The Association of Darfur Refugees in Italy, the human rights group Italians for Darfur, and the Union of Young Italian Jews have been refused authorisation for a sit-in in front of the Italian Parliament. The peaceful demonstration was to ask the Italian government (currently holding the presidency of the United Nations Security Council) for a real commitment to unblock the impasse that prevents the deployment of a UN peace force of 26,000 troops in Darfur due to be operative by the end of the month.

The committee for Darfur initiatives underlined "Despite our being prevented from promoting peacefully and democratically our requests to the government with a demonstration, we will not stop in our intention to urge the institutions to do more to prevent, in that region of Sudan, tormented for over four years, the continual massacre of innocent victims".

"To this end," the note concludes, "we direct an appeal to the Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, who we thank for the economic commitment announced at Lisbon for Darfur and the Horn of Africa, to assume a strong stance towards the Sudanese government until it interrupts the obstructionism that is preventing the deployment of the peace-keeping force".

Taken from Globe for Darfur www.globefordarfur.org