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Euronews
4 days ago
- Politics
- Euronews
Italians to vote on easing citizenship rules amid low turnout fears
Italians will begin voting on Sunday in a referendum on whether to relax citizenship laws, but there are fears that turnout will be so low that it will invalidate the result. The two-day referendum, ending on Monday, will also ask voters if they agree with reversing a decade-old liberalisation of the labour market. The labour market questions aim to make it more difficult to dismiss some employees and increase compensation for workers who are made redundant by small businesses, reversing a law passed by a Democratic Party (PD) government around a decade ago. But it's the question about citizenship which has attracted the most attention among Italian voters. Concerns about the scale of immigration helped push Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy party to power in 2022. Italians will be asked if they support the idea of reducing the period of residence required to apply for Italian citizenship from 10 years to five. Organisers of the referendum say that, if passed, it could affect around 2.5 million foreign nationals in Italy. Italy's birth rate is in steep decline, and economists say the country needs more foreigners to boost its stagnant economy. For foreigners in Italy, the primary channel to citizenship is through naturalisation, which can occur after 10 years of continuous residence in the country. The applicant must also demonstrate that they have integrated into society, possess a minimum income, have a clean criminal record, and can speak Italian adequately. The residence prerequisite is considerably shorter for citizens of other EU member states, who have to wait just four years to apply. Riccardo Magi, secretary of the liberal Più Europa party, supports decreasing the length of time required to apply for citizenship. He calls the current rules "old and unjust" and says they have only been in force for so long because successive governments have lacked the political will for change. Magi thinks the referendum proposal is reasonable because it only reduces the residence time requirement while leaving the other requirements unchanged. He says the current law "forces hundreds of thousands of girls and boys born or raised in Italy to live as foreigners in what is also their country." Magi also believes the amendment would have indirect positive effects on many of these minors born or resident in Italy, to whom citizenship would be passed on by at least one New Italian parent. "Those are who are rooted, work, pay taxes, study... must be able to vote and participate in public votes. This is the liberal idea of citizenship," he said. But the Noi Moderati party has said its position on the referendum is a resounding no, the centrist party's vice-president Maria Chiara Fazio told Euronews. "Citizenship is the deepest link between the state and the individual," Fazio stressed. "It cannot be the subject of a referendum simplification: it is a topic that requires in-depth study, mutual listening and a serious parliamentary debate." Fazio defended the structure of the current law, but acknowledged some bureaucratic aspects need to be tightened up as they leave many candidates in limbo. But the Noi Moderati's position on the referendum is not unusual. The leaders of two of the coalition parties, Antonio Tajani of Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini of Lega or the League, have both said they will not vote on Sunday. Meloni will attend a polling station but will also not cast a ballot. That indifference to the referendum appears to have trickled down to regular voters too. A Demopolis institute poll carried out in May estimated turnout to be between 31% and 39%, well short of the threshold required to make the result binding. The leader of the opposition Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, has indicated that a US-style blanket travel ban on foreign citizens could be "viable" in the United Kingdom, stressing that it should no longer be the "world's softest touch." The Leader of the Opposition said on Friday that Britain is being "mugged" by illegal migration, local media reported. She added "parliament needs to be able to decide who comes into the country, for how long and who needs to leave," explaining that this can be done through measures such as travel bans. "There are scenarios where this is viable." In a resurrection of his controversial first term "Muslim ban", Trump on Wednesday announced travel bans to the United States for citizens from 12 countries he has deemed "out of control." It will apply to people from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The ban is set to go into effect on Monday and will bar nationals from these countries from entering the US unless they qualify for an exemption. Travel restrictions will also come into force for citizens of a further seven countries on the same day. However, Badenoch then went on to say she didn't fully support a Trump-style ban for the UK, adding that she hadn't seen which countries were affected. "That doesn't mean that I agree with what Donald Trump has done. I'm much more focused on…what's happening here." Badenoch made the remarks after a speech at the Royal United Services Institute in Westminster in which she launched a commission tasked with analysing leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The international human rights treaty between the 47 states which are members of the Council of Europe (CoE) protects the basic rights and freedoms of people. She argued that the UK had "lost control of the asylum system" and is "being blocked". Referring to the ECHR, she vowed to crackdown on "lawfare" which she said is obstructing border control and is used to stop migrant deportations. 'I have always said that if we need to leave the convention we should and having now considered the question closely I do believe that we will likely need to leave because I am yet to see a clear and coherent way to fix this within our current legal structures." Badenoch has enlisted a senior barrister to review the legalities surrounding the a potential UK withdrawal from the ECHR. The senior lawyer is expected to provide his report at the Tory party conference later this year, at which point the Tory leader will make a final decision on the ECHR "problem." However, she stressed she would not do so without a clear plan. Leader of the far-right Reform UK party, Nigel Farage, stated earlier this year that the first thing he would do as Prime Minister would be to withdraw the UK from the ECHR. Meanwhile, the current Labour government has ruled out leaving it. Last month, nine EU countries signed an open letter calling for the ECHR to be reinterpreted to allow for policy changes on migration. The signatories, who believe it should be easier to expel migrants who commit crimes, said the ECHR's interpretation of the convention should be examined. The CoE's Secretary Alain Berset criticised their politicising of the court.
CairoScene
26-03-2025
- CairoScene
Bethlehem's Only Luxury Boutique Hotel is Now Facing an Empty City
In Bethlehem, a city so often cast in the sepia glow of biblical nostalgia, where pilgrims trace the same cobbled paths as the Magi and pause before relics venerated for millennia, a small six-room boutique hotel quietly aims to reshape the conventional narrative. Kassa Boutique is a refuge where artistry and history coalesce into something fiercely local, and strikingly contemporary. The hotel is the brainchild of two unlikely collaborators: Fadi Kattan, a culinary storyteller, and Elizabeth Kassis Sabagh, a Chilean businesswoman whose family history reads like a microcosm of the Palestinian diaspora itself. Kattan is the gastronomic mastermind behind buzz-worthy Palestinian restaurants 'Akub' in London's Notting Hill, Louf in Toronto, and the book Bethlehem: A Celebration of Palestinian Food. For many years, Kattan also ran the Hosh al-Syrian guesthouse in Bethlehem's Old City. His lodgings became a quiet sanctuary for those seeking an experience beyond the well-worn paths of pilgrimage tours, while 'Fawda'—the little nook of a restaurant inside his guesthouse (and Kattan's domain)—became a beacon call for travellers weary and wary of superficial claims of tradition and authenticity. The name itself—Fawda, Arabic for literally chaos—was a playful nod to the way the restaurant operated. There was no menu. No fixed dishes. No predictability. Instead, Kattan would roam the souq in the morning, selecting the freshest ingredients, and then build the menu from scratch each day based on what he found. A perfect fig in late summer transformed into a dish with local cheese and honeycomb from the Bethlehem hills. Sadly, the pandemic forced the guesthouse into a forever closure. But not before Elizabeth Sabagh found her way to the guesthouse, met Kattan, and struck an unlikely friendship that would turn into an extraordinary partnership, with the idea of the Kassa boutique hotel conceived over endless cups of coffee during her visit. In May 2023, the Kassa boutique hotel was born in the ancestral Sabagh family home, a place rich with the echoes of generations past. The Sabagh family, one of Bethlehem's oldest and most prominent families, had long been a part of the city's history, their name woven into the very fabric of its streets and stories. The house, a stately structure of thick limestone walls and elegant arches, had been a private residence, a gathering place, a witness to Bethlehem's changing tides. It was here, within these very walls, that Kassis Sabagh's ancestors once lived before dispersing across the world, part of the great Palestinian diaspora. By transforming the family home into Bethlehem's only locally owned boutique hotel, Kattan and Kassis Sabagh were not just creating a place for travelers to stay, they were reclaiming space, ensuring that a piece of Bethlehem's past remained firmly rooted in its present. But to understand Kassa is to understand what it is not. It is not another somber waypoint on the well-trodden pilgrimage circuit, where history is often quite sanded down to fit neatly into the tour bus-tight schedule. Bethlehem, after all, has long been a city confined by its own mythology. The name alone conjures images of midnight masses and nativity scenes, of frankincense and hallelujahs, of a city perpetually frozen in the act of awaiting something divine. Yet beyond the mangers and the hymnals, Bethlehem is a place of exquisite contradictions; a city where the past is inescapable but never static, where modernity presses in against ancient walls, and where an entirely different kind of visitor had begun to arrive. 'In Kassa, guests are encouraged to be in Bethlehem rather than merely see it,' Kattan tells #SceneTraveller. 'This is a stay designed for those who seek not a checklist, but an experience, not a series of landmarks, but a feeling.' With only six rooms, Kassa is intimate by design—a far cry from the faceless hotels that dominate the city's religious tourism industry. Each room is its own quiet sanctuary, a blend of old and new, curated with an almost obsessive attention to detail. The beds, crafted by Palestinian artisans, are heavy with locally woven textiles; the ceramic lamps, made in Hebron, cast warm pools of light; the soaps in the bathrooms are hand-poured, made with Bethlehem-sourced olive oil; the art on the walls a collaboration between Palestinian and Chilean artists, a nod to the bridge between Kassis Sabagh's two worlds. One striking piece—"The Island of Palestine" by Chilean-Palestinian artist Victor Mahana Nassar—reimagines Palestine as an island, a poetic, devastating metaphor for a nation fragmented by occupation. The painting is a stark visual commentary on the way borders have not only redrawn Palestine but have, in effect, turned it into an archipelago of dismembered spaces, separated by checkpoints and walls. 'Our identity as humans is crossed,' explains Sabagh. 'What reaches us and represents us can also reach and represent other people from other countries.' Horses also feature prominently in the art on display, reflecting Sabagh's own life as a breeder in Chile and a forgotten part of Palestinian culture. 'Palestinians had deep bonds with horses until the occupation severed them,' she explains. 'Three generations have now lived without them.' Elsewhere, monkey figurines tucked playfully into the décor pay tribute to Abu Shamon Café, which once stood on this very site—a place where the owner's pet monkey sat perched on his shoulder, delighting customers as they sipped cardamom coffee. Even crowns, scattered throughout Kassa, hold a quiet message: 'Each and every one of us deserves to be treated like kings and queens,' Sabagh says, reflecting on a tattoo of a crowned heart that she has on her sleeve. 'Because being kings without love is useless.' The wines served tell a similar story—palimpsests of history in every glass. 'The Natufians, those early inhabitants of Jericho, were, after all, the first people to cultivate grapes some 9,500 years ago,' explains Kattan. 'It's in the soil, in the bones of this land.' But for all its artistry, this place is now silent, standing in eerie stillness. The genocide in Gaza has rendered Bethlehem a ghost town, its streets emptied of the usual procession of visitors. Just last week, Fadi Kattan, co-founder of Kassa, was wandering into the Church of the Nativity and found it vacant, the hushed reverence now replaced by unsettling absence. New Year's Eve, once a reliably bustling occasion, saw the hotel that stands at the busiest street in town at half capacity. Bethlehem, that has hosted travelers for thousands of years, suddenly finds itself devoid of them. But even in silence, Kassa persists. They are still open and still sustaining themselves. Kattan resists the idea that his work, in cooking or in the realm of hospitality, is done primarily with the intention of being an act of defiance or of resistance, though he acknowledges that to the observer, it is. 'I want to welcome people. I don't do what I do with defiance and resilience in mind. I just want to represent my people and celebrate my culture with love first, and then resilience comes.'
