December 10th is World Human Rights Day, established in 1950 to commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration in 1948.

At Europe's externalised and internal borders, however, every year thousands of people die, suffer all forms of torture and violence, are imprisoned and criminalised simply because those who migrate often do not have the right to cross borders through safe and legal channels because they hold a passport and come from a country that does not allow them to do so.

The European Union and its member states continue to use people on the move as pawns in a context of widespread geopolitical conflicts, highlighting the inhumanity of Fortress Europe characterised by institutional racism and systematic violations of human rights.

In Italy, the human rights of people on the move are violated daily with inhuman treatment and deportations to the CPR (Detention centres for repatriation), the Piantedosi decrees, bilateral agreements with Libya and Tunisia, and increasingly discriminatory asylum procedures.

Today we want to remind everyone once again that the right to human freedom of movement must be universal, otherwise it is not a right but a privilege, and that respect for it precedes and goes beyond any rule imposed by individual states.