The use of mobile phones inside the centre had been prohibited by the Prefecture of Gorizia in 2011, after an earlier riot, and the centre was under a tight security regime. To escape the tear gas fired by the police to disperse their protest, detainees climbed the centre’s roof as usual.
As Galadriel Ravelli recalls, in the days before Majid’s injury, a revolt had broken out inside the facility as a consequence of the authorities’s refusal to permit the celebration at the end of Ramadan (the Bairam) on the night between the 8 and 9 of August. Indeed, on the night between the 12 and 13 August 2013, a Moroccan man named Abdelmajid El Kodra, known as Majid, suffered a serious head injury while he was trying to escape. This harsh regime did not take too long to take its toll. These last aspects contribute to making living conditions inside the CIE especially oppressive. Despite detention times being dramatically longer than in most other centres, there is a severe lack of recreational activities, a complete lack of NGO staff, and no legal aid. Security measures are especially restrictive and have resulted in a deep sense of malaise among the detainees. The strong atmosphere of tension between detainees and managing authority staff, dominated by a constant and frankly obsessive climate of suspicion, appears particularly serious. In their 2013 Report on immigration detention centres in Italy, Doctors for Human Rights (MEDU) described their visit in Gradisca d’Isonzo detention centre as follow: To discourage them and to repress their protest, the police threw tear gas several migrants ended up being harmed, while an 8-month old baby in the adjacent centre for asylum seekers (CARA) with her mother was nearly suffocated. For instance, in September 2007, a little more than a year after it opened, a group of detainees climbed onto the roof of the facility trying to escape. As for the personnel, 50 soldiers and about thirty police units will be dealing with the facility security”.Īccording to Galadriel Ravelli (2019), Gradisca d’Isonzo detention centre has always been marked by violence. Thus, the Public Prosecutor of Gorizia, Massimo Marchesiello, described, “an innovative CCTV surveillance system has been introduced, counting on nearly 200 cameras. Known since 2006 as ‘ the Italian Guantanamo’, the institution appears to have further hardened its security regime. Located in the former 'Polonio' barracks, next to the Reception Center for Asylum Seekers (CARA), the Gradisca d’Isonzo detention centre resemble a prison. Yet, since its re-opening, the centre has been managed by the social cooperative Edeco Onlus based in Padova. From 2008 until 2013 the facility was managed by the Connecting People Consortium, located in Trapani. After being closed from November 2013, the detention centre in Gradisca d’Isonzo re-opened on Decemwith room for 150 people. However, frequent riots progressively reduced its size (see here, page 12). Then, its official capacity was for 248 places. The Gradisca d’Isonzo detention centre, located near Gorizia, first opened its doors in March 2006, although its construction started well before (on the history of the centre see here).
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