(ANSA) - European Security and Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said on Thursday that he was shocked and dismayed by allegations of abuse at an immigrant holding centre on an island south of Sicily.
Frattini said in an interview with news weekly L'Espresso - the same magazine which exposed the alleged abuses - that "the bullying and inhumane treatment documented in the Espresso report on the Lampedusa centre are shameful and do great damage to Italy's international image."
The commissioner, formerly foreign minister in Premier Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right government, called for an inquiry into the case. He said any people found to have committed abuses should be severely punished. "This was a great piece of journalism, the sort that's rarely seen," added Frattini, whose interview will be on Italian newsstands on Friday.
The article came out in last week's L'Espresso and was written by journalist Fabrizio Gatti, who entered the immigration centre on Lampedusa by posing as an illegal immigrant. Journalists are not allowed to visit the centre, which has been harshly criticised by Euro MPs and human rights organisations.
But Gatti got in after he pretended to be a 35-year-old Iraqi Kurd trying to enter Italy illegally via Lampedusa. Gatti's account of his seven days at the holding centre includes descriptions of police beatings, filthy and unhygienic conditions and degrading treatment of immigrants. The centre can officially accommodate a maximum of 190 people but at one point during Gatti's stay, there were some 450 immigrants being detained.
He says that only one toilet, four showers and a handful of sinks were available for the immigrants to use and that these were often overflowing with excrement and urine. He said many immigrants were forced to sleep outside on the ground because of the lack of space and beds.
He also reveals the lack of medical and legal assistance, noting that his detention was not approved by a judge despite a law saying that no person can be detained more than 48 hours without a magistrate's approval. Some of the most alarming sections of the article concerned descriptions of police regularly beating the immigrants as well as stealing money from them.
Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu has ordered an administrative investigation and an inspection of the centre. Other members of the government have denied Gatti's allegations, accusing L'Espresso of following a left-wing agenda.
They defended the management of the centre, saying it was run with full respect for human rights. Berlusconi's Forza Italia party said that "no rights have ever been violated inside the Lampedusa centre. The staff and police running the centre have always respected the law," it said.
Justice Minister Roberto Castelli, a member of the controversial separatist Northen League party, said on Wednesday that "for now, the only person who has definitely broken any laws is the journalist who lied about his identity, which is a punishable crime." Gatti is in fact under investigation by the Sicilian police. The opposition, meanwhile, demanded that the Lampedusa centre be closed, decrying it as a "concentration camp".
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Amnesty International, the London-based human rights' group, also expressed concern and asked for "clarification" from Pisanu. Last month, a group of Euro MPs accused Italy of "substantial human rights violations" at the centre. The Socialist lawmakers, who were part of a European Parliament delegation which visited the centre on September 15, said conditions were "intolerable" and called for the place to be shut down.
They accused the Italian authorities of emptying the centre ahead of the delegation's arrival, noting that only 11 immigrants were to be found on the premises when they arrived. The Italian government denied the allegations of abuse, saying immigrants were treated well at the centre and given medical and legal assistance. The same European lawmakers also criticised Italy for its policy of airlifting illegal immigrants back to Libya.
The deportations are being carried out with the agreement of Libya under secret bilateral accords aimed at combatting illegal immigration. The expulsions have triggered protests from a number of international organisations including the UNHCR and Amnesty International.
Earlier this year, the European Parliament narrowly adopted a non-binding resolution calling on Italy to "desist from collective expulsions of asylum seekers and irregular migrants to Libya." The resolution accused the Italian government of breaking international conventions and putting immigrants' lives at risk by sending them back to countries where their safety could not be guaranteed.
The Italian government has rejected the EP's criticisms, insisting that it deals with illegal immigrants in a lawful way and with full respect for international treaties. It says all the expulsions are decided on an individual case basis and that it does not deport any asylum seekers. Every year, thousands of immigrants land in Lampedusa, which is closer to the coast of Tunisia than to the Italian mainland.
In October 2004, Premier Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right government initiated the policy of airlifting the immigrants back to Libya, a major staging post for those trying to reach Italy.
