International

Berlusconi clamps down on Gypsies

Naples: Silvio Berlusconi’s new rightwing Cabinet, at its first meeting in Naples on Wednesday, endorsed a package of tough measures aimed at Gypsies and clandestine immigrants. In a move that appeared certain to cause controversy, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said local authorities would be empowered to check on the living conditions of citizens from other EU nations before granting them right of residence.

The measure appeared to be aimed at Roma living in encampments, and particularly at the estimated 50,000 Romanian Gypsies who have entered Italy in recent years and who are being blamed for much of the recent rise in crime rates.

The Cabinet also decided to make unauthorised entry into Italy a crime. The measures will make it easier to expel foreigners, including EU citizens, who are convicted of offences, a move that could bring the Berlusconi government into conflict with Brussels if it is judged to breach European law on freedom of movement within the EU.

In addition, the Cabinet agreed to the confiscation of property let to illegal immigrants, a rule that could have instant and drastic effects on hundreds of thousands of foreigners known to be living in Italy without the right papers. Adults who force children to beg will face imprisonment.

Introducing the package, Italy’s Prime Minister said it was intended to assure “the right of Italians not to be afraid — a fundamental right that the state must guarantee”.

Several hundred immigrants and Roma joined a protest against the criminalisation of illegal entry. Until now, people from outside the E.U. found to be living in Italy without a residence permit has been served with an expulsion notice. But only in selected cases have clandestine immigrants been escorted to a frontier.

“The problem is that the authorities have let so much time go by since the last amnesty that now there are lots of us without the right papers,” said one of the leaders of the protest, a Senegalese man who identified himself only as Osman. Officials are said to be wrestling with about 7,29,000 applications for legal residence.

The Cabinet meeting was held against an incendiary background of electoral rhetoric that Mr. Berlusconi’s critics have linked to recent lapses into “mob justice”. In Naples last week, a Roma camp was repeatedly attacked following the arrest of a young woman accused of trying to abduct a child. After the inhabitants had been moved for their own protection, the buildings and caravans were burned to the ground, apparently by vigilantes acting on orders from the mafia. The incident has shocked Gypsy communities.

“They can’t throw me out because I’m an Italian citizen,” said Ahmetovic, whose mother arrived in Italy from Yugoslavia in the 1960s. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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