Messina and Caltanissetta, Sicily: In Messina against the prison, in Caltanissetta against the CPR

One afternoon at the beginning of August, a group in solidarity brought a quick greeting to the prisoners in the Gazzi prison in Messina.
What follows is a leaflet handed out in the neighbourhood next to the prison: volcarcere (in Italian)

After that some news about the CPR in Caltanissetta and the the report of a flying initiative against it:
One August morning, some persons in solidarity gathered in front of the gate of Pian del Lago in Caltanissetta, where the border regime’s war is at its height. Pian del Lago, un’ex military base trasformated into CPT in 1998, is now a key logistics centre where migrants are rendered exploitable and expellable and from where they are then deported.

Here you will find the immigration office, the centre for asylum seekers and the most strictly detentive facility, the Centre of Permanence for Repatriation (CPR). The absence of medical care – except for psychopharmaceuticals -, the continuous deportation flights that follow one after another without any possibility of escaping them legally, the devastating heat in rooms with no ventilation, in a place in the middle of a Sicily even more on fire because of the ecological catastrophe, make the imprisonment even more inhumane.

In recent months there have been many protests in the CPR blocks, which have been harshly repressed by the police and carabinieri based in the camp. At the end of June, in yet another riot attempt, a person fell from the roof and the police let a murderous amount of time pass before an ambulance could be called. At the end of July, a fire was started in one of the blocks of the centre by those who preferred to risk being burnt to death rather than be locked up in a place worse than prison – so say those who have been in both – or be deported. Every week flights leave Sicily for Tunisia and Egypt, filled with people detained in the CPRs of southern Italy.

It is also for this reason that an attempt was made to concretely jam the deportation machine by expressing active solidarity with those resisting in the racist isolation of this lager. If those who were trying to pass through the gate to go to work inside the centre for once felt very uncomfortable doing so, the racialised women and men waiting for the immigration office to open felt instead heartened by the presence of those who were denouncing the forms of cruel violence, perennial blackmail and racism with which the state makes their lives unlivable.

In chats with some of the other migrants living in the centre for asylum seekers, the conditions of neglect and misery in which they are left in the ‘reception’ emerged. Although they are not aware of the existence of a prison next to their dormitories – the CPR -, they told of the shouting and beating that can be heard from there, where the high fence isolates the blocks where those who are denied documents are imprisoned.

Thanks to the presence of some comrades, the bus in which deportees are normally taken to the airport was blocked for two hours inside the centre.

This morning of struggle was very little compared to the military impressiveness of the repression and deportation device. Nevertheless, it shows us the importance of continuing to believe that the war against those who want to move from those places where democratic Europe has built itself – and continues to do so – by torturing, raping and massacring, can be stopped.

Brick by brick, wall by wall, we will make the European Fortress fall!

via: ilrovescio.info Translated by Act for freedom now!