Curator

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J Behind the high fences of the repatriation centre at Ponte Galeria, just down the road from Rome’s Fiumicino airport, dozens of women sit outside, waiting for word on whether they will have to leave Italy. But as the government steps up its efforts to send more migrants home, many who pinned their hopes on asylum appeals are growing increasingly worried. This week an official decree paved the way for the creation of 11 more repatriation centres capable of housing 1,600 people pending deportation, on top of the four currently in operation. At Ponte Galeria, in courtyards easily mistaken for cages, Khadigia Shabbi, 47, can barely hold back her tears. “Here we are dying,” the former Libyan university lecturer says. Arrested in Palermo at the end of 2015 and convicted of inciting terrorism, Shabbi protests her innocence and has requested asylum. She is not alone. Half of the 63 women at Ponte Galeria, which AFP was able to visit, have made similar requests. Sev...

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J D ESPITE all that may be taken as gains from the President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s anti-corruption war, there are good reasons to believe that the whole campaign might be a journey to nowhere. Uncharitable as this may  sound, the fact cannot be denied that to date there is no concrete and irreversible achievement to the campaign’s credit. We have seen arrests and detention but hardly any conviction. Many of those arrested are walking free on bail. The ones still in detention are locking horns with the government in various courts, stalemating prosecution in several cases. And all of this in the midst of divided public opinion as to the propriety of these  arrests and detention . The only case of conviction that might have added some feather to the government’s cap was that of Mr. Bala Ngilari who bagged a sentence for some financial impropriety. But this was, just as soon, rubbished by a bail granted him by the same court through some legalis...