Mayors take stand over asylum seekers

A group of Italian mayors has rebelled against Matteo Salvini, the country’s Interior Minister, by refusing to implement stringent new laws on the treatment of asylum seekers.

The mayors of Palermo, Naples, Florence and Parma said that a security law, passed by the populist ruling coalition in November, violated the basic rights of migrants and refugees.

The law prevents migrants from seeking residency permits while they their asylum applications are considered, meaning they cannot access services such as healthcare, housing and schools for their children.

The mayors are threatening to block the implementation of the law in their cities, in a challenge to the coalition.

The clash comes after President Sergio Mattarella used a televised New Year’s Eve address watched by 10 million Italians to call for an end to the rancour prevalent in Italian politics while also warning of the dangers of whipping up xenophobia.

Leoluca Orlando, the centre-left mayor of Palermo, called the security decree inhumane.

The comment earned him a rebuke from Salvini, whose policy of closing ports to migrant rescue boats has proved popular among a large section of the Italian electorate.

“With all the problems there are in Palermo, the mayor gets it into his head to stage civil disobedience on immigrants,” said Salvini, who is also deputy prime minister and leader of League, the hard-right party that governs with the Five Star Movement.

He accused the mayors, some of them members of the opposition Democratic Party, of trying to overturn a law passed by Parliament.

However, Orlando denied that he and his fellow city mayors were engaging in “civil disobedience” and said they merely want to ensure “constitutional rights that are guaranteed for all those who live in our country”.

Left-leaning mayors have clashed with Salvini before, notably last year when he ordered the closure of Italian ports to NGO ships that rescued migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean.

The mayors of several port cities, including Messina, Reggio Calabria, Naples and Palermo, tried to defy the order but the threat came to nothing.