Rome (NEV), August 3, 2018 – “In these days the asylum right is questioned as it never happened before”. The president of the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy (FCEI), Pastor Luca Maria Negro, expresses his disconcertment, for this Italy which “aspires to the leadership of the countries that close the borders, reject migrants and oppose those who work for reception and integration”.
And so he continues: “The decision of the NGO SOS-Méditerranée of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to go back to the central Mediterranean sea with the Aquarius ship for search and rescue operations of the survivors fleeing Libya and other North African countries, deserves absolute respect and our solidarity . As well as the action of Proactiva Open Arms (the NGOs whom the FCEI has been collaborating with), which recently rescued 87 people in international waters”. President Negro therefore reiterates that “FCEI supports with conviction the humanitarian commitment of the NGOs that can not be opposed without infringing the laws of the sea and the international conventions that Italy has always honored”.
“To those who – even in the government and supported by the polls – launch mocking criticism towards people working to protect human rights, we answer that some principles should not be protected because they are popular, or because they support public fears, but because they are at the basis of the civil and juridical culture of a country “, urges FCEI president, and concludes: “the image of well-fed migrants who live off State subsidies is an unbearable caricature that can not be accepted by those who have a sense of reality and a moral conscience”.
With regard to recent migration policies, which saw the closure of Italian ports to ships carrying people rescued at sea, but also refoulements to Libya, the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy, together with 13 other secular and Catholic associations, signed an open letter sent on August 2, to the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, to the Council President Giuseppe Conte and to numerous ministers, as well as to the General Commander of the Corps of Port Authorities, in which the application of international law by Italy is requested.
