Report after the approval of the Resolution of November 15, 2007, regarding the continuation of the racist campaign in Italy against the Rroms.

Prepared for
The European Parliament Assembly
President: Hans Gert Poettering

European Commission
President: Jose Manuel Barroso
Commission members: Margot Wallstrom, Gunter Verheugen, Jacques Barrot, Siim Kallas, Franco Frattini, Viviane Reding, Stavros Dimas, Joaqin Almunia, Danuta Hubner, Joe Borg, Dalia Grybauskaite, Janez, Potocnic, Jan Figel, Markos Kyprianou, Olli Rehn, Luis Michel Laszlo Kovacs, Neelie Kroes, Mariann Fischer Boels, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Charlie Mccreevy, Vladimir Spidla, Peter Mandelson, Andris Piebalgs, Melgena Kuneva, Leonard Orban

copy to:

Servizio Eurojus
Avv. Carlo Forte, Servizio Eurojus, Italian Representative of the European Commission, Via IV Novembre, 149 - 00187 Roma info@eurojusitalia.eu
Avv. Elke Kuehnel, Servizio Eurojus, Representative in Milan for the European Commission, Corso Magenta, 59 - 20123 Milano  info@eurojusitalia-mi.eu

European Council
Javier Solana, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union

Report after the approval of the Resolution of November 15, 2007, regarding the continuation of the racist campaign in Italy against the Rroms.

For some time now there has been a tragic series of camp clearances and expulsions involving vulnerable citizens who live on the fringes of Italian cities: families of Rroms thrown out onto the street in the middle of winter and beset by the racial hatred of ordinary citizens influenced by a vast media campaign aimed at criminalizing Rroms. 

 

Following the European Parliament resolution on the application of Directive 2004/38/CE, concerning the rights of EU citizens to circulate freely and reside in member states - approved by the Parliamentary Assembly of November 15, 2007 - the Italian press has only partially reported the news of the resolution and in a totally precarious and distorted fashion.

On November 14, 2007, ANSA summed up the presentation of the European resolution thus:

(ANSA) – STRASBOURG,  NOVEMBER 14.  The groups of the Pse and the Greens of the European Left (Gue) have presented, together with the Liberal Democrats, a common resolution on Directive 38 that regulates the free movement of EU citizens after the debate on the events that followed the murder of Giovanna Reggiani. The resolution presented at a press conference by Gianni Pittella (DS), Claudio Fava (Sd), Monica Frassoni (Verdi) Alfonso Andria (Margherita) Roberto Musacchio (PRC) and Marco Cappato (Radicali) emphasized that the free movement of people is a ‘fundamental and inalieniable right’ for European citizens, and that the directive, while allowing for the possibility of a EU country to expel a EU citizen ‘has set this possibility in well-defined limits for guaranteeing fundamental rights’. 

The text drawn up, which was also signed by several Romanian Euro-MPs, contains an explicit criticism of the Vice-President of the EU commission Franco Frattini, judging his recent comments to the Italian press “in connection with the serious incidents in Rome contrary to the spirit and the letter of the directive”. And it is precisely on this second point that negotiations with groups from the centre-right to reach a joint text to present to the commission came to a halt. The reference to Frattini, said Frassoni, was considered ‘prejudicial’. But, as Fava (Sd) explained “It was a polite reference to Frattini, who we called to account in his institutional role, in that he is Vice-President of the Commission and political father of this directive”. According to Fava, Frattini’s statement was published in several newspapers and therefore it was unlikely to be a passing remark. “We though it important to remind him to take a coherent and responsible stance”, observed the Euro-MP. (ANSA)

In an extract taken from the APCOM agency the same day we read:

Strasbourg, 14 November. (Apcom) – The Centre-Left Euro-MPs presented in Strasbourg today the text of the resolution supported by Pse, Alleanza liberaldemocratica, Verdi and Sinistra unitaria europea (Gue) that the European Parliament is to vote on tomorrow concerning the free movement of EU citizens in EU territory. The draft of the resolution contains a harsh reprimand of the Vice-President of the European Commission, Franco Frattini, responsible for Justice, Freedom and Security, for his statements to the Italian press on November 2nd (and in particular to his interview in Il Messaggero) in which he hinted at the idea that the relevant EU laws (directive 38/2004) would have allowed for the immediate expulsion of Romanian and Roma citizens on the simple verification of a lack of a source of income.

The European Parliament debate and the vote on the resolution were decided after the events following the murder of Giovanna Reggiani; the adoption of the emergency expulsion decree taken up by the government; the racist attack on several Romanian citizens; and Franco Frattini’s interview to ‘Il Messaggero’ and  ‘Sole 24 ore’, excerpts of which were published in the British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph. (Apcom)

The resolution of Directive 2004/38/CE is not simply a warning to Italy to understand the spirit of the “directive on the free movement of EU citizens” and therefore to put it into practice; it is also a clear criticism of the Italian institutions for their discriminatory policies against the Roma people. The European Parliament, with this resolution, calls on Italy to abolish the racism and abuse against the Rromani population. 

And we are not talking about minor violations seeing the laws broken by Italy are the fundamental Treaties and Conventions: the European Union Treaty, the Charter of the fundamental principles of the European Union, the above-mentioned Directive 2004/38/CE of the European Parliament and Council of 29 April, 2004 concerning “the right of EU citizens and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States”; the general policy convention for the European Council safeguarding national minorities: and the various resolutions “having regard to the free movement of persons and the fight against discrimination in all its forms and, in particular, to its resolution of 28 April 2005 on the situation of the Roma in the European Union”.

Apart from the two news agencies mentioned above, taken up briefly the following day by the Corriere della Sera and a few other dailies, the Italian media (in spite of the many press releases and communications sent to them by EveryOne Group and the vast network of international associations and consultants who, on November 7th, 2007 presented to the European Parliament assembly along with EveryOne the document/motion against the discrimination towards Rroms) completely ignored the approval of the resolution and its aim to condemn the behaviour of Italian politicians and institutions who do not apply the directive, or else they have interpreted it erroneously, with tragic consequences for thousands of human beings.

  After the approval of the resolution we see a vast campaign of disinformation taking place, capable of increasing racial hatred towards Rroms. Local administrators and politicians are  still today carrying out camp clearances and expelling Rroms, without attempting to find solutions to make the most of the hard work and integration programmes carried out by EveryOne Group and few other associations and the Rroms themselves. Programmes throughout Italy that are aimed at getting children into schools, finding work for young people and the heads of families in order to guarantee better health and dignified lodgings for Roma, Sinti and Kale families.

 

The Italian press has become an accomplice, almost a promoter of this process of discrimination, by conforming to the ideas of the institutions,  often restricting the truth surrounding many episodes in Italy where Rroms are involved (assaults, brutal attacks and murders, continually stigmatized and almost justified by the journalists). The press has always ignored, particularly recently, the responsibility and the violations in law made by local authorities towards Rroms, while always being alert and amplifying any crime news that involves Romanians and Roma, spreading the blame of individuals to the entire ethnic group. This became evident in the case of the murder of Giovanna Reggiani for which Nicolae Romulus Mailat, a Romanian of Roma origin, was charged – despite a lack of incontrovertible evidence. The press did not hear the side of the Rromani society and culture, taking away their right to speak out and equal opportunities of information. The silence of the press and the caution of the Italian politicians who do not side with the racists (even if they do so indirectly by not taking a decisive stance) are the symptoms of the political negation, rejection, marginalization and discrimination of the Rromani people, a policy of patronage and individualism that ignores the needs of the whole community, one which certainly will not guarantee the country security and legality.

Since November 15, 2007, when the resolution was approved, EveryOne Group has intensified its monitoring of the situation in Italy. This has been made possible partly thanks to information received from members, consultants and friend of EveryOne Group and partly, in the more glaring cases, thanks to press agencies and alternative information websites that have reported prominent facts such as new camp clearances, expulsion orders and assaults carried out against the gyspy community.

Among the many episodes we wish to bring to your attention:

• Opera Nomadi in Abruzzo has informed us of the prejudicial indifference of the local administrators, and in particular the local authorities of Pescara, towards the numerous Italian and European citizens of the Rromani ethnic minority. On this point we have to add, as reported to us, that:

I. at the present time in the Abruzzo region, as in most other Italian regions, there is no appropriate programme for the cultural integration of the Rromani minority;

II. the availability and the management of EU funds for such programmes are not being used by Italy for this purpose;

III. Rroms are being forced to apply to the institutions to change their surnames in an attempt to escape violent racial discrimination: this is taking place in Pescara, amongst the total indifference of local authorities, institutions and society;

IV. for the second year running, in a middle-school class in Pescara, 70% of the pupils are from the Rromani ethnic group. They have therefore created “special classes” (such as happened in Romania until last year) which is contrary to the laws in force in Italy;

V. there is no policy for the right to an education and to discourage the failure and scholastic dispersion of Rromani pupils at present in the Abruzzo region, as well as in most of the other regions in Italy;

VI. there is no policy of any kind in Italy that guarantees the fundamental rights of gyspy minors in obeyancce with the international convention of children’s rights.

VII. there are no policies in Italy for established camps set aside for European Rromani citizens as foreseen in the European Directive 2004/38/CE.

On November 15, 2007, in the course of the “special services” set up by the police chief Carmelo Casabona to single out non-authorized Rromani camps in the Agro Aversano area, three Rromani camps were dismantled at Succivo (Caserta district) in an operation carried out by the police, carabinieri and municipal police. Numerous wooden huts were demolished, the homes of about eighty Rroms of Slav origin, and 16 caravans were removed. Again on November 15,  a maxi-raid was carried out at the Casilino Rromani camp. From 4 in the morning until 10 o’clock, thirty Carabinieri vans, with a helicopter flying low over the camp and a police dog unit present, sealed off the area surrounding the camp to prevent anyone leaving. Checks were carried out in the middle of the night, terrifying whole families and their children and resulting in two Rroms being led away after being found without a residence permit.

• On the eve of Universal Children’s Day, again on November 15, at Borgo Panigale (Bologna) a Romanian child of 4 perished among the flames in his family’s makeshift shelter. His father was able to rescue his two older brothers, aged 8 and 6, who were taken to the burns unit in Padua. Their condition is critical, but their lives are not in any danger. There were at least two electric heaters in the shelter, illegally wired up to the electricity supply to protect themselves against the cold and an oil heater in the children’s room. Arson, manslaughter and bodily harm: the possible crimes the Public Prosecutor in Bologna, Lorenzo Gestri, has notified against persons unknown. According to the Public Prosecutor, the investigation is aimed at establishing “whether the fire developed from a specific cause, how the electric wiring was carried out and where the parents were when the fire broke out”. In this umpteenth case, once again the politicians and media are doing their best to cover up the responsibility of those who leave Rroms in living conditions that has led to Italy being reprimanded by Europe.

They claim the Rroms are the only ones responsible for setting up their illegal camps in the suburbs of our cities, of neglecting their children, of using heating systems that cause fires, of exploiting young children by sending them out begging, “up to 100 euros a day even, when they are not trained to steal” (according to TG3 on Monday 19, November). Not one word against the racist attacks (with various attempts at arson) the Rroms have been subjected to for months. Sergio Cofferati, the mayor of Bologna,  has rejected the accusation of those who spoke of a foreseen tragedy, one that could have been avoided: “It makes no sense to associate this episode with the camp clearances carried out over the last few months”, he claimed.

• On the night of November 15, 2007, in Naples, a Rromani family of six woke up to find their shelter in flames. Three men and three women were attacked during the night in their homes while they slept; one of them suffered burns to the foot. The fire was lit by two Neapolitan minors and one adult – identified by the police soon after – who claimed they wanted revenge for a theft the assaulted Rroms were not responsible for. The Rromani family, terrified by the possibility of future attacks, fled back to Romania, to Buzau, to their city of origin. The police officers of the San Ferdinando police station in Naples immediately ruled out a political-ethnic motive for the fire, while the Rroms tried to explain the connection between this episode and the “hostile climate in Italy caused by Giovanna Reggiani’s murder”.

• On November 19, 2007, a fire broke out in the gyspy camp in Via Germagnano in Turin. A dozen makeshift shelters caught fire, the only ones in the area that weren’t occupied, and no one was injured. Some of the Rroms in the camp say they saw a car stop on the ring-road viaduct and someone throw a petrol bomb. A version investigators deemed unreliable. The episode went unpunished.  In an article published the following day in “La Repubblica”, the journalist commented as follows:

 

"[...] there are many doubts surrounding the episode. First point: No one called the police to report the car stationary on the bridge. No one noticed the four boys, their faces uncovered, who attempted to set fire to the Rromani camp during the rush hour and in the light of day. Second point: Strangely the fire appears to have broken out in the area furthest away from the bridge, too far away for the petrol bomb to have been thrown from the road. Third point: Under the bypass itself – at the point most likely to be reached from the bridge – there is a caravan full of gas cylinders used by all the Rroms in the camp. Strangely - and fortunately – that caravan was not involved in the fire. It was untouched, while the nearby huts went up in smoke. After careful inspection the forensic experts found a smoking beer bottle neck among the ruins.

• On 22 November, 2007 the Minister of the Interior, Giuliano Amato, during a meeting at the Viminale with the prefects of the major Italian cities stated: “It is important that as a means of deterrence, we continue to apply the emergency decree to expel EU citizens, by adopting the various forms of expulsion that derive from the European directive.

EveryOne Group is once more asking for the truth to be made known. The truth surrounding the responsibility of these fires, all immediately described as “accidental”; the truth on the responsibility of the exclusion and deviancy that cannot be attributed to single individuals but are direct consequences of the treatment that Italy and its institutions (including the police force) reserve for the Rroms. 

An attribution of responsibility that, on both a local and national political level should order the immediate cancellation of the emergency decree on security and the introduction of measures that will encourage integration for all Rroms, be they EU or non-EU citizens. Without attempting to offload the blame onto Europe.

After the approval of the European resolution on November 15, nothing has changed in the attitude of the politicians, who with their statements to the press and TV are continuing to instigate xenophobia and repressive behaviour towards the Rroms.

Borghezio (Lega) declares: “we need more checks on the Rromani at the borders, with obligatory biometric identification and fingerprint taking: we have to know who we are letting into our country and the precise date of entry, in order that we can later apply the law that permits the expulsion, after three months, of those who have no means of support”. Borghezio also emphasized during his speech in the Strasbourg court on November 13th that “the spirit of the treaty is that of safeguarding the security of European citizens, and therefore longer queues at the border and airport are preferable to the free entrance of the worst kind of delinquency.”

“There is an attempt to transfer a political vote into an official act of no confidence towards the Italian European Commissioner”, claims Isabella Bertolini, the vice-president of the Forza Italia MPs. “The ruling by the European Parliament cannot in any way influence the rigorous and determined application of a European directive that offers us the possibility of getting rid of those who live in our country with no means of support”.

 

And lastly, Walter Veltroni, the leader of the Partito Democratico and Mayor of Rome, already known for his statements (published in Newsweek in an article by Barbie Nadau on October 5h, 2007)  in which he “criminalized “ Europe’s Rroms, declared a few days ago to the annual Ager assembly that “we cannot give homes to the 700-800 people who arrive in Rome every week. This migration, after the opening of the borders, is no longer sustainable, not only by Rome, but by any other Italian city”.

EveryOne Group, in consideration of the above-mentioned points, asks the European Parliamentary Assembly, the European Commission and the European Council, and their highest representatives, to take immediate action against the discriminatory policies underway in Italy carried out by the Government and local authorities. The state, city councils and local authorities have to take immediate action to provide suitable shelter: these people must not be left to live in makeshift sheds without heating during the cold winter months. Tragedies like the fire in which the young child died in Bologna are becoming an everyday occurrence - all the result of marginalization and the unhealthy conditions in which Roma and Sinti citizens (even those with regular residence permits and steady jobs) are forced to live in, and for whom protection is not a guaranteed right.

As for the policy of camp clearances, it cannot be used as a solution to this problem. Europe has the moral and civil duty to reprimand Italy and call on it to guarantee a better hospitality inside its cities, as well as to encourage suitable integration policies.

From sources near to EveryOne Group, we have had confirmation that the camp clearances carried out recently in Turin, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, Florence, Rome and Naples have had tragic consequences: dozens of families were kicked out of the camps, their makeshift homes demolished. They were abandoned on the street, without any programmes of social integration and completely isolated from society.

These families, often accompanied by many small children, found themselves robbed of even makeshift lodgings and forced to occupy abandoned buildings owned by town councils, or to set up home illegally n open areas on the outskirts of cities. There are many such cases in Lombardy and Tuscany, where EveryOne Group and Caritas Livorno are following, in mutual synergy, various families who have been subjected to threats and persecution.  

Signed

EveryOne Group
Roberto Malini,  Matteo Pegoraro,  Dario Picciau, Jean (Pipo) Sarguera, Dott. Santino Spinelli, Daniela De Rentiis, Marcel Courthiade, Saimir Mile,  Ahmad Rafat,  Arsham Parsi,  Laura Todisco,  Glenys Robinson,  Steed Gamero,  Fabio Patronelli, Stelian Covaciu,  Udila Ciurar,  Alessandro Matta,  Cristos Papaioannou, Paul Albrecht.

Promoters and Consultants

Centre Culturel Gitan, Pavillons-sous-Bois (France) • Promoters and Consultants • La Voix des Rroms (Paris) • Gypsy Lore Society (Usa) • Group of Migrants & Refugees of Salonica • Union Gypsy • Roma Right Watch • Union Rromani • Roma Press Center (Budapest) • Opera Nomadi • Associazione Çingeneyiz (Rroms in Turkey) • Romani Yah - Association and Newspaper of Romas from Transcarpathia • Roma Virtual Network • Tamara Deuel (Israel), Holocaust survivor – activist against the discrimination of Rroms • Mercedes Lourdes Frias, Italian Republic Depute (Rifondazione Comunista - Sinistra Europea) • Etudes Tsiganes (Paris) • Alain Reyniers, anthropologist at the University of Louvain-La-Neuve (Belgium), expert in Rroma, Sinti and Kale cultures • European Roma Information Office • Roma Diplomacy Programme • John Pearson, Secretary, Democratic Socialist Alliance, UK • Gady Castel (Israel), director, director of the Jewish Film Festival "Jewish Eyes" of Tel Aviv, author of documentaries on the Holocaust • Cristina Matricardi, founder of the first  Multiethnic kindergarten "Oasis" - Genoa • Maria Eugenia Esparragoza, cultural mediator,  member of the Ministerial Intercultural Technical Committee • Professor Matt T. Salo, researcher and publisher, expert in Gypsy culture • Emiliano Laurenzi, giornalista •  Paolo Buconi, Yiddish and Klezmer musician • Marius Benta, journalist • Seven Times (Romania) • Ted Coombs, Director of Hilo Art Museum (Holocaust and Genocide art) • Steve Davey, co-director of the Hilo Art Museum (Holocaust and Genocide Art) • Mirjam Pinkhof, survivor of the Shoah, Holocaust heroine who saved 70 Jewish children from the Nazis • Halina Birenbaum, survivor of the Shoah, writer and teacher • Oni Onhaus, Holocaust witness • Manzi Onhaus, Auschwitz survivor • Elisheva Zimet, Auschwitz survivor • Alice Offenbacher, Bergen Belsen survivor• Mirko Bezzecchi, survivor the Samudaripen • Antonia Bezzecchi, survivor the Samudaripen • Hanneli Pick-Goslar, friend of Anne Frank, Holocaust survivor • Michael Petrelis, veteran  Human Rights Advocate (Usa) • Stichting Buitenlandse Partner • Professor Saimir Mile, jurist, lecturer in Rromani, Sinti and Kale culture at the University of Paris (INALCO), General-Secretary of the Centre of Research and Action in France Against all Forms of Racism, member of EveryOne Group • Jean (Pipo) Sarguera, President of the Centre culturel gitan – Paris • Emeritus professor Marcel Courthiade, holder of the chair of Rromani, Sinti and Kale language and civilization at the University of Paris (INALCO) • Kibbutz Netzer Sereni, Israel • Antonia Arslan,  essayist and writer • Caffé Shakerato - Intercultura - Genova • Simona Titti, Caritas Livorno • Gazeta de Sud, Cotidian al oltenilor de pretutindeni (Romania) • Oana Olaru, journalist (Romania) • Fabio Contu, playwright and teacher, Comunità Sant'Egidio, Genova • Allie, Gypsy News, NE, Ohio, United States • Guri Gentian - Group of Migrant&Refugees of Salonica •  Associazione Yakaar Italia Senegal • Thèm Romano ONLUS Association