For Freedom Of Movement And The Right To Stay

call for the 2nd european day of action by italian groups

22.Mar.05 - On the fourth of December 2004, in Rome, fifty thousands migrants brought in the streets their voice, in a national demonstration which has shown the strength and the growth of the migrants' movement in this country. In Rome, clear passwords were in the streets: the freedom of movement we asked for, not only means the definitive closure of detention centres and the complete stop of all expulsion and "readmission agreements", but also the immediate concession and renew of visas and the permanent legalization of all the migrants who are in Italy. Not only an asylum law for a real guarantee for asylum seekers and refugees, but also the breaking of the link between the visa and the labour contract. Not only the abrogation of the Bossi-Fini law, but also the sharp rejection of the Turco-Napolitano law and of the culture which inspired it. The voice that migrants brought to Rome on the fourth of December in Italy, crosses everyday the mobilisations which in Europe are growing and rooting themselves, and which will be together in the streets during the second of April 2005, FOR FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT AND THE RIGHT TO STAY as an alternative to the European constitutional process.

A European citizenship is in the making through the production and reproduction of borders: the geographical ones, which, despite for all, hundreds men and women continue to cross. The juridical ones, made in Italy by the "contratto di soggiorno per lavoro", which correspond to the production of a hierarchy of rights and to a new model of labour force management built up on precarization and exploitation. The migrants are the subjects who experience in advance life and labor conditions that the whole workforce, certainly with different degrees, is beginning to experience in Europe. But on the other hand, their practices of mobility express a set of claims and demands which at the level of everyday life point to a different Europe.

These claims and demands crossed the European movement, from the Social Forum in Paris in 2003, to the one in London last year, to the meetings in Berlin and Athens during this year.

Here in Italy, we call to the mobilisation in two politically crucial places, the two Italian "doors" to Europe: Sicily, sustaining the initiatives promoted by the Sicily Antiracist Network, which will take place in city of Ragusa. In the detention centre of this city, everyday are closed those who survive to the Mediterranean passage. Friuli, the region in which the wire netting which signs the border dividing the city of Gorizia is everyday crossed by hundreds migrants. In the near of Gorizia, in the city of Gradisca d'Isonzo, is going to be open one of the bigger Italian detention centres. We consider the second day of action one of the stages of that rout which brought to the fourth of December 2004, which never stopped has the several mobilisation in the territories that have been made until today show, and which we want to see growing, after the second European day of action, with much more strength. A strength which will grow, just because not only here but everywhere in Europe, the migrants will be in the streets to claim their FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT AND THE RIGHT TO STAY!

Tavolo migranti dei social forum italiani, Giovani Comunisti e Federazione del PRC di Gorizia, Comitato Antirazzista Cobas Palermo, Ask191 - Palermo, Aula Carlo Giuliani – Università di Palermo, Laboratorio di Geopolitica – Università di Palermo, Attac Catania, Movimento dei Migranti e dei Richiedenti Asilo di Caserta, Todo Cambia – Milano, Coordinamento migranti Bergamo, Coordinamento migranti Bologna, Coordinamento migranti Torino, Gruppo Immigrazione Brescia Social Forum, Giovani comunisti - Mantova, Collettivo studentesco Aca'toro (Mantova), Mantovantagonista, SinCobas migranti Livorno, Coordinamento per la Difesa dei diritti dei Migranti di Lecco, Centro antirazzista La Spezia, Gruppo immigrazione del social forum di Modena, Tavolo migranti dei Social Forum Vicentini, Immigrati uniti per i diritti - Varese, Attac Italia, Arci, Fiom, Dipartimento immigrazione del PRC