ITALY: MOROCCAN G8 PROTESTOR EXPELLED

Reggane Bouchaib, a 31-year-old Moroccan legally resident in Italy since 1996, was expelled from the country on 9 January because of his arrest on 21 July in Genoa during the G8 summit for "resisting a public official" - he was released three days later and went about his normal life. He secured a work contract for an indefinite period with a firm in Brescia in 1999. What he did not know was that the Genoa police chief had issued an expulsion order against him, but Bouchaib was not informed of this fact and thus could not appeal against it. [Feature article including Bouchaib's forthcoming appeal to the decision, analysis of the grounds for expulsion in Italian law, and the proposed Bossi-Fini amendment of the Italian immigration law. See http://www.statewatch.org/news/2002/jan/g8expulsion.html]