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Italy is holding Palestinians in repatriation centers ‘based on total police discretion’

‘How can anyone imagine deporting Palestinian citizens under today’s conditions? What is the point of holding them in a CPR?’

Italy is holding Palestinians in repatriation centers ‘based on total police discretion’
Salvatore Lucente
2 min read

They are being detained in Repatriation Centers (CPRs) despite the obvious impossibility of being repatriated to Palestine. It is a legal absurdity, yet this has been the fate of a number of Palestinians across Italy. For some, detention amounts to outright political persecution; for others, it is yet another consequence of the genocide under way in Gaza and of the occupation of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank. In the end, it is one more aberration in Italy’s system of administrative detention for foreigners without valid residence permits.

“The legal short-circuit from which this arises is obvious. Administrative detention, by law, makes sense only if aimed at repatriation,” stresses lawyer Arturo Covella of the Association for Legal Studies on Immigration. “But how can anyone imagine deporting Palestinian citizens under today’s conditions? What is the point of holding them in a CPR?” It’s hard to find any answers to these questions, and even learning the exact number of Palestinians held in Italian centers is a difficult task.

To get a sense of the situation: according to the Interior Ministry, from January 1 to May 21, 2025, only one Palestinian passed through Italy’s CPR network without seeking asylum. Yet those figures are refuted when looking closely at a single facility, the CPR at Palazzo San Gervasio, where at least four Palestinian nationals have been detained in the past three months.

Among them is B.M.A., born in Bethlehem and transferred to Palazzo from the Turin CPR on April 23. On May 5 he applied for international protection, rejected by the Salerno Territorial Commission; he remains in the Lucanian center, as does another compatriot moved from Turin on May 2. S.M., 34, was luckier: transferred to Palazzo in May, he regained his freedom after a few days for health reasons, but with no chance to contest his expulsion order. A fourth detainee vanished without trace that same month.

Whether this is because of political pressure, an alleged inability to verify detainees’ nationality, or the fact that they are registering with passports from other states, the pattern is alarming and nationwide. “We have repeatedly found Palestinian citizens inside CPRs registered under other nationalities,” says Yasmine Accardo of the Memoria Mediterranea NGO. “Other times they are under the watch of the intelligence services, which revoke their residence permits, causing severe damage to their lives. It is a persecutory attitude based on total police discretion that overrides court decisions. In any case, it is unacceptable.” In short, merely being Palestinian is enough to be singled out.

While lawyers, NGOs and activist networks are working to shed light on the situation, the episode briefly spotlights the abuse and alarming conditions that occur daily inside CPRs – institutions from which we rarely get any information, partly because smartphones with cameras are banned. The Palazzo San Gervasio CPR is emblematic: already the focus of a trial against the previous Engels management, it will see 18 defendants – including the former director, police officers, doctors and lawyers – stand trial on September 12 for alleged mistreatment, unjustified administration of psychotropic drugs and other charges. Now the site is being run by Officine Sociali, whose contract was renewed for another 24 months even after the Potenza prefecture flagged irregularities such as medical shifts not covered and only partial availability of nursing services, provided by a single nurse or by auxiliary staff.

Such conditions can lead to tragedy, as happened on August 5 last year under the management of the same Officine Sociali, when 19-year-old Algerian Belmaan Oussama died inside the center.


Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/palestinesi-trattenuti-nei-cpr-come-si-puo-immaginare-di-rimpatriarli on 2025-07-06
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