- Prosecutors searched homes and phones of 23 doctors suspected of issuing medical certificates to keep undocumented migrants out of detention.
- Rights groups, including MSF and ASGI, condemned the probe, warning it undermines doctors' role and migrants' right to health.
- Authorities suspect some certificates declared migrants medically unfit for detention, possibly enabling avoidance of repatriation centres.
- Italy currently has nine detention centres; the hard-right government is cracking down and pushing for more centres outside the EU.
Italian rights groups on Thursday criticised prosecutors for investigating doctors suspected of helping undocumented migrants to avoid being held in detention centres.
Prosecutors ordered searches on Wednesday involving 21 infectious disease specialists and two psychiatrists linked to centres where people without the legal right to remain in Italy can be held pending deportation.
Prosecutors suspect some medical certificates may have been issued to declare undocumented foreign nationals medically unfit for detention.
“It is essential that doctors’ rights to carry out their role without conditioning should be recognised,” Chiara Montaldo from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said in a statement.
She said the centres were “places where people’s right to health is systematically compromised” and rights are “systematically trampled on”.
Immigration lawyers’ association ASGI said it was concerned the investigation could be used to try to reduce doctors to “a mere bureaucrat” who authorises detentions without any further checks.
The association said the doctors’ homes were searched and their phones seized during the operation.
Italy currently has nine centres for detention prior to repatriation and its hard-right government has cracked down on illegal immigration.
The government has also pushed for more migrant detention centres to be set up outside the European Union — a move backed by some other member states.
