BRESCIA: Five immigrants have blockaded themselves on top of a crane for the past 12 days in the Italian city of Brescia in a desperate protest that has attracted national attention.
The men — from Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan and Senegal — have voiced their anger at a system for obtaining residency permits that is forcing thousands of people to return to their homelands during the economic downturn.
"We’re not coming down until they give us a positive answer. We’re not afraid of anyone," one of the men said in a video message posted on the internet by the radio station Onda D’Urto, which is supporting their protest.
Brescia, located in Italy’s wealthiest Lombardy region, is the Italian city with the highest percentage of immigrants — 12.9 percent, according to a report using official data released by the Catholic Caritas agency last month.
Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Brescia in recent days to support the crane protesters and demand greater rights for immigrants in a city where the anti-immigrant Northern League party is very popular.
There have also been clashes with police and around 30 arrests.
"These people have been defrauded by the state, which changed the rules, and by their employers," Felice Lometti, an activist with the local pro-immigration group Diritti per Tutti ("Rights for Everyone"), told AFP.
Lometti said the five men had made requests to be included in an amnesty of undocumented immigrants announced last year but had been refused and were not able to obtain residency permits because they did not have stable jobs.
Around 4,000 immigrants in Brescia alone have found themselves in a similar situation and some 300,000 people are affected on a national level, he said.
"We also protest against racist regulations in our city," including a local law that excludes immigrant families and couples composed of an Italian citizen and a foreign national from receiving some child subsidies, Lometti said.
The protest has sparked outrage at the treatment of immigrants, including from Susanna Camusso, the head of CGIL, Italy’s largest trade union.
"I’m very worried," Camusso said, calling on Interior Minister Roberto Maroni to "do everything possible for these immigrant workers to be heard."
