Matteo Salvini – Eye on Islamism

Judges block Albania model again and order return of 7 migrants to Italy Italian judges overturned detention orders for seven migrants sent to Albania, blocking Italy's outsourcing plan for the second time. The ruling sparks further tensions between the judiciary and government.

November 11, 2024 Michela Morsa

(Euronews) A court in Rome has suspended the approval of detention orders for seven migrants who were relocated last week to a repatriation centre in Albania established by Italy. Monday’s ruling has blocked the Italian government’s efforts for the second time to […]

Italy court deals fresh blow to Meloni’s migrant plan

November 4, 2024 Unlisted Author

(AFP) A Sicilian court on Monday dealt a fresh blow to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s migrant policy by declaring applications for asylum from Egypt could not be fast-tracked. Egypt was included on the government’s list of so-called “safe” countries to which […]

Italy’s prosecutor seeks 6-year jail sentence for Salvini on migrant kidnapping charges

September 14, 2024 Giselda Vagnoni

(Reuters) An Italian prosecutor on Saturday asked a judge to sentence right-wing League leader Matteo Salvini to six years in prison over his 2019 decision to prevent more than 100 migrants from landing in the country. The then interior minister, who is […]

‘Meloni method’ — Italian PM hailed as illegal migration drops by 64 per cent over last year

August 30, 2024 Kurt Zindulka

(Breitbart) Dividends have begun to pay off for Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s migration strategy as figures have shown a near-two-thirds reduction of illegal arrivals over last year. Statistics released this week by the Italian Interior Ministry showed that 41,530 illegal immigrants landed […]

Row after two Muslim students exempted from studying Dante Parties slam 'crazy' move, 'insult to our culture'

May 24, 2024 Unlisted Author

(ANSA) A middle school teacher in the northern city of Treviso has exempted two Muslim students from studying Dante on the grounds that it is a religious work that clashes with their Islamic faith, local dailies reported Friday, sparking a major row […]

Italy: Seven teenage Egyptian migrants arrested after 13-year-old girl gang raped in front of boyfriend

February 4, 2024 Kurt Zindulka

(Breitbart) Seven teenage migrants from Egypt have been arrested after a 13-year-old girl was gang raped in front of her boyfriend this week in Catania, an ancient port city on the island of Sicily. According to information released by local police, a […]

Italian PM admits she hoped to do ‘better’ on migration

September 24, 2023 Alice Ritchie

(AFP) Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has admitted she had hoped to do “better” on controlling irregular migration, which has surged since her far-right party won historic elections a year ago. “Clearly we hoped for better on immigration, where we worked so […]

Italy approves new migrant detention as talk turns to naval blockade to prevent launching of boats

September 18, 2023 Nicole Winfield, Lorne Cook and Angela Charlton

(AP) The Italian government approved new measures to crack down on migration Monday, after the southern island of Lampedusa was again overwhelmed by a wave of arrivals setting off from Tunisia and the migration issue returned to center stage in Europe with […]

EU pledges crackdown on ‘brutal’ migrant smuggling during visit to overwhelmed Italian island

September 17, 2023 Colleen Barry

(AP) EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged the swift return of “irregular” migrants to their home countries and a crackdown on the “brutal business” of migrant smuggling Sunday during a visit with Italy’s premier to a tiny fishing island overwhelmed […]

A flotilla of migrant boats from Tunisia overwhelms an Italian island and tests Meloni’s policy

September 13, 2023 Frances D'Emilio

(AP) A flotilla of flimsy boats, crowded with migrants and launched from Tunisia, overwhelmed a tiny southern Italian island on Wednesday, taxing the coast guard’s capability to intercept the smugglers’ vessels and testing Premier Giorgia Meloni’s pledge to thwart irregular migration. Compounding […]

Italy minister shocks with ‘ethnic replacement’ warning

April 18, 2023 Unlisted Author

(AFP) Italian minister Francesco Lollobrigida, one of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s closest allies, sparked outrage Tuesday by warning against the “ethnic replacement” of Italians by migrants. “We cannot resign ourselves to the idea of ethnic replacement: Italians have fewer children, so let’s […]

Italy pushes crackdown on migrants reaching its shores

April 17, 2023 Frances D'Emilio

(AP) Italy’s right-wing government pressed ahead with plans to crack down on migrants as they arrived by the hundreds on Monday at a Sicilian port after a coast guard rescue. Dozens more were taken on board a charity boat from an unseaworthy […]

Meloni’s Italy: Muslim mob stops police from shutting down illegal mosque

December 18, 2022 Chris Tomlinson

(Breitbart) A mob of Muslims in the Italian city of Florence blocked a local bailiff from repossessing an illegal mosque, with hundreds of people preventing police from entering. A bailiff and local police attempted to take back a former garage in Piazza dei […]

Italy accused of illegally rejecting migrants as anger mounts

November 6, 2022 Ella Ide

(AFP) Humanitarian groups on Sunday said Italy had broken international law by refusing to let in migrants plucked from the sea as a German rescue charity said it would take legal action against Rome. As rescue ships in Catania waited for permission […]

New Italian government closes ports to NGO ships

November 4, 2022 Colleen Barry and Sylvie Corbet

(AP) Italy’s new far-right-led government adopted a measure Friday formalizing the closure of its ports to rescue ships run by humanitarian groups as four vessels with more than 1,000 migrants continued to press for a safe port. Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi told […]

Italy silent as ships with 1,000 rescued migrants seek help

November 3, 2022 Massimo di Nonno and Colleen Barry

(AP) Humanitarian groups caring for nearly 1,000 rescued migrants on three ships in the central Mediterranean are sounding an alarm about deteriorating conditions, but Italy’s new far-right-led government has not responded to requests for a safe [port as] it hardens its position […]

Giorgia Meloni: Italy’s new PM takes aim at migrant boats in debut speech

October 25, 2022 Unlisted Author

(BBC) Italy’s new far-right leader, Giorgia Meloni, has used her maiden speech to MPs to stress her aim to halt migrant boats crossing the Mediterranean. “We must stop illegal departures and human trafficking,” she said, repeating a campaign pledge to stop boats […]

Migrants face tougher times in Meloni’s Italy

October 7, 2022 Crispian Balmer

(Reuters) Life is tough for asylum seekers in Italy — most are denied refugee status, barred from legal employment and, polls suggest, face discrimination. Now things look set to get even worse. Fresh from her election victory, Giorgia Meloni is expected to […]

Meloni’s navy-blockade plan to stop Libya migrants ‘unlikely’

September 28, 2022 Nikolaj Nielsen

(EUobserver) Italy’s incoming far-right government will most likely attempt to usher in reforms to deny people their right to asylum. But some of the ideas put forward by the expected premier-to-be Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy party are unlikely to […]

FB, Instagram, Twitter remove migrant rape video Meloni sparked row by re-posting footage, vowing crime fight

August 23, 2022 Unlisted Author

(ANSA) Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter on Tuesday removed a video of a Guinean asylum seeker raping a Ukrainian woman in Piacenza Monday, which had been controversially re-posted by conservative leader Giorgia Meloni in a post vowing to boost law and order in […]

Italy’s Meloni shocks opponents with alleged rape video

August 22, 2022 Colleen Barry

(AP) The far-right candidate who aspires to be Italy’s first female leader came under fire Monday from opponents for posting a pixelized video that purports to show a woman being raped by an asylum-seeker. Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the Brothers of […]

On Lampedusa, migrant worries leave locals behind

August 5, 2022 Clement Melki

(AFP) “It’s just words, words,” complains Pino D’Aietti, who like many residents of the tiny island of Lampedusa feels abandoned by Italy’s politicians — except when a surge in migrant arrivals makes the headlines. The 78-year-old retired plumber is sitting outside a […]

Salvini warns of ‘Europe’s refugee camp’ on Lampedusa election stop

August 4, 2022 Clement Melki and Alice Richardson

(AFP) Italian anti-immigration leader Matteo Salvini warned Thursday his country would not host “the refugee camp of Europe” as he visited a migrant centre on the tiny island of Lampedusa on a campaign stop for September elections. Dozens of overcrowded boats have […]

EU court limits national checks for migrant rescue ships

August 1, 2022 Unlisted Author

(AP) The European Union’s top court ruled Monday that national maritime authorities cannot impound ships involved in search-and-rescue work on suspicion that they might be overloaded due to the number of migrants they plucked from the sea. The European Court of Justice […]

Over 1,000 migrants arrive in Italy amid election campaign

July 24, 2022 Gaël Branchereau

(AFP) More than a thousand migrants arrived in Italy within a few hours while hundreds of others, rescued by humanitarian vessels, were waiting for a port to receive them, NGOs and authorities said Sunday. The influx — while not unusual for the […]

Sicily judge weighs trial of migrant rescue NGOs

May 21, 2022 Ella Ide

(AFP) Charities running migrant rescue ships in the Mediterranean faced a pre-trial hearing in Sicily Saturday over alleged collusion with people traffickers after a controversial probe that involved mass wiretapping. Twenty-one suspects, including crew members of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the […]

Italy’s Salvini slams migrant trial, Richard Gere to testify

October 23, 2021 Unlisted Author

(AFP) Italy’s former interior minister and far-right leader Matteo Salvini went on trial Saturday for allegedly illegally blocking over 100 migrants in dire sanitary conditions from disembarking from a rescue ship. On the opening day of the trial in Palermo, Judge Roberto […]

Gere belongs in cinema, not as migrant witness: ex-Italian minister

September 26, 2021 Unlisted Author

(AFP) Plans for actor Richard Gere to testify against former Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini for abuse of migrants threaten to turn the case into a show trial, the far-right leader said on Sunday. Gere — a Hollywood star known as a […]

Five people stabbed in Italian resort, Somali man arrested

September 12, 2021 Gianluca Semeraro

(Reuters) A Somali asylum-seeker was arrested by Italian police after he allegedly stabbed four women and a six-year-old child in the tourist town of Rimini on Saturday night, ANSA news agency reported on Sunday. Investigators were for the moment ruling out terrorism […]

Row after League security councillor kills immigrant Cops say man fired after being pushed, League says self-defence

July 21, 2021 Unlisted Author

(ANSA) A row ensued Wednesday after a public safety and security councillor for the rightwing [anti]-migrant League party in the northern city of Voghera, Massimo Adriatici, was arrested on suspicion of shooting and killing an illegal Moroccan immigrant after an argument outside […]

Italy at crisis point as Mediterranean migrant numbers surge nine-fold (LINK ONLY)

June 18, 2021 EoI News

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Italy judge rejects case against migrant ship captain

May 19, 2021 Unlisted Author

(AFP) An Italian judge on Wednesday dropped the case against a German captain arrested for forcibly docking her ship with migrants on board, the NGO that operates the vessel said. Carola Rackete was arrested in June 2019 after guiding the Sea-Watch 3 […]

Italy’s Salvini avoids trial in one of two migrant cases

May 14, 2021 Unlisted Author

(AFP) Italian far-right leader Matteo Salvini avoided trial on Friday on charges he illegally detained migrants at sea, ending one of his legal troubles even as another related case looms. Judge Nunzio Sarpietro in the Sicilian city of Catania threw out the […]

Migrant arrivals by sea on Italian island swell past 2,100

May 10, 2021 Frances D'Emilio

(AP) Several hundred more migrants reached a tiny Italian island before dawn on Monday, swelling to past 2,100 the number of arrivals in around 24 hours and fueling calls from across the political spectrum for the Italian government to strengthen its migration […]

More than 1,400 migrants arrive on Italy’s Lampedusa

May 9, 2021 Elvira Pollina

(Reuters) Fifteen boats packed with hundreds of migrants landed on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa on Sunday, and officials said they were expecting numbers to increase as the weather improved. More than 1,400 people got off the vessels at the Mediterranean […]

Italy’s Salvini sent to trial on migrant kidnapping charge

April 17, 2021 Wladimiro Pantaleone

(Reuters) Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s right-wing League party, must stand trial on charges of kidnapping over his decision to prevent more than 100 migrants from landing in the country in 2019, a judge ordered on Saturday. Salvini, who was interior minister […]

Italian prosecutor says Salvini should not be tried in Gregoretti migrant case

April 10, 2021 Giulia Segreti

(Reuters) A prosecutor said on Saturday that Italy’s right-wing League leader Matteo Salvini should not be sent to trial over illegally detaining migrants in a case being considered by a court in the Sicilian city of Catania. The high-profile case, for which […]

Term cut to 19 yrs for man who torched school bus Senegalese-Italian Omar Sy, 48, sees term cut from 24 yrs

April 9, 2021 Unlisted Author

(ANSA) A man who hijacked and later torched a school bus with 50 children, two teachers and a janitor aboard near Milan in March 2019 on Friday saw his sentence for attempted murder cut from 24 years to 19 on appeal. Senegalese-Italian […]

Italian prosecutor seeks trial for Salvini on migrant kidnapping charges

March 20, 2021 Angelo Amante

(Reuters) An Italian prosecutor formally called on Saturday for right-wing League leader Matteo Salvini to be tried for kidnapping over his decision to prevent more than 100 migrants from landing in the country in 2019. Salvini’s decision, made when he was interior […]

France’s Le Pen, at record high in polls, proposes hijab ban

January 29, 2021 Adam Plowright and Anne Renaut

(AFP) French far-right leader Marine Le Pen proposed a ban on Muslim headscarves in all public places on Friday, seeking to build on a record recent poll putting her almost neck-and-neck with President Emmanuel Macron. The hijab policy, which would be contested […]

Pressure grows on Italy to abolish migrant quarantine ships Italy has isolated thousands of asylum seekers on ferries over the course of the pandemic.

January 7, 2021 Stefania D'Ignoti

(Politico) Rome is facing pressure to abolish its offshore quarantine system for migrants and refugees following a series of alarming incidents, including several deaths, over the past year. Since May, the Italian government has isolated asylum seekers on ships after they arrive, […]

Lamorgese rejects quit calls over Nice killer Opposition demand resignation after Tunisian landed at Lampedusa

October 30, 2020 Unlisted Author

(ANSA) Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese on Friday rejected opposition calls for her to resign because the Tunisian man who killed three people in Nice Thursday landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa last month. Lamorgese said it was time to “stop the […]

Italy loosens migration rules to dismay of hardliner Salvini

October 6, 2020 Angelo Amante

(Reuters) Italy has softened rules penalising aid groups that bring illegal migrants ashore and extended protection for refugees who risk persecution at home, drawing the fire of former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini who set the tough measures. Rescue boats which violate official […]

Salvini migrant case delayed, judge summons Italy PM

October 3, 2020 Giovanni Grezzi and Ella Ide

(AFP) An Italian judge reviewing charges against far-right leader Matteo Salvini that he illegally detained migrants at sea delayed the hearing until November 20 so he could hear from senior members of the government, including Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Salvini made no […]

Defiant Salvini readies for migrant trial as allies rally

September 30, 2020 Ella Ide

(AFP) Italy’s far-right chief Matteo Salvini stands trial Saturday for allegedly illegally detaining migrants at sea, in a case that could see him jailed for 15 years or serve him a political win. Prosecutors in the Sicilian city of Catania accuse Salvini […]

Migrant woman with coronavirus gives birth on board a helicopter

September 1, 2020 Angelo Amante

(Reuters) A migrant woman who tested positive to coronavirus has given birth to a baby on board a helicopter as she was flying to Sicily from the small southern Italian island of Lampedusa, the Sicilian regional government said on Tuesday. The woman […]

Nigerians attack medics at Rome coronavirus centre

August 29, 2020 Unlisted Author

(AFP) Three Nigerian migrants attacked staff in a military hospital in Rome after testing positive for the new coronavirus, the defence ministry said Saturday. The incident at the Celio military hospital, now turned into a COVID-19 treatment centre, occurred when they saw […]

Sicily rows with Rome over closure of migrant centres

August 23, 2020 Unlisted Author

(AFP) Sicily’s right-leaning leader Nello Musumeci clashed with Italy’s central government on Sunday when he ordered the island’s migrant centres closed in a bid to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Interior ministry officials in Rome dismissed the order as invalid but […]

Migrants increasingly reaching Italy by sea from Tunisia

August 15, 2020 Unlisted Author

(AP) The number of migrants reaching Italy by sea shot up from the previous 12-month period, but in contrast to recent years, the majority of the arrivals didn’t need rescue and made it to shore by themselves. According to Interior Ministry figures […]

Migrants adrift after camp at France-Italy border shut

August 7, 2020 Claudine Renaud

(AFP) Sudanese migrant Soulaimen has been sleeping on the beach in the Italian border town of Ventimiglia for 10 days now. With his only shelter a sleeping bag and pasta meals donated by a charity, the 20-year-old is getting by as best […]