Strategic change by the Minister of the Home Office by moving the prison ship the”Moby Vincent” with its 120 deportees

The “Moby Vincent” has left for Porto Empedocle, 6 days after being at the port of Palermo, with more than 200 migrants, mostly Tunisians on board.
Yesterday some citizens delivered a petition to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Palermo. The ship was moved during the day. It is currently on route to the Porto Empedocle dock now, the dock where there was also the Cap Anamur 7 years ago. Nearby there is also “Moby Fantasy” that has returned from Sardinia. 100 Tunisians have been expelled from the Airport of Palermo since yesterday, with two flights from Mistral air and Dubrovnik Air.

There were 5 minors and a woman on “Moby Vincent” and “Audacia”. Nobody knows what has happened
to them, until now the Central Police station and prefecture haven’t answered
any calls from humanitarian organisations. Here is a comment from Fulvio Vassallo
Paleologo from Palermo:
“We heard from “GR radio Regionale” that the Prison ship “Moby Vincent” would have left the Port of Palermo and would be
docking in a few hours at Port Empdocle, near Agrigento, where the immigrants should be transferred to a tensile structure.”

So, perhaps,
it will be easier for the Police headquarters of Agrigento to adopt measures
of deferred rejection and restraint, or it will be the umpteenth
stage for a further transfer towards the CSPA (First Reception Centre)
of Pozzallo.
If the prison ship Moby Vincent stays docked at Porto Empedocle it will be a “Collection Centre” for any new landings
that may come into light in the next few weeks, after the declaration of Lampedusa
by the Home Office, as an “unsafe port”. The reality is that the Home Office decision to transfer
the Moby Vincent with 120 people still on board to Port Empedocle,
represents the worsening of serious procedural violations perpetrated against the migrants
detained on board the prison ship. They try to give some legitimacy to this
scandalous operation, by involving the humanitarian organizations present in Agrigento, when the majority of the immigrants were
illegally sent back towards Tunisia.
We hope that nobody provides alibis for the choices made by the MP Maroni, who is exhibiting the discriminatory Italian Politics regarding
immigration for all of Europe
to see. With the stationing of the Moby Vincent at Porto Empedocle, the map of prison ships is now clear: they are in Cagliari, Porto Empedocle
and Palermo,
where the ship “Auducia” will probably
be emptied within the next few days and the last migrants repatriated to Tunisia. A new system of CIEs (Floating Immigration Detention Centres) has been created,
while the centres for identification and expulsion continue
to explode with protests that have compromised the structures,
and the government
choice to extend the administrative detention to 18 months for irregular
immigrants to be expelled. A real punishment and not one of the measures for carrying
out expulsions as requested by the European Union. All the citizens and associations who have fought against the irregular detention of migrants on board the prison ships are multiplying
their efforts to be present in the ports, where the ships are docked, publically denouncing
the absence of formal procedures and most basic guarantees
of protection.
Fulvio Vassallo Paleologo