S, with its fake anti-establishment posture, is revealing its true colors. For all their criticism against Berlusconi and the Italian Democratic Party (PD), they are moving to the right of both and have no problem implementing and further elaborating the legal framework adopted by the PD against immigrant workers.

In fact, M5S is honoring their manifesto, which vows to do away with “the business” linked to illegal immigration and promises to boost border security by hiring 10,000 police officers and building new prisons.

An October 7 post on the blog of M5S is headlined, “Riace was not a model, the era of the immigration business is over.” The blog post, written by M5S undersecretary Carlo Sibilia, confirms the withdrawal of funds for the Calabrian city: “‘We have decided to reduce speculation on hospitality to zero. There are no coverages for Riace, and our government has set itself the goal of eliminating rainy day funding in terms of migration policies.’ These are my statements made during the visit in Calabria on August 6. Today, after the arrest of the mayor of Riace as part of the Xenia operation carried out by the Guardia di Finanza [Italian finance police], they are more understandable.”

M5S offers nothing progressive in their policies, including the proposed “Citizenship Wage,” which, even if enacted, comes with so many restrictions it will be rendered meaningless. They seek to agitate public opinion against immigrants and migrant workers to divert attention away from election promises and the real issues facing Italian society—poverty wages, crumbling infrastructure and the like.

There is widespread concern among Italians about immigration, but there is also mass sympathy for the plight of immigrants and an understanding that the significant increase in immigration is due to the unending wars and economic destruction abroad.

The current government is thoroughly right-wing. If this is what the Italian state is doing to a member of the political elite, workers should be warned that the true goal of this administration is draconian attacks on immigrants and workers alike. The only way forward for Italian workers and youth is the development of a socialist and internationalist movement in opposition to the government and the financial elite who control the levers of power in Italy.

Italian right-wing government deports all Riace immigrants to concentration camps: here.

Italian right-wing regime arrests mayor for anti-racism

This 2 October 2018 video says about itself:

Italy: Hundreds protest arrest of pro-refugee mayor

Several hundred people staged a protest in Rome on Tuesday to demonstrate their support for the arrested pro-refugee mayor of Riace, Domenico ‘Mimmo’ Lucano.

Lucano, who achieved worldwide fame for his role in welcoming refugees to his village in the south of Italy, was arrested on charges of aiding illegal immigration on Tuesday. The protesters vented their anger at what they believe was a calculated decision by Italy’s [right-wing] coalition government to target someone who is widely seen as a champion for the integration of migrants.

From Wikipedia:

Domenico Lucano is the mayor of Riace, in southern Italy. He gained worldwide attention through his innovative approach to dealing with refugees, in the context of the European migrant crisis. About 450 refugees have settled there among the 1,800 inhabitants of the village, revitalising it and preventing the closure of the village school.

Lucano came second runner-up in the 2010 World Mayor competition. …

Lucano was also listed by Fortune as one of the world’s greatest leaders in 2016; featuring at number 40 in the magazine’s listing.

By Ylenia Gostoli, 2 October 2018:

Italy’s pro-refugee mayor Domenico Lucano arrested

Domenico Lucano, known internationally for promoting migrant integration, charged with ‘aiding illegal migration’.

The mayor of an Italian town known around the world as a model of integration has been put under house arrest for ‘aiding illegal migration’.

…

Lucano’s partner, Tesfahun Lemlem, was banned from living in the town under the same charges.

And the right-wing regime of racist Deputy Prime Minister Salvini may try to deport her from Italy.

The arrest on Tuesday morning came amid a government inquiry into the allocation of funds for refugees in the town.

Italy’s … government has adopted a hardline stance on migration controls in recent months.

International plaudits

Lucano has won international acclaim for ‘repopulating’ Riace with migrants and successfully integrating the arrivals.

With a population of about 1,500, the town hosts around 500 migrants and refugees from more than 20 countries.

Like other small towns across Italy, it has witnessed the massive flight of young people in recent decades, who left looking for economic opportunities elsewhere.

Lucano’s model gained international attention at the peak of the refugee crisis in 2015 and he made Fortune Magazine’s 50 greatest leaders list in 2016.

Refugees and migrants in Italy are usually hosted in reception centres, most of them privately run but publicly funded, with strict rules and timetables guests have to follow.

These rules and the centres’ locations, often far from city centres, have made it difficult for refugees and asylum seekers to integrate and hold down a job.

In Riace, they have been given homes left empty by former residents. They also have the opportunity to work through a programme that has created employment among both refugees and locals – the first focused on cultural mediation and local craftsmanship and the second on language teaching.

‘Civil disobedience’

…

Authorities wiretapped a conversation between the mayor and his partner where he talked about ways to help a Nigerian woman who had been denied a stay permit three times.

…

In a Facebook post after Lucano’s arrest on Tuesday, [anti-mafia, anti-Salvini, pro-Lucano author Roberto] Saviano wrote: “the goal of Mimmo [Domenico] Lucano’s actions is not profit, but civil disobedience.”

“Civil disobedience: this is the only weapon we have to defend not only the rights of migrants, but everyone’s”, argued the author, concluding that the investigation is “the first step towards Italy’s definitive transformation from democracy to an authoritarian state.”

A number of civil society organisations have expressed concern about the arrest, which they see as yet another attack by a government that has built its popularity partly on anti-migrant rhetoric.

“It started with NGOs saving lives at sea. Now it’s the turn of those who do it on land“, wrote Naples-based anti-racism group Associazione 3 Febbraio in a statement calling for solidarity with the mayor.

For Leonardo Neglia, the mayor of Petralia Sottana, a town near Palermo with less than 3,000 residents, Lucano’s reception model is one to replicate.

Neglia had considered starting a similar project in Petralia Sottana, although the idea has been put on hold after the government’s ‘migration and security’ decree.

“Beyond technical and juridical considerations, I think his reception model should be recreated in other municipalities,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We were looking for people who would be willing to make their empty homes in the city centre available for the project. There are many, due to the depopulation of our towns as many young people leave, creating a vicious circle of impoverishment”, Neglia added.

“But this [arrest] sends a message that times have changed.”

The arrest, according to British daily The Guardian:

the suspension by the public broadcaster, Rai, of a TV show about Riace, which had been lauded as an exemplary model for integration. …

Lucano received a show of support on his Facebook page, with Riace locals calling on each other to rally together in solidarity.