Isabella Clough Marinaro
April 11, 2008 2:00 PM
As the elections approach, Italian politicians are fuelling a humanitarian crisis as they vie with each other to exploit resentment against immigrants - especially Roma. Police have been forcibly evicting thousands from camps around major cities in raids which are often illegal and have noticeably intensified during the election campaign.
In the latest incident, police raided a Roma camp in Milan, ejecting over 200 people. As they wandered around the city seeking refuge in other camps - many of them pregnant women with small children - they were met by riot police ordering them to move on and bulldozers ready to wreck their new shacks. The Catholic diocese of Milan protested, and the head of the city's chamber of commerce branded it an "electoral eviction".
Most evictions, however, have taken place around Rome where the outgoing leftwing mayor, and candidate for prime minister, Walter Veltroni, has declared that his administration expelled 6,000 people from camps last year alone. Hundreds more have been made homeless in recent months.
Of Italy's estimated 120,000 to 150,000 Roma, just over half are foreigners. They often live in large and mostly illegal camps without running water, sewers or electricity. While numbers are seen begging or are accused of theft, others have work. Public resentment became particularly acute after the murder of an Italian woman by a Romanian Gypsy last autumn, triggering violent attacks by vigilantes.
In a report to the UN in January the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) and associated bodies said that a "human rights emergency" was taking place in Italy, "fostered and promoted by the organs of government." It spoke of a "highly-charged climate of racial hatred mobilised by Italian government and the Italian media."
The UN committee on the elimination of racial discrimination (CERD) called on the government last month to stop the use of illegal force by the police against Roma and to punish racially-motivated violence against them. It expressed serious concern about "hate speech" by politicians, such as Giorgio Bettio, a rightwing Northern League town councillor in Treviso, who declared that "if an immigrant commits a crime against an Italian, ten immigrants should be punished for it, following the method used in Nazi concentration camps."
Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's election campaign promises zero tolerance towards "Roma, clandestine immigrants and criminals", while Gianni Alemanno, his coalition's candidate for mayor of Rome, promises "the immediate expulsion of 20,000 nomads and immigrants who have broken the law." He, like many other politicians and journalists, ignores the fact that most Roma are not nomads. Nor does he say how he counted 20,000 alleged lawbreakers.
It is not only rightwing politicians who demand mass deportations. Last year the leftwing government of Romano Prodi issued an emergency decree permitting the repatriation of EU citizens deemed a threat to public security. Within a few hours expulsions started.
Rome's leftwing administration planned to move Roma to large and supposedly well-equipped "solidarity villages" far outside the city - and out of sight of voters. There, in Veltroni's words, they would be "integrated," while having "the least possible impact on the fabric" of Roman society. Some 800 Roma live in a prototype camp at Castel Romano, nearly 20 miles from the city centre. The camp, however, is in many ways worse than the one they were evicted from.
"Living conditions are dire. Water is available only sporadically, and is unsuitable for washing, let alone drinking. Many residents complain of skin diseases," says Professor Karen Bermann of Iowa State University, who studies camp conditions. "People are housed in metal containers which become ovens in summer. The septic tanks are overflowing. The camp is far from shops and public transport and it can take two hours to reach the centre of Rome. People have had to give up their jobs and school attendance has dropped. Police have started checking people coming and going and have already refused access to at least one researcher."
Meanwhile the Italian political rhetoric and media misreporting are making an already difficult problem infinitely harder to tackle. The international criticisms have received little or no attention in the media and have been ignored by election campaigners. Only more forceful protests from inside and - above all - outside Italy may shame the authorities into fulfilling the country's humanitarian commitments.
April 11, 2008 2:00 PM
As the elections approach, Italian politicians are fuelling a humanitarian crisis as they vie with each other to exploit resentment against immigrants - especially Roma. Police have been forcibly evicting thousands from camps around major cities in raids which are often illegal and have noticeably intensified during the election campaign.
In the latest incident, police raided a Roma camp in Milan, ejecting over 200 people. As they wandered around the city seeking refuge in other camps - many of them pregnant women with small children - they were met by riot police ordering them to move on and bulldozers ready to wreck their new shacks. The Catholic diocese of Milan protested, and the head of the city's chamber of commerce branded it an "electoral eviction".
Most evictions, however, have taken place around Rome where the outgoing leftwing mayor, and candidate for prime minister, Walter Veltroni, has declared that his administration expelled 6,000 people from camps last year alone. Hundreds more have been made homeless in recent months.
Of Italy's estimated 120,000 to 150,000 Roma, just over half are foreigners. They often live in large and mostly illegal camps without running water, sewers or electricity. While numbers are seen begging or are accused of theft, others have work. Public resentment became particularly acute after the murder of an Italian woman by a Romanian Gypsy last autumn, triggering violent attacks by vigilantes.
In a report to the UN in January the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) and associated bodies said that a "human rights emergency" was taking place in Italy, "fostered and promoted by the organs of government." It spoke of a "highly-charged climate of racial hatred mobilised by Italian government and the Italian media."
The UN committee on the elimination of racial discrimination (CERD) called on the government last month to stop the use of illegal force by the police against Roma and to punish racially-motivated violence against them. It expressed serious concern about "hate speech" by politicians, such as Giorgio Bettio, a rightwing Northern League town councillor in Treviso, who declared that "if an immigrant commits a crime against an Italian, ten immigrants should be punished for it, following the method used in Nazi concentration camps."
Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's election campaign promises zero tolerance towards "Roma, clandestine immigrants and criminals", while Gianni Alemanno, his coalition's candidate for mayor of Rome, promises "the immediate expulsion of 20,000 nomads and immigrants who have broken the law." He, like many other politicians and journalists, ignores the fact that most Roma are not nomads. Nor does he say how he counted 20,000 alleged lawbreakers.
It is not only rightwing politicians who demand mass deportations. Last year the leftwing government of Romano Prodi issued an emergency decree permitting the repatriation of EU citizens deemed a threat to public security. Within a few hours expulsions started.
Rome's leftwing administration planned to move Roma to large and supposedly well-equipped "solidarity villages" far outside the city - and out of sight of voters. There, in Veltroni's words, they would be "integrated," while having "the least possible impact on the fabric" of Roman society. Some 800 Roma live in a prototype camp at Castel Romano, nearly 20 miles from the city centre. The camp, however, is in many ways worse than the one they were evicted from.
"Living conditions are dire. Water is available only sporadically, and is unsuitable for washing, let alone drinking. Many residents complain of skin diseases," says Professor Karen Bermann of Iowa State University, who studies camp conditions. "People are housed in metal containers which become ovens in summer. The septic tanks are overflowing. The camp is far from shops and public transport and it can take two hours to reach the centre of Rome. People have had to give up their jobs and school attendance has dropped. Police have started checking people coming and going and have already refused access to at least one researcher."
Meanwhile the Italian political rhetoric and media misreporting are making an already difficult problem infinitely harder to tackle. The international criticisms have received little or no attention in the media and have been ignored by election campaigners. Only more forceful protests from inside and - above all - outside Italy may shame the authorities into fulfilling the country's humanitarian commitments.
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