euro|topics - Anti-Roma riots in Italy

07/10/2008

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Main focus of Thursday, May 15, 2008

Anti-Roma riots in Italy

Violent anti-Roma riots have taken place in Naples in recent days, triggered when a 16 year old Roma girl was charged with intent to kidnap.

Corriere della Sera - Italy

Corriere della Sera correspondent Marco Imarisio is on location: "Everything changes when the television cameras are pointed at the burning camps. The fat man who had just called out 'Let them burn!' now clasps his hands over his head and cries 'Madonna mia, the poor people!' A youth with mirrored glasses suddenly becomes eloquent: 'They have to be turned away, but not like this'. The television camera is shut off, and the youth bursts out laughing. ... A group of youths stands nearby. ... The leader is the great-nephew of [Naples suburb] Ponticelli's 'mayor', Ciro Sano, the Capo of a Camorra clan that has put down roots here. The youth winks to his group and off they ride on their mopeds. Ten minutes later fresh clouds of smoke rise from the nomad camps. ... And so things go on, heading back to the Middle Ages." (15/05/2008)

Dilema Veche - Romania

Most Roma living in Italy come from Romania, Luca Niculescu writes, adding that owing to the hostile climate in Italy many now want to return to their home country. Romania could benefit from this: "According to a report by the Agency for Government Strategies in Bucharest, over half of the Romanian immigrants now living in Italy are already thinking of returning owing to their growing unpopularity in Italy. ... The optimists hope that those Romanians who return will become more than just statistics or a migratory trend. Romanians who have spent time living abroad return with a different idea of the importance of citizenship and the functioning of authorities. Those who come back could be more active citizens than when they left the country. They could show that Romanian society is adapting to Europe more rapidly than the state leadership." (15/05/2008)

die tageszeitung - Germany

Leftist politicians have also joined in the Roma-bating in Italy, writes the paper. "Several barracks in a Roma camp in Naples have been set on fire - yet apart from the radical left-wing Il Manifesto, not a single newspaper or TV station has used the word pogrom. ... In the recent elections, Italy's right wing had already declared public security as the country's 'top emergency'. And it did not mean the Cosa Nostra, the Camorra or the Ndrangheta. ... For them, the biggest threat to public security comes from the Roma and Romanians. ... The Left, too, played its part in fanning the climate of hate. Walter Veltroni was the one who proclaimed the 'Romanian emergency' last November following a murder in Rome, and had barracks in Roma camps cleared out with high media coverage." (15/05/2008)