Article 5 of the Consolidated Act on immigration stipulates that “the residence permit is granted, renewed or modified within 20 days after the presentation of the request”. Yet today the renewal of a simple one-year permit may take 7 up to 15 months.

Hundreds of thousands of people who work, study and raise their children in Italy find themselves regularly in nobody’s land, in a prison-like Italy, where the right of residence has been suspended.

Without permit, immigrants cannot move freely in Europe, they go through difficulties to visit their families back in their country of origin. Daily actions - such as signing a work or rent contract, obtaining a driver’s licence, sending the kids to the kindergarten - become highly problematic. The situation deteriorated after the Berlusconi government recently passed a law that made penalizes clandestinity.

Gaussou Ouattara, who is one of the leaders of Radicali Italiani and lived in Italy for the last 29 years, has been on hunger strike since December 13th. Together with over 300 immigrants from over 32 countries, they ask the Italian government to abide by their own laws.

More specifically the hunger strikers’ demands are: the respect of the bureaucratic time schedules indicated by law, a plan to get rid of the huge backlog accumulated so far, an informative campaign for employers, schools, general practitioners and the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) to let them know that the request for the permit suffices to enjoy the same rights as any other citizen.

The Radicals, who inspected all Centres for the Identification and Expulsion (CIE) of Italy a few days before Christmas, maintain that for the first time, at Christmas, immigrants who presented their first request for a residence permit were not allowed to go back to their country. This includes all care workers and cleaning ladies (300.000 in Italy) who were interested by the last act of indemnity of the government. For this reason the Radicals and the 300 strikers ask for the immediate release of a new Ministerial circular to restore, albeit temporarily, this right.

“We want to shout to the world our hopeful rage” Gaoussou Ouattara said. “This is the country we chose to live in. Our children were born here. We want to live in legality. Any delays produce a sort of civil death of all immigrants that feeds the dark world of crime”.