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| Europe |
| Italy: Hundreds protest against migrants on Lampedusa |
| 2009-01-28 |
| (AKI) - Fifteen hundred residents on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa on Tuesday protested against the conservative Italian government's plans to open a new detention centre for illegal immigrants. Local authorities also urged shopkeepers and other businesses to remain closed. "Free Lampedusa!" the protesters chanted. Locals fear the island is being turned into a 'Mediterranean Alcatraz' by interior minister Roberto Maroni's decision not to transfer illegal immigrants arriving on Lampedusa elsewhere in Italy . Under Maroni's instructions, the illegal immigrants are to be kept on the island for identification. They will then be deported unless they are eligible for political asylum, refugee or protected status. Some have been held in the island's current detention centre for over a month. The centre, which was designed to hold a maximum 800 people for a few days at a time, has for over a week been severely overcrowded. There were 1,000 people being held there on Tuesday after 130 other illegal immigrants were overnight transferred to a military base as an emergency measure, and 100 others who requested political asylum were transferred to a centre in the southern Italian city of Crotone. |
| Posted by:Fred |