A LETTER TO THE ITALIAN PRESIDENT  

Three years ago, after the news of a shipwreck off the Italian coast, I wrote a letter to the Italian President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella. I tried to put in writing what a 20-year-old Italian living abroad felt when she gradually saw all the values that characterized her country fade. I reproduce the letter, translated from Italian, here: 

Salamanca, 9 May 2017

Dear President,

My name is Giulia Chiapperini. I am 20-years-old and from Turin. I am a philosophy student and am currently in Salamanca, Spain, thanks to the European Union's Erasmus Mundus programme. I live with four other girls: one Chinese who lived in Holland, one Japanese, one Dominican, and one Brazilian. The world in an apartment. And do you know how I feel? Rich. But it is not a matter of money.

Today is the 60th anniversary of the signing of the treaties of Rome, which founded the European Community, and at Salamanca University one of the Erasmus students will tonight turn on the lights that will project the twelve stars of the European Union flag on the facade of a historic building of the university. This will be accompanied by the playing of the European Anthem: the Hymn to Joy, written in 1824 by Ludwig van Beethoven.

I decided to write this letter because Italy is my Country, my homeland, and I need to be able to express how I feel. The emotion of listening to Mameli's hymn, the Italian anthem, with your hand over your heart, is very strong. 

While walking through Salamanca one afternoon this spring, I recognized Caruso's notes. A girl was singing it, with an empty McDonald’s cup in front of her. Maybe she had just finished her Coke, maybe she was singing for fun. It was a song that ignited the beating of my heart and for that moment I felt at home. 

But Italy is not only this.

Italy is also the country that, on the afternoon of 11 October 2013, let a boat full of Syrian families fleeing civil war sink, after five hours of waiting without orders. Italy is also the country in which, four years after the survivors' complaints, the prosecution has not completed the investigation. I shiver in listening to those complaints and a few tears fall on my face. We close our eyes. In short, Italy is, metaphorically, our “Paese dei Balocchi” (literally “Land of Toys,” from the children’s book Pinocchio, but it is disguised as a land of pleasure where children are gradually enslaved). 

Maybe the world I want is that of dreamers, but I like to think I am not the only one. I trust in John Lennon.

I would like an Italy of which I can be proud, an Italy where we are still free to dream, where populism does not exist, where culture, tolerance, and hospitality are still our most laudable characteristics. An Italy where freedom is the key word and where Giorgio Gaber sang “freedom is not a free space, freedom is participation”.

Our world is falling apart, but because of a sophisticated media information policy, our attention is easily shifted to futile issues. Why is this allowed? We are transforming ourselves into living beings devoid of the faculty of thinking, devoid of true feelings, and overwhelmed by haste?

We cannot allow fear to atrophy our thinking ability. In 1784, the philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote: 

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. This nonage is imputable to itself, if the cause of it does not depend on a lack of intelligence, but on the lack of decision and the courage to make use of one's intellect without being guided by another. Sapere aude! (Have the courage to use your own intelligence!)

Today, more than two centuries later, at university we are only numbers. Politics no longer makes any sense, and in everyday life the other person, whoever he/she is, has turned into an enemy. Everything is the opposite of everything. And what shocks me most is how such a situation turns into a perfect scenario for arrogant, aggressive, and ignorant personalities to be successful. How is it possible that there are no more ideals? Why have we lost faith in our future? I do not want to stop believing in the possibility of a better world.

Today an elderly professor reminded me that our task is to spread tolerance, because it is true that we cannot put an end to our differences, but yes, as John Fitzgerald Kennedy said, “…if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity”.

I do not know if with this letter I managed to convey my feelings, the truth is that I am a 20-year-old girl, immersed in a world that scares me, and which does not belong to me, or rather, a world to which I do not belong.

Thank you, President, for your attention, for reading these lines. 

Sincerely, 

Giulia

SECURITY DECREES AND THE RIGHTS OF MIGRANTS

Since this letter, the picture has definitely worsened. Two security decrees adopted in Italy in 2018 and 2019 represent a breakpoint in the reception and protection system for migrants seeking asylum and humanitarian protection. The decrees raise serious concerns regarding exclusion and withdrawal of protection, the reduction of guarantees, and a general restriction on the rights of migrants and asylum seekers. 

The first Decree-Law on Immigration and Security (132/2018) [in Italian], contains urgent measures on international protection and immigration. The main aim is the abolition of humanitarian protection including the humanitarian residence permit, transforming legally-present people into the opposite. This is a human rights violation, chiefly affecting minors, who, on attaining majority, may no longer stay on national territory. By the end of this year the people in an irregular condition (i.e. lacking legal status in a transit or host country) in Italy could exceed 670,000.

The humanitarian residence permit was initially introduced as a safeguard clause in the Italian legislation. It allowed the start of social protection and inclusion paths, preventing people who do not meet the requirements to obtain refugee status, from becoming part of a large group of “invisible” people. Instead, the 2018 Decree now provides for the creation of new residence permits that can be granted only in restricted “special cases” and for a shorter period of time. Likewise, the reception of asylum seekers underwent substantive changes. 

Another controversial provision falls under Article 13 of this Decree-Law, which institutes a ban on the registration of asylum seekers. Consequently, the present residence permit constitutes an identification document, but will not constitute a title for being registered and, therefore, having residence. The immediate consequence of this provision is the impossibility of issuing identity cards and services such as registration with the national health service or employment centres to those who have a residence permit of this type. The limitation of access to these services impact the rights to life and private and family life guaranteed in Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and in Article 32 of the Italian Constitution. More broadly, this provision also violates Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, which specifies that universal rights can also be claimed by people who are not European citizens.

The result of Article 13 is the construction of a social impairment to applicants for international protection and the use of this condition as an element of pressure and punishment. This is because you cannot fully enjoy universal rights if you are not regularly registered in a country: you remain invisible, you do not exist. You cannot go to the hospital, you cannot work or get married, your children cannot go to school, among many other rights limitations. 

The second relevant Decree-Law (53/2019) [in Italian] concerns predominantly illegal immigration by sea.Sanctions for violation of the rules could be between 150,000 to 1 million Euro. Confiscation of the boat used to convey the migrants is a further penalty. This decree represents an attempt to criminalize the search and rescue operations of civil society organizations in the Mediterranean Sea. 

In 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights requested the Italian state not to proceed to promulgate the second Security Decree. This is because it has the potential to significantly affect the human rights of migrants, including people seeking political asylum and victims, or potential victims of arbitrary detention, torture, trafficking in human beings, and other serious human rights violations. It prevents them from entering the country and obtaining the effective protection they deserve. It also increases the risk for migrants to be sent back in violation of the principle of non-refoulement.

Unfortunately, no changes have been made: the decrees remain in force.

CONSTITUTIONAL COURT DECISION ON THE BAN ON THE REGISTRATION OF ASYLUM SEEKERS  

Two years later, something starts to falter: on 9 July 2020, the Constitutional Court examined the issues of constitutional legitimacy of Article 13 of Law 113/2018 on the provision that precludes the registration of foreigners seeking asylum, raised by three Italian Courts. The Constitutional Court declared Article 13 unconstitutional for violation of Article 3 of the Italian Constitution for two reasons: (1) due to intrinsic irrationality, since the contested rule does not facilitate the pursuit of the territorial control purposes declared to be the aim of the security decree; and (2) for unreasonable difference in treatment, because it makes access to services which are also guaranteed to asylum seekers unjustifiably more difficult for them. 

It is also possible to say that this law entails a violation of Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which provides for the prohibition of any discrimination based on citizenship. In my opinion, the provision is also a violation of Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which asserts the prohibition of any discrimination dealing with the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in the Convention.

Because of the massive challenges that relate to the provisions of the two decrees that remain in force, I decided to share the letter I wrote three years ago. My thoughts today remain unchanged, and I think many other people have similar thoughts. We are still free to dream of a world where populism does not exist, where culture, tolerance, and hospitality are our most laudable characteristics. It is time to make our voices heard.

RESPONSE FROM THE PRESIDENT

Two months after sending my letter, and against all expectations, I received a response from the President. He thanked me for making him a part of my reflections as an Italian citizen in which worries and hopes alternate. He wrote that it is necessary for young Italians (and people, more broadly) like me to believe in a better future and to work with strong and shared ideas and values ​​to make this happen. In the words of the President: “to be more and more protagonists of a positive change”. We are living in a time of profound transformations: we must not be afraid of them, but rather commit ourselves to guide them.

Giulia is holds a Master's Degree in International Cooperation on Human Rights from the University of Bologna. She has a Bachelor's in Philosophy. Her fields of interest are immigration and refugee law, particularly related to unaccompanied foreign minors. She would love to work at the United Nations in the future.

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