Rome (NEV / CS18), March 30, 2019 – “Rami Shehata and Adam El Hamami are already Italians. And so thousands of other boys and girls, children of migrants, who attend schools, gyms, parks and streets in our country. The ius soli is a fundamental and urgent issue, a battle of civilization and justice to ensure citizenship to many young people who fairly participate in our national community”. These are the words of Pastor Luca Maria Negro, president of the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy (FCEI) in connection with the debate on citizenship that has suddenly rekindled after the episode that saw two boys, children of migrants, save their classmates in the bus hijacked and set on fire by the driver, last March 20 in San Donato Milanese (Milan).
“As Christians and citizens we firmly believe that it is more than ever urgent to respond to these young people, brothers and sisters born in our Country, with whom we walk together in our churches and in the streets of our cities and with whom we have experienced the beauty and the richness of reciprocity and of the intercultural and inter-ethnic exchange”, continued Negro.
“Our commitment, which has seen us in the front row for years, also with the ‘I’m Italy too” campaign, stems from a thirty-year work for and alongside foreigners. The time has come to build a “citizenship pact” with those who live and work in our midst”, he concluded.
