Free Trieste

The following document of the Italian Ministry of the Interior, commission of Gorizia, but signed by the Questura (Police Headquarter) of Trieste, denies international protection to O. B.

Lately, the massive flow of emigrants from the Middle East is causing social tension in Europe. People leave behind the horrors of the new economic and religious wars, and seek shelter in richer Countries; however, those Countries are themselves bearing worsening economical crisis, and their own social fabric is thorn apart.

It is happening in Greece, Spain, Portugal and in Italy, but also in many other Countries of the so-called European Union. A union that is, in facts, mostly economic and looks like a giant with lacy feet about  to collapse under its own weight: the weight of unsustainable growth.

So, the desperate people reaching Europe in search of protection don’t entering a “paradise” of social welfare, but a melting federation of States. In the EU, each Government pushes for its own national interest. It is a situation that closely resembles the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, although WWI accelerated it.

Once again, the Free Territory of Trieste is in a strategic position: it is next to the Balkans, the gateway for many refugees in seek of a better future in Central Europe. Refugees who add further unbalances to an already critical social situation. How can the EU welcome millions of refugees, since it cannot assists its own marginalized people?

Yet, even in managing this emergency, each national authority has its own means. For example, in Trieste there are not only refugees coming from the Middle East, from Asia, or from Africa. Thera are also those from Europe itself, from the not-so-distant Ukraine, the battleground of the undeclared war between the EU and NATO on one side, and Russia on the other. The dispute revolves on Ukraine and Russia’s border areas: in that land, the majority of the population is of Russian ethnicity, therefore, it recognizes itself under full Russian sovereignty.

Ukrainian citizens, including those of Russian ethnicity, are drafted in the army and sent on the frontline to fight against their own Russian brothers. Many of them refuse to do so, they leave for Russia or, when they have family in Western countries, they seek protection in this human rights-supporting European Union. In 2015 alone there were no less than 40,000 “defections”. Of people who don’t want to be drafted in the Ukrainian army. The majority of them is Ukrainians of Russian ethnicity.

However, on the military side, the EU stands with NATO. Ukrainian Russians escaping a war that they can’t and don’t want to fight find no empathy here. Ukraine is close to  NATO: defectors seeking the protection of EU members are basically falling into enemy hands.

And this happens even in the Free Territory of Trieste: here, in breach of the 1947 Treaty of Peace, the a nationalistic establishment illegally simulates Italian sovereignty (and then they talk of Crimea!). Even over the international Free Port. Italian authorities deny the pleas of Ukrainian citizens of Russian ethnicity who seek asylum to escape a war they consider impossible.

But the local Italian authorities act on behalf of a foreign State, not as the legitimate representatives of the Italian Government, currently in charge of Trieste’s temporary civil administration.

What an unbelievable situation. Yet, everybody is turning a blind eye. Starting from the UNSC, the guarantor of Trieste’s integrity and independence (S/RES/16, 1947).

The same UN and UN are watching as the nearby Balkans (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo) become an hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism, which is just another consequence of the shameful intrusions of European politics, are now created a disgusting division between the “refugees” themselves. Those of Islamic faith are welcome, Christians, if they are Russians from Ukraine, are rejected as if they were terrorists.

And now this happens also in the Free Territory of Trieste, forced to follow the paradoxical EU playbook “thanks” to its State officer’s Italian nationalism. Oleksiey B. is a Ukrainian citizen of Russian ethnicity: the local Italian authorities have recently denied political asylum. Only, he had requested it in Trieste. And now he is one of the many victims of continuing human rights violations.

He wanted to escape a war. A war in which he was ordered to take a weapon and march agains his own people. He sought protection in the State that should grant universal human rights to all the citizens of the World. In the only State under the UNSC’s own protection. But his plea was rejected: according to the nationalistic Italian authorities, his life is not in danger thanks to the “guarantees” provided by allied Ukraine.

Oleksiey B. risks 2 to 5 years in prison. Or his own life. “Collateral damages” of the ongoing denial of the Free Territory of Trieste’s rights.

Translated from blog “Ambiente e Legalità” – “Environment and Legality” by Roberto Giurastante

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Follows: translation another document of the Italian Ministry of the Interior

[Emblem of the Italian Republic]

Ministry of the Interior

Gorizia Territorial office for the recognition of international protection

Biography)

Direct Response to Question: (you left after receiving the letter from the army, is it true?) no, actually yes, I received one before leaving.

DRQ: (did you leave your job?) yes, we were in a state of war, I don’t want to be sent to kill.

Direct Response to Question: (what would happen to you if you returned to Ukraine?) they can imprison me and then send me to war, also, Russians are a persecuted minority, I consider myself Russian.

DRQ: (anything else?) it is dangerous living in Ukraine for Russians, they wanted to kill me and my mother.