UN agency slams Italian minister in immigration row

timesofmalta.com - UN agency slams Italian minister in immigration row

Monday, 18th May 2009 - 15:03CET

Silvia Aloisi, Reuters

A row between the United Nations refugee agency and Italy escalated today after Italy's defence minister said the agency was worthless and accused its local spokesman of being "an inhuman or criminal" leftist.

"Baseless personal attacks are unacceptable and cannot and will not alter UNHCR's commitment to its mandate and its humanitarian mission," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said in a statement.

The UNHCR has criticised the Rome government for its new policy of diverting migrants back to the Libyan coast, saying it breaks international conventions.

Defending the practice, which began earlier this month against a backdrop of a steady warming in ties with Libya, Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa said at the weekend the agency "is not worth a damn" and attacked its spokesman in Italy, Laura Boldrini.

"Either she is inhuman, and I am accusing her, because she wants us to shut them in holding centres before expelling them, or she is a criminal because she wants ... them to escape and scatter on Italian territory," he said.

"She is known for being a member of the Communist Refoundation party," he told an election rally, something the party has denied.

The comments drew a barrage of criticism from the centre-left opposition. Italian media said they had caused some embarrassment even among conservative ranks.

Foreign Minister Franco Frattini sought to defuse the row yesterday, but insisted Italy was not breaking international law with its deportation policy.

"International organisations must always be respected, even when they are wrong," he said.

La Russa, an outspoken member of the post-fascist National Alliance party which earlier this year merged with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's own movement, later said he had not meant to offend Boldrini.

"I have nothing against Ms. Boldrini, I don't know her," he said from Tripoli where he held talks with Libyan authorities about immigration yesterday. "If she felt offended I am sorry," he said.

The UNHCR says that deporting migrants intercepted at sea contradicted the 1951 Geneva Convention, which was applicable even in international waters.

UNHCR says the hundreds of people deported in recent weeks included asylum seekers and it is calling on Italy to accept them back.

Almost 70 percent of 31,200 asylum requests in Italy last year came from immigrants who arrived on its southern shores, UNHCR said, and about half of those were accepted.

The deportations have been strongly criticised by rights groups, Catholic organisations and the Vatican.