• Human Rights in Italy

    The country’s self-declared migration-related state of emergency ended on December 31, 2012, but thousands of asylum seekers who arrived in 2011 have yet to receive final decisions. Italy continues to return to Greece unaccompanied migrant children and adult asylum seekers who stow away on ferries that travel to Italy from Greece. In landmark rulings on accountability for counterterrorism abuses, appeals courts upheld the in absentia convictions of twenty three US citizens for the 2003 abduction and rendition of Egyptian Abu Omar, and convicted five Italian intelligence officers whom lower courts had acquitted citing state secrecy. Roma face evictions from informal camps, segregation, and discrimination despite the adoption of the first national strategy on Roma inclusion.

  • A 14-year-old unaccompanied migrant boy from Afghanistan stands outside the abandoned house in which he lives with 25 other Afghan migrants in Patras, Greece. Like many other migrants, he is trying to stow away on ships to Italy to claim asylum. © 2012 Human Rights Watch
    © 2012 Human Rights Watch
    Italy: Summary Returns to Greece Violate Rights
    Italy is summarily returning unaccompanied migrant children and adult asylum seekers to Greece, where they face a dysfunctional asylum system and abusive detention conditions, Human Rights Watch said in a report published today. Stowaways on ferries from Greece, including children as young as 13, are sent back by Italian authorities within hours without adequate consideration of their particular needs as children or their desire to apply for asylum.
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  • Turned Away
    Summary Returns of Unaccompanied Migrant Children and Adult Asylum Seekers from Italy to Greece
  • Everyday Intolerance
    Racist and Xenophobic Violence in Italy
  • Pushed Back, Pushed Around
    Italy's Forced Return of Boat Migrants and Asylum Seekers, Libya's Mistreatment of Migrants and Asylum Seekers
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Italy

  • Italy: Leather Buyers Beware
    Apr 2, 2013
    (Barcelona) – Leather buyers at an international leather fair in Italy should only purchase leather goods from tanneries that comply with laws that protect the right to health and labor rights, Human Rights Watch said today as the fair opens in Bologna. Such compliance should include respecting both national and international environmental standards. Tanneries in the Hazaribagh area of the Bangladesh capital, Dhaka, do not meet these criteria, Human Rights Watch said.
  • With new leadership, Italy has a real chance for asylum reform
    Apr 1, 2013
    Italy has changed in the last three decades from a country of emigration to one of immigration and asylum. Its reaction has been chaotic and confused, and sometimes downright cruel. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in Italy’s response to boat migration.
  • Divided We Fall: Intolerance in Europe Puts Rights at Risk
    Feb 14, 2013
    An Afghan migrant is stabbed in the heart on the streets of Athens. Black-shirted paramilitaries linked to Hungary’s third-largest political party march through a Roma neighborhood shouting, “You will die here.” A neo-Nazi gang commits a string of murders of Turkish immigrants in Germany. An ideologue driven by hatred of “multiculturalism” kills 67 mostly young people on a Norwegian Island.
  • EU: Human Rights Sidelined Amid Crisis
    Jan 31, 2013
    National and European Union (EU) leaders failed to address serious human rights concerns in the region amid economic and political crisis in 2012, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2013. Human Rights Watch documented human rights concerns in the EU, highlighting events in 10 member states and EU-level developments in migration and asylum, discrimination and intolerance, and counterterrorism policy.
  • Italy turns its back on children seeking refuge
    Jan 27, 2013
    Every year, hundreds of boys travel alone, at great risk, from Afghanistan to Italy. They‘re looking for refuge, for an education, for an opportunity to escape the war zone in their country. And yet Italy turns away many of them, barring their entrance and taking no steps for their protection or care.
  • Italy: Summary Returns to Greece Violate Rights
    Jan 22, 2013
    Italy is summarily returning unaccompanied migrant children and adult asylum seekers to Greece, where they face a dysfunctional asylum system and abusive detention conditions, Human Rights Watch said in a report published today. Stowaways on ferries from Greece, including children as young as 13, are sent back by Italian authorities within hours without adequate consideration of their particular needs as children or their desire to apply for asylum.
  • A Letter to the Italian Prime Minister about Palestine and the ICC
    Dec 21, 2012
    We write to express Human Rights Watch’s deep concern regarding your December 17 statement made during a meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, in which you call on the Palestinian Authority not to use Palestine's new non-member observer-state status at the United Nations to pursue the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
  • Italy/US: Ruling on CIA Case Highlights US Inaction
    Sep 20, 2012
    The ruling by Italy’s highest court to uphold convictions against 23 United States agents stands in stark contrast to the US failure to prosecute any official involved in the Central Intelligence Agency’s unlawful rendition program.
  • Europe failing to tackle boat tragedies in Mediterranean
    Sep 12, 2012
    The EU and its member states must do more to prevent migrant deaths at sea if they are to deliver on their humanitarian ethos – writes Judith Sunderland.
  • EU: Step Up Sea Rescues to Save Lives
    Sep 7, 2012
    The deaths of scores of migrants and asylum seekers in the Mediterranean over the past 48 hours should prompt concerted European Union action to limit further deaths in the Mediterranean.
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