News — italy

Yvan Sagnet from Cameroon is battling modern slavery in Italy's agricultural sector. Yvan once worked as a low-wage farmhand. He represents the hundreds of thousands of seasonal farm workers from Africa and eastern Europe on Italy's fields. Without their labor, the country would have no tomato, orange or olive harvest. But the workers are exploited and often forced to live under inhumane conditions in ruins or shantytowns called ghettos and treated like animals. Now Yvan is fighting for the rights of seasonal farmworkers, taking criminal recruiters, or gangmasters, to court. This is an example of modern forms of slavery that black people still experience worldwide. In Yvan's words, "slavery does not require chains." What do you think?

Even though slavery was abolished more than a century ago, it has evolved to take up a more modern form; human trafficking. Those most affected are from poor communities promised better opportunities abroad only to be sold as sex slaves. In Nigeria, girls as young as fifteen are tricked into thinking they are traveling to Italy for better opportunities, only to be burdened with massive debts amounting to up to 25,000 euros. They perform sexual favors to try and pay this debt and are sold to other traffickers like goods. This is not any different from the trans-Atlantic slave trade; the only difference is this is happening in a modern world where everyone has rights. What are your thoughts?

Easter is a period that people often look forward to with so much joy and planning. For the almost 70 million Christians that live in Africa, Easter symbolizes the resurrection of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion. The oldest Christian-claimed holiday is preceded by the season of Lent, a 40-day period of fasting and repentance, followed by a 50-day Easter season that stretches from Easter to Pentecost. What do Africans make of the season?

In 2013, a Kenyan lawyer sought to get justice for Jesus Christ, arguing that the trial and crucifixion of Jesus more than 2,000 years ago was unlawful. Dola Indidis, a former spokesperson of the Kenyan judiciary, petitioned the International Court of Justice (ICC), based at The Hague, to nullify Jesus’ conviction and death sentence.

He named defendants including Pontius Pilate, King Herod, the former Emperor of Rome, and the states of Israel and Italy in the lawsuit he filed with the ICC, Kenyan media reported. “I filed the case because it’s my duty to uphold the dignity of Jesus and I have gone to the ICJ to seek justice for the man from Nazareth,” Indidis told Standard Media. “His selective and malicious prosecution violated his human rights through judicial misconduct, abuse of office bias and prejudice.”

According to the New Testament, Jewish authorities arrested Jesus Christ on the charges of blasphemy after he had performed miracles and claimed to be the son of God. Jesus was brought to Pontius Pilate, then the Roman Governor of Judea. Pilate told the Jewish authorities that he did not have jurisdiction to hear the case and sent him to King Herod. Herod sent Jesus back to Pilate.

Jesus was found not guilty of any charges. However, crowds of Jews called for him to be executed, compelling Pilate to have him crucified together with two criminals.

Indidis’ case challenged the “mode of questioning used during Jesus’ trial; the punishments meted out to Him while proceedings were still underway; and the substance of the information used to convict him,” the Daily Mail reported.

He hoped the court would declare that “the proceedings before the Roman courts were a nullity in law for they did not conform to the rule of law at the material time and any time thereafter.”

“Some of those present spat in his face, struck him with their fists, slapped him, taunted him, and pronounced him worthy of death,” he said. Indidis further explained that he included modern-day states in the suit because they have previous ties to the Roman Empire. “The government for whom they acted still is answerable for their act,” Indidis told Kenya’s Citizen TV. “Pontius Pilate was acting under the government of Rome, which was headed by Caesar.”

“Evidence today is on record in the Bible, and you cannot discredit the Bible,” Indidis said.

The Kenyan lawyer believed he had a good case, highlighting the trial of Joan of Arc as evidence that there is precedent for his request. Joan of Arc was a peasant girl who was burned at the stake. The verdict in her case was reversed years after her death by a papal commission. “This is the same case with Jesus,” said Indidis. “The judge who sentenced him said that he had no jurisdiction to attend to the matter but he went ahead to convict and pass a capital sentence under duress.”

Legal experts argued that the Kenyan lawyer was fighting a losing battle as the ICJ, created to resolve disputes between states, has no jurisdiction over the matter. And that’s exactly what happened, according to media reports. Indidis had turned to the ICJ after a 2007 petition to a Nairobi court was dismissed.

“Art is all I’ve ever known” are the words of the new record holder for the world’s largest drawing by an individual. Dyymond Whipper-Young’s artwork covers 6,507 square feet, beating the previous record held by Italy’s FRA! by 400 square feet.

The Philadelphia-based artist told RNBPhilly that she was recommended by a substitute art teacher in her school for the Crayola-sponsored art project. This project was meant to hype and be a prelude to the company’s new installment titled, “Crayola IDEAworks: The Creativity Exhibition” housed at the Mandell Center at The Franklin Institute. The organizers specifically looked for a Philadelphia based artist to work with.

It took five days, a whopping 63 hours, and only one type of marker; Whipper-Young started with the black Crayola Project XL Markers and used 57 of them to create the giant-sized doodle art piece.

“I believe that creativity is in all of us and with this exhibition and the drawing, the purpose is to inspire people to find their creative pulse,” Whipper-Young said in a video sent to the press.

FRA!’s drawing was in 2020 and it covered 6,100 square feet. Whipper-Young’s work covering the floor of the Franklin Institute has now made history covering 6,507 square feet.

“Everything you see in this drawing is a reflection of what’s in Crayola IDEAworks,” Whipper-Young said in the video. “It has sea, it has land, it has space. You’ll really get to experience those things once you’re in IDEAworks.”

The immersive exhibition, which originally covers 17,000 square feet, allows visitors to do “interactive challenges that hone their skills,” Crayola IDEAworks writes on its website. “The four sections in this area, I, D, E, and A, will feature questions and puzzles that will determine creative strengths.”

Crayola collaborated with the Franklin Institute as the latter aims to “inspire and empower” everyone no matter their age to get in tune with their creativity and feed their curiosity.

On how she got the gig, Whipper-Young said it all started with a direct message from one of the organizers of the exhibition. After a conference call with the Franklin Institute and Crayola executives, the young artist got the gig. She admits she would not have otherwise tried out for such a project if she had to audition for it because she thought “it was too big” for her.

“I always told everybody that if I saw that opportunity, I would never have applied, God dropped that thing right in my lap because I would have thought it was too big.”

According to Whipper-Young, she later realized the size was not even an issue because everything worked out perfectly.

The Temple alum who is originally from Baltimore went straight to art school after elementary school. She was 11 years old at the time. She trained in fine arts in high school and studied all forms of art and now works as an art teacher and freelance artist.

The art teacher is currently working on a sculpture that will feature her famous ‘twerking sculpture’ which she made when she was in high school. She is all for making museum-worthy art but according to her, hers is a cross-section between fine art and Black culture.

A Ghanaian worker on the goat farm owned by Ethiopian immigrant Agitu Ideo Gudeta in the northern Italian region of Trentino has been arrested after confessing to raping and killing his 42-year-old employer, according to reports from Italy.

Gudeta was reportedly killed by hammer blows to her head. The name of the employee from Ghana has also not been publicized.

She had made her home in that part of the country on an abandoned piece of land where she reared goats on the La Capra Felice (The Happy Goat) farm. From the produce of the animals, Gudeta made cheese and beauty products.

Gudeta fled her native Ethiopia in 2010 after her protests against land grab incited the wrath of authorities. The protesters had accused the local government in Addis Ababa of divesting large swathes of land to foreign investors and to the detriment of locals.

By 2018, she had become a well-known commercial farmer in Trentino. She told Reuters in 2018 that she had started with goats shortly after arriving in the country and then had 180 goats. The products she made were popular with the locals and her business was successful, even allowing her to employ farmhands.

She often became a reference point for international news coverage in light of anti-immigrant clamoring by far-right parties and activists. Gudeta’s success was supposed to challenge public opinion of immigrants from Africa in the midst of growing hostilities against that group.

Trentino police say investigations into her death are ongoing.

Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini who recently described African migrant workers as “slaves” has filed a defamation suit against the country’s first black cabinet minister of Congolese descent for calling his far-right party “racist” in 2014.

Cécile Kyenge will face trial in the northern city of Piacenza over comments made in an interview during a social democratic event when she reacted to a photograph posted on social media by Roberto Calderoli, a former senator of the far-right League party depicting her as an orangutan.

The ridiculous lawsuit follows her 2017 victory in a four-year legal battle against an Italian member of the European Parliament, Mario Borghezio who was found guilty of defamation and racial hatred during a radio interview in 2013.

Borghezio said in the interview that Kyenge was trying to “impose her tribal traditions from the Congo” on Italian society; “she took away a job from an Italian doctor”; and she is “a good housewife but not a government minister.”

Cécile Kyenge became Italy’s first Black cabinet minister under Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s short-lived government in 2013. She immediately became the target of sustained racist attacks as she received death threats on social media, had banana thrown at her in public and was compared to an orangutan.

Five years after leaving government, Matteo Salvini is continuing the attacks on Kyenge who posted her displeasure on social media together with examples of headlines generated by the party over the years, including one dating back to 2009 when Salvini called for racial segregation on Milan’s public transport system, cites the Guardian.

This is the second and successful suit filed by Salvini after the judge ruled that her comments not only stained the party but insulted all its members, the Guardian adds.

“Now that he is a minister he is more powerful,” Kyenge told the Guardian, adding that, “I said publicly several times that the League must distance itself from racism and condemn and penalise it.

“They not only never did this but people convicted of racist acts are still in positions of authority. If the League doesn’t distance itself it must mean that the party shares the [racist] views,” she said.

Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kyenge moved to Italy in 1983, training as an ophthalmologist and later venturing into politics in order to advocate for the rights of migrants and minority groups.
Salvini has continued his attacks on African migrants as he described them as “slaves” during a closed-door session of a migration and security conference hosted by Austria.

“I’m paid by citizens to help our young people start having children again the way they did a few years ago, and not to uproot the best of the African youth to replace Europeans who are not having children anymore,” he said.

The Italian far-right leader added: “Maybe in Luxembourg there’s this need, in Italy there’s the need to help our kids have kids, not to have new slaves to replace the children we’re not having.”

Salvini, who heads the Italian League party that holds a tough stance against immigration, made the racist remark in response to a public statement implying that Italy needed immigrants because the population was ageing.

The only reaction from the conference was a condemnation by Luxembourg’s foreign and immigration minister Jean Asselborn who interrupted the Italian by saying in French, “In Luxembourg, we had tens of Italian immigrants. They came as migrants, who worked in Luxembourg so that you could in Italy have money to pay for your children.”

The African Union later issued a statement condemning Salvini and demanding a retraction from him.

An unrepentant Salvini replied at a press conference: “There is nothing to apologise for. I deny [making] any equation between immigrants and slaves. On the contrary, my statements in Vienna were to defend migrants, who some want to use as slaves. If some people want to think badly [that’s up to them]. Perhaps there was a mistake in the French translation.”