Analysis
Silence and opacity after Italy deported 40 more people to its offshore Albanian camp
The fourth iteration of the Meloni government's Albania campaign is marked by the executive's opacity, bluffing and twisting itself into knots to try to justify the transfers outside Italy’s borders.
They only found out they were being transferred to Albania when the Libra had already docked at the port of Shengjin. And the Trumpian display of wrist ties, an image that Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi shared and boasted about on Saturday, was not limited to when they disembarked for the benefit of the cameras, but lasted throughout the entire journey of at least seven hours from Brindisi to Albania.
At least three acts of self-harm were recorded among the 40 people transferred to Albania in the first 24 hours of detention across the Adriatic. This is the picture that emerged from the inspection carried out on Saturday at the Gjader facility, newly converted into a Repatriation Center (CPR), by European Parliament Member Cecilia Strada.
The fourth iteration of the Meloni government's Albania campaign is marked by the executive's opacity, bluffing and twisting itself into knots to try to justify the transfers outside Italy’s borders, without, however, giving any definite answers. On Saturday, Piantedosi invoked the “social danger” posed by the detained migrants as the reason for the wrist ties, claiming it was a form of protection for the agents dispatched on the Libra. He was echoed by Matteo Salvini, who is pushing hard to take his job at the Interior Ministry, and who commented with his dark brand of “humour”: "Where's the problem? Should we have given them Easter eggs?"
But going beyond the statements, the criteria by which the people to be transferred to Albania were selected remain obscure. In themselves, criminal convictions do not constitute grounds for detention in a CPR. At most, they can give the case “priority.” And in any case, if a person has a criminal record, it means that they have already served a sentence, so any deportation could have taken place during their preventive detention. This is why Tavolo Asilo e Immigrazione (TAI) called the transfers to Albania an “unbearable display of cruelty,” stressing that people are “detained in CPRs not because they have committed a crime, but because they are subject to an administrative procedure of deportation, that is, they have an expired document.”
"A further period of detention in a CPR, and particularly in the Albanian CPR, takes the form of an additional accessory punishment and makes the entire facility take the form of a penal colony. It’s something that does not exist in law and unjustifiably imposes an additional economic burden on society," said Cecilia Strada on her way out of Gjader.
In the course of her inspection, the MEP was able to meet with four detainees, none of whom appeared to have a criminal record. During the inspection at the center, Strada was not given answers about the number of people held there, the list of people detained or the criteria used to select them. Nor has there been any response to the demand to access public records filed at the Interior Ministry together with PD deputy Rachele Scarpa. The two elected officials asked to see the written measures, such as minutes and notes, related to the criteria used and the personal file of each of the people transferred to Gjader. The lack of response was “a lack of access to information crucial to the proper exercise of our inspection power as parliamentarians,” Strada and Scarpa stressed.
The detainees they met told them that the wrist ties had been put on already during the voyage aboard the Libra, despite the fact that none of them had objected to the transfer. “The Frontex guidelines say that physical restraint is the last resort, and must be justified, proportionate, and subject to dynamic re-evaluation over time,” said Strada. Only four migrants were able to have contact with their lawyers: “A serious matter, and emblematic of the sever impairment of the right to defense at the Albanian facilities,” Strada stressed.
Meanwhile, Interior Ministry sources confirmed that if any of the 40 people detained end up actually being deported, they will have to be brought back to Italy first, as performing deportations is not part of the protocol signed with Albania. Piantedosi was in defense mode on Saturday: “There is no tangible and visible uneconomic use of resources,” he claimed. A first complaint to the Court of Auditors, which could take a close look at the continuous comings and goings between Brindisi and Shengjin, was arleady filed by Luigi Calesso, spokesman for the Treviso Civic Coalition, asking the Court to investigate the possible waste of public funds.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/silenzio-e-opacita-nel-centro-di-gjader-una-colonia-penale on 2025-04-13