Italy’s immigration authorities flouted its’ own regulations by repatriating a Ghanaian woman to Ghana under circumstances against the law in Italy.

The 20-year-old Ghanaian woman, illegally resident in Italy, reported to a local hospital in the Italian northern city Treviso for an abortion but was arrested and given an expulsion order to leave Italy because she was in the country illegally.

Luca Migliorini of the Treviso Police said: “We were called by the hospital authorities to come and intervene in the identification of a patient without the necessary resident documents”. At that point the police checked and found out the woman didn’t have the permit stay and Migliorini added: “since there were no free rooms at the detention centre an expulsion order was issued.”

Italy’s law forbids such repatriation under which an illegal immigrant is deported. Under Article 35 of the Italian immigration law (dall’ articolo 35 Testo unico sull’ immigrazione) in force, it absolutely bans hospital authorities from reporting to the police an illegal immigrant who has come to the hospital for treatment unless there is a crime involved. In order to identify the patient, it’s enough for the patient to self-certify his or her personal data and it’s not necessary for the patient to have a fixed residence.

Dr. Aldo Morrone, Director General of the National Institute for Promotion of immigrants’ Health and for the control of poverty-related diseases in Italy has condemned the action of the immigration authorities. He said: “I hope there is an explanation of what happened, because if it happened as it seems, it will be serious. The doctor only has the duty of safe guarding the person’s health”, and went on, “what happened to this Ghanaian woman is a serious case that can lead to serious medical problems in the country.” He pointed out that if illegal immigrants think they risk expulsion, out of fear, they will not go for hospital treatment and in this way they put their own health and the health of others in danger.

Dr. Morrone in his statement against the expulsion also mentioned that some diseases can worsen, be spread and the patient can even die for having failed to seek medical care saying such a thing can happen to many illegal immigrants who work in the construction sector. “It’s very important to make the law known to all that are in the country, including illegal immigrants, who have a right to medical care,” he noted and added: “it’s for the interest of the public health and it is grave if the law was violated by the doctors”.

Two Senators, Donatella Poretti and Marco Perduca have called the government’s attention to this case and demanded an urgent action. They asked the Ministers of Labour and Home Affairs to take appropriate and urgent action to guarantee privacy and prevent illegal immigrants who seek medical care in hospital from being punished for being in the country illegally.

Says Senator Porretti: “What happened at Treviso sets a grave precedent and requires urgent action. It’s necessary for Italy not to impede the access of illegal immigrants to hospitals, such measures have already been adopted by other countries and in the USA for example the law bans immigration officials from entering the hospitals”.

The action of the immigration authorities coupled with others on immigrants in recent times is adding more verbal attacks from the opposition parties to the Government describing them as xenophobic. In one of the recent attacks on immigrants, an Italian shop owner and his son clubbed to death Abdul Salam Guibre, a native of Burkina Faso, for allegedly stealing a packet of biscuit.

Secretary General of the PRC Party, Paolo Ferrero, speaking on the death of Abdul Guibre, said the Government must stop its xenophobic and racist campaign. He holds the view that what happened to Abdul Guibre is the product of a poisonous atmosphere created by the political forces in government which attributes to immigrants all the evils taking place in the country.

The Secretary General of the Democratic Party, Walter Veltroni, also said the killing of Abdul is the fruit of a tense atmosphere of hatred and it’s not enough to solve his murder but there is the need for a long and passionate cultural and human campaign to prevent such an incident from happening again.

Reacting to Veltroni’s remarks, the coordinator for the ruling Government’s MPs, Roberto Cota, hit back saying the actions of the Government is aimed at ensuring that all respect the law and to provide security to all citizens, the very security that they were denied by the wrong policies of the previous government.

Another opposition representative to the government, from the Partito Umanista, Carlo Olivieri, citing insults hurled by the shop owner and his son whilst hitting Abdul to death with an iron bar said: “Someone will say that Abdul was killed because he stole some biscuits. No, Abdul was killed because he had a black skin”.

The racist attitude of the killers of the Burkina Faso native has also been condemned by Emma Bonino, MP of the Democratic Party. She said: “I was touched by the words used by the two killers while they were beating Abdul to death. They were declaredly racist insults. We are immersed in an artificially created atmosphere whereby lack of security is fully attributed to immigrants creating a very dangerous atmosphere,” and pointed out, most of the speeches by the leaders in Government at an event in Venice is clearly racist. “I think from that stage worse insults and stereotypes leaning towards racism were repeated. And I don’t think the Home Affairs Minister, Roberto Maroni, is doing enough to stop this,” she mentioned. She warned political leaders to be careful on the signals they send to the public.