Richard Gere and Matteo Salvini clash over migrant crisis @lorenzo_tondo Sun 11 Aug 2019 10.29 EDT 1,305 Row follows US actor urging Italian government to ‘stop demonising asylum seekers’
US actor Richard Gere held a press conference in support of the NGO ship Proactiva Open Arms. Photograph: Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo @lorenzo_tondo Sun 11 Aug 2019 10.29 EDT 1,305
Italy’s far-right deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, has clashed with Richard Gere over the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean, suggesting the Hollywood star should house himself those stranded on rescue ships after the US actor urged the Italian government to “stop demonising asylum seekers”.
Gere who is currently on the island of Lampedusa, Sicily, after a visit onboard a Spanish NGO ship, Proactiva Open Arms, where he met some of the 160 migrants the vessel rescued in the strait of Sicily. The ship has been stuck for 10 days off Lampedusa due to Italy’s ban on landing migrants.
The 69-year-old actor appeared in a video message urging people to support the charity and the people onboard. “All hands onboard would have been lost,” Gere said in the video.
“So, the people you see here on this boat, they’re only here because of the donations to Open Arms for the work they do.”
Richard Gere talking to migrants onboard the Proactiva Open Arms ship. Photograph: Valerio Nicolosi/AP
Last week, Gere, who was holidaying in Tuscany, travelled to Sicily and joined the charity to deliver food and supplies to the migrants.
“I already came to Lampedusa two or three years ago,” Gere said, “to visit the migrants hotspot so I knew the situation first-hand: they are people who have lived horrible stories, they have suffered a lot, they call them migrants but they are refugees who need help.”
Gere also compared the crisis in the Mediterranean and the prohibition of landing migrants with the Trump administration’s policies on the border with Mexico: “We have our problems with refugees coming from Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua, Mexico … It’s very similar to what you are going through here,” he said.
“This has to stop everywhere on this planet now. And it will stop if we say so,” Gere said, adding that he doesn’t want to get into a political fight.
On Saturday, Salvini, who last year declared Italy’s ports closed to migrant rescue ships, replied to the actor: “Given this generous millionaire is voicing concern for the fate of the Open Arms migrants, we thank him.”
“He can take all the people aboard back to Hollywood, on his private plane,’’ Salvini said, “and support them in his villas. Thank you, Richard!”’
The Italian government has introduced a new security decree, drafted by Salvini, who is also the interior minister, that would mean NGO rescue boats bringing migrants to Italy without permission could face fines of up to €50,000 (£47,000). The new bill, which has been described by aid groups as a “declaration of war against the NGOs who are saving lives at sea,” aims to put an end to aid groups’ rescue missions in the central Mediterranean.
Meanwhile, another rescue ship with migrants onboard is awaiting a safe port. The Ocean Viking, flying the Norwegian flag and operated by the NGOs Doctors Without Borders and SOS Méditerranée, has not been allowed to let the people disembark and was denied “entry, transit and parking in Italian waters”.
The boat has recovered more than 80 migrants – adults and children – most of Sudanese origin, off Libyan waters. It was the second 24-hour rescue operation conducted by the ship, which had already recovered 85 people. Matteo Salvini goes on trial over migrant kidnapping charges Former Italian interior minister accused of abusing power in incident involving 116 people
Prosecutors accuse Salvini of abusing his powers under his ‘closed ports’ policy. Photograph: Piero Cruciatti/AFP/Getty
Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo @lorenzo_tondo Fri 2 Oct 2020 08.50 EDT
Italy’s far-right former interior minister Matteo Salvini goes on trial on Saturday on kidnapping charges over an incident in 2019 when 116 migrants were prevented from disembarking a coastguard ship in the Mediterranean.
Prosecutors in the Sicilian city of Catania accuse the League party leader of abusing his powers to block people from disembarking from the Gregoretti coastguard boat under his “closed ports” policy.
The 47-year-old called on his supporters to descend on the courtroom in Catania to protest against what he has described as a plot against him. “I will plead guilty to defending Italy and the Italians,” Salvini told the press last week.
Fellow far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, head of the Brothers of Italy party, has promised to attend the rally, while the ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has faced several trials himself, will send a delegation from his Forza Italia party.
Salvini’s fortunes have waned since he withdrew the League from its fractious governing alliance with the Five Star Movement (M5S) in August 2019 in an attempt to capitalise upon his high poll ratings and seize the prime ministership. His rallies are disrupted by protesters and people often challenge him in the streets. As well as having his judgment questioned by people in his own party, he is embroiled in a series of legal wrangles, the majority connected to his tenure as a hardline interior minister.
One of Salvini’s first moves when he took office in June 2018 was to declare Italian ports closed to ships engaged in rescuing people fleeing Libya by boat. There were subsequently 25 standoffs between rescue vessels and Italian authorities, some of which became the focus of criminal investigations. The case coming before the court on Saturday relates to a group of migrants who were rescued in the Mediterranean in two separate operations on 25 June last year after five days at sea. There were 15 unaccompanied children among them.
They were transferred to the Gregoretti on 26 July, then held on the overcrowded patrol vessel under a fierce summer sun – despite a scabies outbreak and a suspected case of tuberculosis.
The unaccompanied children were allowed off on 29 July following pressure from Catania’s youth court. The remaining migrants disembarked 31 July after Salvini said a deal had been brokered with EU countries to take them.
A few months later, the Catania prosecutor’s office placed Salvini under investigation and in February this year the Italian senate formally authorised criminal proceedings. His defence team insists the decision to hold the people on the ship was not Salvini’s alone, but reached collectively within the government. It will be up to a preliminary hearing judge to decide whether the case is strong enough to proceed with the trial.
Observers say Salvini erred politically when he withdrew the League from government in August last year. He did not anticipate that the antiestablishment 5SM and centre-left Democratic party would put aside their deep enmity and go into coalition themselves, leaving the League on the opposition benches.
“Once Salvini reached the peak of his rise, believing himself invincible, he lost his lucidity and made one mistake after another,” said Matteo Pucciarelli, a journalist at La Repubblica and author of a book about Salvini. “After kicking himself out of the government, he is now slowly losing the leadership of the right to Meloni.”
Salvini’s attempts to keep his anti-migrant rhetoric front and centre in Italian politics this year, by linking the coronavirus pandemic to migrant arrivals, have failed to cut through. “The strategy to exploit migrants, citing they were threatening Italy by bringing Covid-19 with them, simply did not work,” said Pucciarelli. “Migrants were no longer at the top of the minds of Italians who have had more serious issues to think about during the pandemic.”
Massimiliano Panarari, a politics professor at Mercatorum University in Rome, said Salvini’s rhetoric around invading migrants infected with Covid-19 was not credible to Italians. “In addition, the management of the pandemic in Lombardy, the region worst affected by the coronavirus – and governed by the League - has been very controversial and characterised by numerous political errors,” Panarari said. “The fact that this region was governed by Salvini’s party has had a negative impact on its popularity.”
Despite the setbacks, Salvini still has a strong support base and is expected to be able to rally thousands to his cause in Catania on Saturday. Asked recently whether he would prevent the disembarkation if he could go back in time, he replied: ‘‘It is not that I would do it again – I am going to do it again.”