The problems facing the Roma in Italy were highlighted in July this year when media published pictures of holiday makers sunbathing on a beach near Naples ignoring the bodies of two drowned Roma teenagers.
In May 2008, the right-wing Italian government led by Berlusconi introduced a whole range of repressive measures to deal with what they describe as the “gypsy problem“. The measures remind many of the fascist policies under Mussolini – when Italian Roma were stripped of their citizenship and many died in concentration camps. They include dismantling all Roma camps and fingerprinting all Roma – children as well as adults. Almost all of the Roma are actually Italian citizens. There have since been more or less daily reports of arrests, evictions and other attacks on the community, both by police and by criminals inspired by the government campaign.
Several camps have been burnt to the ground after Molotov cocktails where thrown into them, and many Roma have been left homeless. Forcible evictions from the camps by police have started and many Roma have been arrested.
There are around 150,000 Roma in Italy, less than 0.3% of the Italian population – a lower proportion than in many other European countries. Most of them live in desperately poor conditions in squatted camps around major cities.
Sentiment against Roma has also been hardened by the Italian population’s confusion between them and the mostly non-Roma Romanian migrants who continue to arrrive in Italy and the Roma are scape-goated for crimes committed by these often desperate Romanian refugees – another problem the rigth-wing government has exacerbated rather than attempting to solve.
Around 20 people, many of them Roma, met at the gates of the Italian Embassy in London at Friday lunchtime (17 Oct) to protest against the human rights abuses in Italy which constitute ethnic cleanisng of the Roma. A deputation of four, including Peter Mercer, MBE, the Chair of the National Federation of Gypsy Liaison Groups were allowed into the Embassy to give their views.
Catherine Beard of the UK Association of Gypsy Women and European Forum delegate had brought back a distinctive ‘Against Ethnic Profiling‘ t-shirt from Europe.
After the vigil outside the embassy, a number of the protesters went on to a meeting at the House of Lords.
A few more pictures from the event on My London Diary.