for civilians Montenegrins (1942 – 1943).
Denied Rigths of the Symbolic Site read through the
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union
The history of the Twentieth century was characterized both by situations of extreme human rights denial and by important affirmations of the same Rights through the main international charters. A dialectical hard play, in many ways still in progress, which has been based on people, human dignity in its various individual and collective levels.
The reflection that we propose starts from history. There are scattered places in Europe that beat this dialectic; distant places like Auschwitz, paradigmatic for many consciences, and coming places like Colfiorito of Foligno where between 1942 and 1943 the Fascist regime detained about 1,500 civilians arrested during the occupation of Montenegro by Italian troops.
The site itself does not speak, it needs the historic knowledge and the frequent not distracted presence so that it can gives back traces of dignity denied.
What we propose is first of all the attending of the site, for taking lessons not from the past (history is a teacher of life) but from the practical and critical reflection, skills necessary for any conscious exercise of democracy.
If the European economy was born with the Treaty of Rome, that of people - argued Vittorio Emanuele Giuntella, historical and interned military after Sept. 8, 1943- was condensed in prison camps, where free minds, despite all, began thinking of common rights and duties regardless of the people belong to.
The Carter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union is a mature product of such perspective. The document was signed at Nizza on 7 December 2000; consists of 54 Articles subdivided in 7 Titles: dignity, liberty, equality, solidarity, citizenship, justice, provisions on the interpretation of the same Charter. Its main role is to enable states and citizens of the Union to have one document that brings together human rights protected by the EU.
The second proposal is to use the Charter to order the rights denied in the history of the field of Colfiorito emerged during the workshop on site and link them with those which today the Charter enshrines.
Here is an example of how is proceeding:
TITLE I
DIGNITY
Human Dignity
The human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected and protected
In early May 1943, during the transfer from the field station of Foggia, lined up and escorted by Italian soldiers, a crowd screaming was as wings during our pass, bombarding us by spitting and by throwing us stones; soldiers tolerated both insults directed to us and pushes and violence. (Dradutin Ivanović Dragon, Memoirs of a Montenegrin interned, Editorial Umbra, 2004)
The prisoners were housed in warehouses until few months ago used as stables. In the field were not foreseen latrines, faeces were accumulated in the camp, inside buckets; the buckets were taken daily by prisoners assigned to this service. (Dino A. Nardelli, The field of Colfiorito: a world parallel, p.36, The warehouses in a drawing of 1939).
Article 2
Right to Life :
1. Every person has right to life
2. Nobody can be sentenced to death or executed.
3. 1. In late April of 1943, the interior Dušan Golubrović at about 20 years old, being released from his own cabin soon after the start of the curfew to retrieve a shirt that had washed and hung in the sun, was gunned down with rifle fire from a guard ( testimony of Louis Marzufero in Dino Renato Nardelli, Op cit., p.20)
Article/Paragraph Rights Denied (quote the document if possible)
Article 3
Right to the integrity of the person :
1. Everyone has the right to their physical and mental integrity.
• The integrity of the person was at risk as susceptible to poor hygiene and thus was exposed to diseases that could lead to death.
• The first violation of psychological integrity of the inmates were connected at the very moment of arrest and raids, when trough no fault of the civilians were torn from their homes and transported to concentration camps. In the field of Colfiorito, the mental and physical integrity would be undermined by poor sanitary conditions that the scarcity of food administered. Furthemore, the fact that more than one hundred people lived crammed into one room dimly lit in some way contributed to the annihilation of the identity of the individual.
• The obligation to salute the flag daily placed the Italian prisoners in a state of psychological subjugation especially against the oppressor country, this custom was also order to further humiliate the prisoners by making them feel even more oppressed and controlled.
Article 4
Prohibition of the torture and the punishments or inhuman or degrading treatments :
• Inability of personal hygiene and denial of basic needs: food, water, and clothing to keep warm. (page. 23-24-26)
• In the camp latrines were not provided, droppings were accumulated within each barracks inside the buckets that were emptied daily by the inmates.
TITLE II
LIBERTY
Article/paragraph denied rights (quote the document if possible)
Article 6
Right to the freedom and the security :
• This right was already violated by the same istitution of a detention camp, which set aside the personal freedom of the individual.
• To the inmates was imposed a curfew and schedule to be followed during the whole day.
• Indiscriminate internment, unjustified and forced. (pages. 13-14)
Article 7
Respect of the privat life and family life :
• Since inmates outside their state could not take advantage of that right, also forced into barracks, shared by several people could not exercise the right to privacy. Finally, they were also deprived of family life as separate in principle from their families.
Article 8
Protecion of the personal dates :
• Difficulty in finding parcels sent by relatives.
Article 10
Liberty of thought, of conscience and of religion :
• Freedom of thought was violated just at the time of the internement (it was looked up for alleged opposition to the fascist regime).
Article 11
Liberty of information and expression :
• Freedom of information was denied by the inability of prisoners to read newspapers or listen to the radio (that wins will get only after the armistice ), while as regards freedom of expression was clearly limited and controlled.
• Deprivation of the basic media. (page. 28)
Article 12
Liberty of meeting and association :
• Limited as the prisoners in the barracks could somehow continue on having a relationship of continuity with the work policy that already taking place in their country.
Article 17
Right of property :
• Private property within the camp, was not covered because the assets that civilians had with the them were confiscated by the command to the entry in the field.
Article 19
Protection in case of leaving, of expulsion and of extradition :
• Whole nucleuses family and whole countries were deported in a state in which they would also have been able to risk the death (considered the state of war of the italy).
TITLE III
EQUALITY
Article/paragraph denied rights (quote the document if possible)
Article 20
Equality in front of the law :
• The interned in the camp, losted all his civil rights (suffered some summary trials without the possibility of defense. ) .
Article 21
Not discrimination :
• The equality in the camp was not respected because were attributed to some interned control's assignments and supervision of the huts, even if there is not the certainty that this has given to this one advantages or privileges.
• The following article totally came ignored as the deportation for thin political and war it is the emblem of the discrimination.
• Discrimination of ethnic nature
Article 25
Rights of the elderly person :
• The right of elderly person to conclude serenely and with dignity his own life is not respected because they also were subject to the raking and the imprisonment.
TITLE IV
SOLIDARITY
Article/paragraph denied rights (quote the document if possible)
Article 34
Social safety and welfare :
• Were not respected the basic standard of survival.
• The only demostration of solidarity was that between prisoners in the huts and expecially in the moment of the escape from the camp ; instead is denied a solidale relationship between prisoner and guard, that it will only reached after the armistice, when guards and prisoners will agree for the escape.
• After may 1943, begin to arrive the packages of the International Red Cross, that are divided to be able to improve the collective alimentary conditions, also for who having arrived from not too long, did not recive nothing and particularly for the patients. This iniziative was taken and managed by the same internees.
Article 35 :
Right of health :
• This right was denied when the prisoner were forced to live in not healthy place .
• Limited right because also the access to the infirmary was binded to the time established in the camp .
• Our witness Drago affirms to have survived to the illness really tanks to the support of his companions.
• The cares to which the patient were submitted in the clinic of the camp, were rather summary due to the quantitative and quality shortage of medicines.
TITLE V
CITZENSHIP
article/paragraph denied rights (quote the document if possible)
Article 41
Right to a good administration :
• The prisoner were forced to salute the italian flag, also not being theirs, but on the contrary that of the oppressive country.
• The boy is executed by the guard without before having suffered a trial, and without the possibility to be able him to defend in any way.
Article 45
Liberty of circulation and stay :
• This right has been violated when to the prisoner were imposed to respect the time schedule , as well as the obligation to live inside the huts.
TITLE VI
JUSTICE
article/paragraph denied rights (quote the document if possible)
Article 47
Raight to a real appeal and impartial judge :
• Inside the field there were not the bases for a real and impartial equitable justice (example: killed boy).
• People were held without having committed some crime.
• They didn't have some type of juridical defense.
Reflect on the present time
The walk of the recognition of the human rights, not indering the different International accords in subject, is still long. Making reference to the Paper of the fundamental Rights of the European union, try to individualize a situation, by you experimented or read on the newspapers in which a Rights enunciated in one of the TITLES have appeared you particularly eluded Represent it with a brief written text or a sketch; or make a research on the heading on line (also European) and glues it here under the article of report that you have found quoting the source.
TITLE : “ The respect of the right today”
The liberty of information is not respected when some programs not in line with the in force political thought, they are made close (example "il fatto") or when conductors or journalists are dismissed "uncomfortable" (Luttazzi, Biagi).
Violation of the right to the health in America, where if you don’t have an insurance, don’t have the right to recive some cares.
Violation of some norms that protects the safety on the job.
The fundamental rights of the man enacted by the European union December 12 th 2007, are not fully respected still today. concern to the respect of the dignity the article 5 is violated, according to that nobody can be forced to complete a forced or obligatory job instead as it happens in the case of the exploitation of the prostitution. In reference to the liberty of religion express in the article 10, there are nowadays countries that impose a religious thought to his own people exploiting the ignorance of this last ( example: Islam ).
The violation of the equality due to the discriminations based on the differences of culture religion and sex (Art. 21-22-23).
concerning to the solidarity now exist violations of the article 32 that it concerns the prohibition of the juvenile job. In many countries the children work in the factories and this is often hidden for hypocrisy.
Article 19 :
1 - The collective expulsions are forbidden
2 - Nobody can be moved away, expelled, or extradited toward a state in which exists a serious risk to be submitted to the death penalty to torture or to other punishments or inhuman and degrading treatments.
LAW BOSSI- FINI
