An Italian mayor rejuvenated his town's economy by accepting thousands of migrants – now he's been arrested for it

It's not just Lucano who's under attack now, but the entire Riace model – the model which showed one way to deal with the refugee crisis in Europe is to breathe life into struggling towns

This morning, Domenico (“Mimmo”) Lucano, the mayor of Riace in Calabria, southern Italy, was arrested.

The small town of Riace, located in one of the most impoverished regions of Italy, has become famous in recent years for bucking the trend of snowballing unemployment rates and net emigration, as southern Italians flee north in search of gainful employment. And rather than responding to economic and labour market crises by blaming foreign migrants like the new right-wing populist government, Riace has accommodated at least 6,000 migrants since 1998, when a boat of Kurdish refugees fleeing repression in Turkey and Iraq landed on the Calabrese coast a few kilometres from the town.

Lucano’s administration in Riace has turned the town around from an almost-ghost town of 900 residents in 1998 to a population of over 2,000 today, 400 of which are recent migrants. These migrants live alongside many former inhabitants who emigrated and are now returning to a newly rejuvenated town.

The reconstruction of the town is largely thanks to the creation of a comprehensive infrastructure which includes dozens of workshops located in abandoned homes, providing new arrivals with training opportunities. Alongside the creation of a local currency to stimulate the economy, this has created jobs as increasing numbers of teachers and support workers are required. Its success is not to be sniffed at – at 21.6 per cent, Calabria’s unemployment rate is the highest in Italy, and swathes of the economy are controlled by organised crime syndicates, including migration accommodation centres. Lucano himself has been targeted by mafia who set fire to his car.

But now there is a greater, politically motivated threat hanging over Riace. After 14 years as mayor, Lucano has been subject to increasing attacks from the political establishment culminating in the Guardia di Finanzia – a police force which sits under the Finance Ministry – putting him under house arrest today. He has been accused of “aiding and abetting illegal immigration.”

It is clear the new right-wing populist coalition government of Lega and 5 Star Movement intensely dislikes the Riace model, the “virtuous circle” that has restored the ailing economy and cultural fabric in the town while assisting in the European refugee crisis. In June, new minister of the interior Matteo Salvini called Lucano a “nobody” in a video. But this process began before Salvini – in 2016, Riace had its funding temporarily blocked, putting at risk hundreds of refugees and workers. Then-interior minister for the Democratic Party, the famously anti-migrant hardliner Marco Minniti, refused to help, despite being himself from Calabria.

Although the regional authorities overturned a report which led to the suspension of funding to Riace, the money never arrived in full, prompting Lucano to go on hunger strike this August in protest. Italian writer Roberto Saviano, mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau, and the left-wing mayor of Napoli Luigi De Magistris all visited Riace to give their support. Pope Francis had added his own words of encouragement a few weeks earlier.

Following Lucano’s arrest today, the radical left party Potere al Popolo (Power to the People), whose social centre in Napoli is supported by De Magistris and which runs a legal and medical drop-in centre for migrants, released a statement in support of Lucano, stating that they “would not hesitate to perpetrate the same ‘crimes’ for which Mimmo [Lucano] had been charged.”

While Riace’s desperately needed funds are frozen and its mayor placed under house arrest, Lega, the party of the xenophobic Salvini, has been found guilty of embezzling public campaign funds, requiring repayment of €49m of public money. The party has entered an arrangement to pay it back at a rate of just €100,000 a year – which will take 490 years.

While corrupt practices and mafia involvement of state-funded migrant reception centres plague Italy, there couldn’t be a less suitable suspect of criminal behaviour than Domenico Lucano, who has dedicated almost two decades to using meagre funds in support of the common good.

It’s not just Domenico Lucano who must be defended from successive reactionary interior ministers, either, but the Riace model itself. As Lucano himself said: "If you have the right to divide the world into Italians and foreigners, I claim the right to divide the world into the dispossessed and oppressed on one hand and the privileged oppressors on the other. The former are my fellow countrymen; the latter are strangers to me."