by RUTVICA ANDRIJASEVIC
During the last year the temporary holding center for irregular migrants in Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost island, has been repeatedly denounced for instances of procedural irregularities and alleged human rights violations.
Lampedusa ‘temporary stay and assistance centre’ (CPTA) came to a larger public attention in the Fall of 2004 when Italian authorities expelled more than thousand undocumented migrants to Libya on military and civil airplanes. Numerous and consistent allegations of degrading treatment of third-country nationals in detention in the holding centre, the difficulty in gaining access to the asylum determination process and the large scale expulsions to Libya, brought Lampedusa to the attention of European and international institutions.