The Catania Anti-Racist Network has recently launched a national campaign calling for the closure of the Mineo CARA (Hosting Centre for Asylum Seekers). Our appeal follows a year of monitoring and denouncing the living conditions of the asylum seekers within the "village of solidarity". Yesterday's protest, which saw the inter-state Catania-Gela road blocked from the morning to the evening, expressed the anger of almost all of the different communities as a result of the high number of requests for asylum that are being rejected.
The Mineo megaCARA (regardless of what one might think of its president Castiglione) is not a model centre for asylum seekers nor is it the apple of the Italian government's eye for the reception of migrants. It is, on the contrary, a place of suffering where over 1,900 asylum seekers live in a condition of significant isolation; with absolute uncertainty with regard to their future; victims of the business of pseudo- reception. The difficulties of contacting legal practitioners to get information about requests for asylum, the poor service of the interpreters and the long time the examining board takes to assess applications (currently less than half as many applications are being processed as there were during the summer) have all produced a climate of exasperation which led to yesterday's protest. When a person, who has committed no crime yet is nonetheless treated like a prisoner has their rights trampled upon, the will to fight becomes unstoppable. It is not sufficient to attempt to criminalise the victims in order to invert the bitter reality. It is, instead, necessary to restore dignified living conditions to the Mineo migrants.
Catania Anti-Racist Network
