Rome: Update on Madalina’s situation

#Stand4Madalina _ 15/02 public assembly and press statement: we demand the Prefect to immediately withdraw the estrangement order!

[We added: If you want to sign the petition you can find it on Fakebook]

One month ago Madalina Gavrilescu, Romanian citizen who has been living in Rome for over 10 years, was notified an order of estrangement from Italy within 30 days, and effective for five years, because of ‘non imperative public security reasons’ which would confirm her lack of social integration. But what is her actual guilt? Being a migrant, Roma woman, activist within the Housing Rights Movements, who has been in the front line of the struggle against evictions and foreclosures, in the pickets supporting exploited workers, in antiracist struggles, as well as in the construction of self-managed spaces of collective utility, such as the game room and the ‘Caos’ theatre in the Casalboccone housing squat where she lives. Within these weeks, an overwhelming amount of solidarity poured on Madalina, who didn’t back down from telling her story and being vocal in public demonstrations and assemblies, last one of those the ‘Indivisibili’ one in Macerata.

In particular, the petition #stand4Madalina gathered over 700 signatures in a few days from Europe and different parts of the world, besides Italy. The call for signatures was launched by members of the academia and the law word; its goal was to contest the idea of integration underpinning the decree against Madalina. There, integration was understood as subjection, exploitation, and waiver to struggle for one’s rights and dignity. Instead of being recognised as irrefutable signs of ‘integration’ and active citizenship (as rule of law and international treaties would by the way suggest), Madalina’s political engagement and civic passion became indicators of lacking integration and social perilousness. This is a violent and discriminatory scaffolding, which is delivered through administrative tools, which are one again mobilised with great arbitrariness in order to sanction, and silence, freedom of movement and dissent in their wider understanding.

Regardless the public debate it triggered, Friday 15th February is still the deadline for Madalina’s ‘voluntary’ estrangement from Italy, as the order prescribes. While waiting for the outcomes of the legal actions against it, on Friday 15th February we will gather in piazza Ss. Apostoli (Rome), in front of the Prefect’s headquarters, for a public assembly and press statement together with the subscribers of the petition. Once again, we demand to the Prefect Basilone to rethink her decision and to withdraw the estrangement order against Madalina, effective immediately.