Italian Migrants Stitch Lips Together
They are protesting Italy’s harsh detention policies.
It is hard to imagine how desperate things would have to be to take a sewing needle and fishing wire and stitch one’s own mouth shut. But that is exactly what more than a dozen migrants, who are being held in Ponte Galeria immigrant reception center on the outskirts of Rome, did last week as a sign of protest. “They are just asking for a response to end their desperation, to be reunited with their families in countries in the world where the governments are more democratic to guarantee their rights,” wrote two migrants known only as “Adil” and “Lassad,” trying to explain why they and others resorted to such a drastic step. They claim that they have been kept incarcerated in poor conditions for more than two months with no word on their asylum applications.