East African experiences of confinement and deportation in Fascist Italy

Mathilde Lyons University of St Andrews

This paper will look at the experiences of Eritrean, Ethiopian and Somali individuals who spent time in Italy during the fascist period and found themselves accused of breaching the 1926 and 1931 Public Security laws. The paper will explore the punitive measures used to enforce these laws for this group namely, political confinement, deportation and commitment to criminal asylums. The questions that arise from this research area concern the differential sentencing decisions that dictate to which institution a person was sent, as well as the difference in experience between this group of Black East Africans in comparison to white Italians during the same period.