A recent article by Tom Kington (The Guardian), dated 18th September 2012, reports the « damning survey of Italy’s human rights record », released by the Council of Europe, which follows the outlawing by the European court of human rights this year of Italy’s « push back » policy of intercepting migrants in the Mediterranean and handing them over to Libyan patrols. According to the report, those migrants who do make it to Italy and qualify for refugee status – now 58,000 – are being relegated to the margins of society and are increasingly victims of racist violence. Investigators focused on the so-called palace of shame, an abandoned eight-storey building on the outskirts of Rome where 800 refugees from war-torn countries in the Horn of Africa camp out, with one bathroom for every 100 residents.

More information on this topic may be found on The Guardian’s website and on the Council of Europe website : http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/18/italy-abandoning-refugees-poverty-isolation    

http://www.coe.int/t/commissioner/news/2012/120918italy_EN.asp