ITALY EVICTS MORE THAN 500 PEOPLE FROM REFUGEE CENTRE
More than 500 people are being ousted from a refugee reception centre in a town close to Rome in the first major eviction since Italy’s rightwing populist government enacted hardline immigration measures into law. Thirty people were evicted from the centre, the second-largest of its kind in Italy and the place where Pope Francis washed residents’ feet as part of his Easter ritual in 2016, in Castelnuovo di Porto on Tuesday. A further 75 were removed on Wednesday, with the remaining 430 to be evicted before the centre’s closure on 31 January. The evictions follow the approval of the “Salvini decree”, named after Matteo Salvini, the interior minister and leader of the far-right League, in late November. The bill scrapped humanitarian protection status and suspended the refugee application process for those considered “socially dangerous” or who have been convicted of a crime. It also stripped naturalised foreigners convicted on terrorism charges of their Italian citiz