Saturday, October 5, 2013 POSITION STATEMENT THE- LAMPEDUSA DISASTER STATEMENT | Umangat-Migrante, Rome, Italy A boat laden with about 500 men, women and children migrants from Somalia, Eritrea, Egypt and Syria caught fire and sunk near the coast of Lampedusa Island, Italy the early morning of Thursday, 3 October 2013. The inhabitants of the island helped save the victims. Of the more than 500 imigrants aboard the boat, more than a hundred and fifty reached the shore by swimming for 3 hours before they were met and saved by the local inhabitants. The rest of the immigrants are missing and presumed dead. Reports revealed that a number of Italian fishing boats passed by the scene of disaster but was prevented from giving assistance to the survivors for fear of incrimination under the provisions of the Bossi-Fini Law and Security Package which prohibit the taking of illegal immigrants into Italian territory. Again, criticisms against the much-hated Bossi-Fini law and the amending Security Package which criminalized illegal immigration were aired in the dailies, radio and tv networks by several anti-racism groups and politicians. This should have been stopped years ago, but the extreme right politicians have used the issue of illegal migration to sow fear among the population in order to harvest votes from the panicked citizens. Most of the immigrants are in fact refugees from political repression, imperialist-instigated wars in the Middle East and Africa, poverty and hunger. Along with various migrant and anti-racist organizations in Italy and with the Mayor of Lampedusa, the Ugnayan ng Manggagawang Migrante Tungo sa Pag-unlad and allied organizations call for the abrogation of racist and discriminatory laws and regulations and to end the criminalization of the immigrants and refugees. NO TO RACIAL DISCRIMINATION!!! STOP THE CRIMINALIZATION OF MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES!!! NO TO FORTRESS EUROPE!!! References: Ugnayan ng Manggagawang Migrante Tungo sa Pag-unlad (UMANGAT) E-mail: umangatmigrante@gmail Migrante Partylist Rome E-mail : migranteplrome@gmail Patriotic Order of Supremo Andres Bonifacio E-mail : posab.rome@gmail --
Posted on: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 05:13:04 +0000
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