Italy’s dark past against the Roma returns

Strong sanctions are needed by Europe to condemn the Italian government’s brutality against the Roma people?

What we see in Italy these days is beyond what is reasonably toward a petty crime problem, but open and outright governmental actions against the Roma people, described as a “state of emergency.” The human rights of the Roma people are being thrown out the window in actions against resemble the darker days of Italy, where 500,000 Roma were exterminated in Nazi death camps. Now, the Roma are being burned out of their camps, brutally beaten in front of their children and not allowed to be in public by being told to leave from supermarkets and coffee shops. In many respects, the “method of social control” of the Roma resembles the method behind Jim Crow laws of the American South. In many respects, the actions of the Berlusconi government against the Roma resemble the actions of Slobodan Milosevic against the Kosovar Albanians.

The “decree of the state of emergency” was aimed exclusively at the Roma that is described as unprecedented in the post-WWII era. This “state of emergency” power normally applies to natural disasters which allows local authorities to wield powers to deal with the “problem.” In this case, the “nomadic communities,” meaning that all people of the Roma people are the targets. The idea that a group of people can be regarded as the equivalent of natural calamities, catastrophes and disasters is unprecedented in the post-WWII era.

Along with the declaration that the presence of a group of people is a “state of emergency” is the fingerprinting of children. Fingerprinting is a common criminal justice practice – it is also a practice that is being use in Italy for two reasons. First, to tell the Roma people, especially children that they are “nothing by criminals and are born criminals. Second – some suspect that the purpose is to build a database of “future criminals.” Roma children are being cast as “future criminals,” just by virtue of their ethnicity as Roma.

While the report from the European Roma Rights Centre has some recommendations, there is a need for stronger reaction against legalized bigotry and persecution of a group of people when it pops up in a Member States. While on of the recommendations is for Italian criminal justice system to prosecute those who attack Roma people, there needs to be immediate and strong reaction, such as emergency meetings of the Commission and Council, which should result in perhaps suspension of European Union membership and a force probation period for Italy, which includes monitoring its criminal justice system, as well as monitoring the statements of the speeches of government officials.

Hash are fascist-like responses to petty crime and irregular migration on the part of a European Union Member State that brutalize human rights – needs an immediate and strong reaction on the part of the international community, as well as the European Union. Anti-Gitanism and the systematic and government sactioned persecution of the Roma must be punished - and Italy's punishment must serve an example to other Member States....