Archive for the ‘Italy’ Category
Naples
ROME — Underscoring the new Italian government’s determination to crack down on illegal immigration and what the government contends is associated crime, Italy’s police arrested hundreds of people this week in a sweep of migrant shantytowns in major urban areas across the country, the police announced Thursday.
Firemen hose down a camp of Roma people that was set on fire on the outskirts of Naples on Wednesday.
Roma left a camp near Naples by bus Thursday. Camps were attacked after a Roma girl was accused of trying to steal a baby.
Nearly 400 people were arrested, including more than 100 who were immediately expelled. The police said more than 100 of those arrested were suspected of violating immigration laws, 180 of theft or prostitution, and 92 of drug dealing. Those arrested included 50 Moroccans and 32 Romanians.
The widely publicized raids were a strong signal from Italy’s new right-wing government, which is led by Silvio Berlusconi and includes the anti-immigrant Northern League Party, that it will keep its promises to pursue tougher policies toward immigrants.
“The anti-immigrant sweep was a positive thing because that’s what people want,” said Umberto Bossi, the minister of institutional reforms and federalism. “People ask us for safety, and we must give it to them.”
Mr. Berlusconi’s coalition, the People of Freedom party, ran on a platform that declared that it would “empty illegal camps, and get rid of nomads who have no residence and no means of subsistence.”
On Saturday, several hundred Italians attacked a camp of Roma, or Gypsies, on the eastern outskirts of Naples brandishing sticks and throwing homemade incendiary devices, after a 16-year-old Roma girl was accused of trying to steal a baby. The police were called to restore order and no one was injured, but the episode led national news programs.
Anti-immigrant sentiments have become harder to square with the European Union’s open border policy, which allows union citizens to settle in any member state. In January, Bulgaria and Romania were admitted to the European Union and their citizens may now live legally in Italy without any special permit.
That includes the Roma ethnic minority, who tend to live separately and resist integration.
An estimated 670,000 illegal immigrants are in Italy.
Italy: eighth mosque attacked in Lombardy
A mosque in a small town outside Milan has been the target of a violent attack – the eighth on mosques in the region of Lombardy surrounding the city.
Italian media reports said the Alif Baa Islamic Centre, in the northern Italian city of Abbiategrasso, 20 kilometres west of Milan, was subjected to fresh violence on Wednesday. Witnesses said a masked man was seen throwing a Molotov cocktail inside the courtyard of the mosque from his motorcycle in the late afternoon. No major damage or injuries were reported in the attack.
This is the eighth assault against Islamic centres in the region of Lombardy in recent months. The Alif Baa Islamic Centre reported other attacks on 25 July and 10 August this year. Another mosque in the nearby city of Segrate was attacked on 5 August and the car of the Imam, Hamid Zariate, was destroyed.
Italy
Roberto Calderoli, 52, a senior member of the Northern League appeared on television wearing a T-shirt printed with one of Danish cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammed. Mr Calderoli has also threatened to defile the proposed site of a mosque in Padua by walking a pig over the ground.
Roberto Calderoli of the anti-immigrant Northern League party said Thursday, September 13, he was ready to bring his own pig to “defile” the site where the mosque is due to be built in the northern city of Bologna.
“I am making myself and my pig available for a walk at the site where they want to build the mosque.”
Calderoli also said he would eat “a nice plateful of pork chops to show my lack of sympathy for those who consider pork forbidden meat.”
Calderoli is no stranger to controversy over Islam and is often accused of making racist comments. When Italy beat France in the 2006 World Cup, he said France had “sacrificed its identity by fielding niggers, Muslims and communists”.
