The regional administrative court
(TAR) of Lazio on Wednesday lifted a ban on NGO migrant rescue
ship Open Arms entering Italian waters, sparking the ire of
Interior Minister and anti-migrant League leader Matteo Salvini
whois enforcing a closed ports policy.
The decision was announced by the Spanish NGO.
It said it was now heading for the closest safe port to
safeguard the rights of the 147 migrants on board who have been
on board for 13 days since being picked up off Libya.
The TAR cited in its ruling the "situation of exceptional
gravity and urgency" aboard the ship after viewing medical and
psychological reports.
Premier Giuseppe Conte wrote a letter to Salvini Wednesday
morning urging him to let minors from the Open Arms land.
Salvini reacted by saying he would sign an order banning the
Open Arms from landing its migrants in Italy.
"In the next few hours I will sign my No because I don't want
to be an accomplice of migrant traffickers," he said.
"Tell me if it isn't a strange country where a a Spanish ship
in Maltese waters can resort to an administrative court to ask
to land in Italy.
"There is a plan to go backwards in time and reopen Italian
ports, to turn our country into Europe's refugee camp.
"But I'm not going back in time".
Salvini also said no to a possible "unnatural pact" between
former ally the 5-Star Movement (M5S) and the centre-left
opposition Democratic Party (PD) to reopen Italy's ports to NGO
migrant rescue ships.
"We will be careful over the coming days that an unnatural
alliance is not created in Rome, a couple against nature between
the PD and the 5 Stars, between (ex-premier and former PD leader
Matteo) Renzi and (M5S founder and comic Beppe) Grillo, to
reopen Italian ports," he said.
"We will try to oppose with all energy we have in our bodies
so that decent people arrive in Italy, but we can send back home
the too many criminals that the Left has allowed in".
Salvini sparked a government crisis last week by filing a no
confidence motion in Conte after a dramatic split with the M5S
on votes on a highspeed rail line between Turin and Lyon.
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