[zzquo0iR]

The US had decades of strife because of these issues, Italy and the rest of Europe will too. It's only natural. Sure we had some strife, but the United States was energized by immigration. We welcomed millions. People in Europe need to embrace diversity instead of being fearful of it. Why make excuses.

A cruel end for Italy's asylum-seekers

The UN and the Vatican have protested against Italy's deportation of asylum-seekers – but they have been ignored


Last time round I smuggled a lawyer into the detention centre of Lampedusa, presenting her as my assistant, so that she could collect the written requests of 17 detainees who wanted to challenge their imminent deportation to Libya before the European court of human rights in Strasbourg. In 2005 I was a member of parliament during Silvio Berlusconi's previous term in office and a witness to the appalling conditions on Lampedusa and the summary proceedings prior to the deportation of hundreds of men to Libya. Astonishingly, this legal challenge worked, to the extent that the court ruled these men's case – which it is still considering – admissible, and ordered the Italian government to suspend their deportation. The flights to Libya stopped.


Now, with Berlusconi back in office, something similar is happening. Trained to rescue those in distress at sea, the Italian coastguards were shocked at first to learn that their orders had changed. On 7 May the crew of a patrol boat on duty between Lampedusa and Malta were told that the 227 men, women and children they had just pulled to safety from their unseaworthy boat were to be instantly deported back to Libya. To keep the frightened migrants quiet they lied to them about their final destination. I remember the police officers doing the same to the men they escorted back to Libya.


After more than 500 people had been intercepted and sent to Libya, Italy's interior minister Roberto Maroni proudly announced a "historic turn" in Italy's migration management policies. All thanks, he said, to the agreement signed last year with the Libyan government.


The UN high commissioner for refugees (head of UNHCR) and a Vatican spokesman have appealed, in vain, to the Italian authorities to desist from deporting migrants intercepted on the high seas back to Libya because of the risk of denying legitimate asylum-seekers their right to protection. Among the 200 people on board the last boat to be stopped, most of whose passengers were African, there were two pregnant women and two small babies.


It was definitely not humane, but was it legal? Not according to the UN. António Guterres, the high commissioner of UNHCR, has urged Italy to take the asylum-seekers who were deported back, so that their requests can be processed according to Italian law. His appeal has been supported by the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon.


But this is election time and Silvio Berlusconi and his rightwing government have put the fight against illegal immigration at the heart of their campaign for the European elections. If the Vatican calls Berlusconi usually answers, especially if the pope is calling for curbs on civil liberties such as denying gay couples the right to civil unions or attempting to block a paraplegic woman's right to die. But the prime minister has turned a deaf ear to the Catholic church's calls for more humane and inclusive policies towards immigrants. Berlusconi has declared that he will continue to send boats back to Libya because he doesn't want Italy to become a "multi-ethnic society".


Berlusconi can afford to ignore both the UN and the church's calls because he will have noticed a complicit silence in Brussels. The European commission knows full well that Libya has no asylum policy and has been known to deport African asylum seekers to their countries of origin even when they risk persecution. Nonetheless commission spokesmen continue to dodge questions about the legality of Italy's latest moves. Jacques Barrot, the commissioner for justice and home affairs, knows Berlusconi's party, now merged with its former post-fascist allies, is likely to swell the ranks of the European People's party in Brussels. The same party group has already promised commission president Manuel Barroso its support for a second mandate.


It all sounds familiar. European governments didn't want to look soft on illegal immigration and let Berlusconi summarily deport over 1,000 people back to Libya in 2004. Once again, Antonio Lana, the human rights lawyer who pleaded the case of the 17 men on Lampedusa, thinks he can blow the whistle on what he considers a serious breach of the European convention on human rights, which explicitly forbids deporting people to countries where they risk persecution. This time, thanks to a human rights organisation working in Libya, Lana has just received the written requests of 24 asylum-seekers from Somalia and Eritrea who were sent back to Libya last week to represent them in a bid for the protection of the European court of human rights. Are Europe's ministers listening?