The Euro MP also met Rebecca Covaciu, the young girl who has become famous all over europe after an article published in “ El Pais” , and Victor and Elena Lacatus, parents of little lenuca carolea who died in the fire in livorno last year.
In the meantime while the ministry announces: “on monday we will start the headcount with blood samples taken from roma children and adults, investing large sums of taxpayers’ money for the headcount, infections are rife in the camps and there is a lack of medicines, medical assistance, water and food.
The leaders of the EveryOne Group to the italian representatives of the European Commission: “make italy respect the rights of a persecuted people”
Saturday19th and Sunday 20th, Viktoria Mohascì, the Euro MP, a Hungarian of the Roma ethnic group was accompanied by members of EveryOne Group to some Roma settlements and camps in Rome, where she was able to meet, in a friendly and concentrated climate, several families who were able to testify with their stories and experiences over the last few months the level of persecution and discrimination the Roma people in Italy are subjected to. The visit was organised by EveryOne Group, with the collaboration of representatives of the European Parliament Ottavio Marzocchi and Elisabetta Vivaldi, who accompanied the delegation to the camps.
The inspection and the meetings took place on Saturday afternoon, with a meeting that lasted until late in the evening at the Roma camp in Via Baiardo, 50 in the Tor di Quinto area of Rome. The representatives of EveryOne called together several Roma families from Potenza, Rimini, Pesaro, Livorno and other Italian cities.
Shortly before, Roberto Malini and Matteo Pegoraro, leaders together with Dario Picciau of EveryOne had taken part in a meeting behind closed doors with the Italian representatives of the European Commission in Via IV Novembre, where they were able to report to the person in charge of the European Commission’s action unit against discrimination many of the acts of persecution that are taking place in Italy. Persecution in the form of the shameful camp clearances, beatings by members of the police force and the removal of children from their parents by the social services of several local authorities – Florence, Naples, Rome and Milan at the forefront – on the sole excuse that their parents are poor.
Malini and Pegoraro asked Europe to “make Italy respect the dignity of human life, and reminded Joachim Ott, the German coordinator of the work group fighting discrimination of Roma citizens in the European Union; the Euro MPs present; and the leaders of the associations for human rights; of the warning by Piero Terracina, survivor of the Shoah: ‘The persecution of the Roma people in Italy is terribly similar to the persecution we Jews were subjected to sixty years ago: when a people are defamed, starved, deprived of its children and thrown out onto the street, it means the horror has returned’.
Viktoria Mohacsì immediately met Rebecca Covaciu, the young girl the Colombian newspaper “El tiempo” described as Europe’s most famous woman at the present, (together with Ingrid Betancourt) after “El Pais” devoted its first three pages of the newspaper to a long article on her story. Rebecca, who along with her family for the last eighteen months has been assisted by members of EveryOne, told the Euro MP about how two Italian police officers in Milan on 17th and 20th of June beat up her, her father Stelian and younger brother without any reason, except perhaps to force them to leave Italy immediately and return to Romania. Now Rebecca, who was recently awarded the 2008 Unicef Prize for her artistic gifts, lives with her family in the south of Italy, thanks to the extraordinary help from an Italian family who contacted EveryOne offering to let the Covacius live in their country home
“But to arrive at this positive integration” Malini, Pegoraro and Picciau explained to the Euro MP, “Rebecca and her family have had to suffer great hardship and abuse, so much so they were forced to leave racist Milan in secret and reach a small village in a farming area where fortunately the people still have a strong sense of welcome and civilization”.
Then it was the turn of Nico Grancea, the Roma singer who sings against racism. His young pregnant wife (as reported in the press) was beaten up in Rimini in broad daylight in front of dozens of indifferent people. Then Elena (A fantasy name to protect her identity) told Viktoria Mohachsì about the tragedy of the women, children and men living in the camp; the cruelty of the authorities, the lack of any serious health, social, professional, and scholastic projects for their integration. Ionit Ciuraru, a young Romanian Rom, then reported the phenomenon of the children being taken from their parents by the institutions, in support of Mrs Mohacsì’s own battle.
And finally, Victor and Elena Lacatus, (the parents of one the children murdered in the fire in Livorno in August 2007) deeply shocked the Euro MP with the story of their tragedy. Victor and Elena are still living without any assistance, without the possibility of finding work, and living in a makeshift shelter near Pisa station with no electricity, running water or sanitation.
Piero Terracina, a survivor of Auschwitz, was taken around the Tor di Quinto camp by Dario Picciau. Mr Terracina testified as to how similar the treatment the Roma people are receiving today is to the treatment reserved for the Jews in the years of the racial laws and the Holocaust. “I am sorry you have had to relive after all these years what you yourself went through, this time with the Roma people”, said Mrs Mohacsì as she shook Piero Terracina’s hand.
"In the camp, director Dario Picciau with an American film crew lead by Liam Leahy, shot the documentary film (devised and written by Roberto Malini) “The Mice and the Stars”, which will reveal to the world the humanitarian crimes being committed by the institutions and racist Italian movements towards the Roma."
In the meantime the press office of the Interior Ministry, contacted by a member of EveryOne yesterday evening, told us over the phone that the ethnic profiling will begin on Monday, accompanied by the taking of blood samples, particularly from the Roma children, with the purpose both of checking for viruses and for defining who the children’s parents are. “Fingerprinting is a thing of the past” say the leaders of EveryOne.
“Now the Ministry will hold an authentic genetic archive of the Roma people.
This is how Pietro Terracina, Auschwitz survivor, commented on the news: “If these measures have been taken against Roma citizens alone, it is a monstrous case of racial persecution”.
EveryOne Group is asking the human rights organizations and Roma leaders to organise, in an anti-rascist network, a form of Gandhian resistance to hinder and sabotage with non-violent methods the profiling operations and blood sample taking in the various camps in Italy. “When we visit camps, we realise how living conditions of the Roma people are deteriorating all the time. At Tor di Quinto, like in all the other settlements, viral, bacterial and fungal infections are rife; the children are full of parasites and suffer from respiratory and heart problems and gastroenteritis. It’s like going back in time to see the Warsaw Ghetto, with its lack of medicines and medical assistance, water and food. The elderly die, the children die, everyone falls sick. “Time is running out” conclude Malini, Pergoraro and Picciau. “Let’s hope the Roma people in the camps don’t allow themselves to be intimidated so that they are unable to offer their direct contribution. We have to stick together against this new stage of the anti-gypsy campaign.
Let us remember that the first stage of the persecution carried out by the institutions, mainly against the Romanian Roma, led to a shameful mass expulsion: of the 30,000 Romanian Roma, less than 3,000 have remained in Italy.
We have to thank the governments of Spain, France and Greece who have taken in the majority of refugees fleeing from the persecution in Italy: is it thanks to those countries that a humanitarian catastrophe has so far been avoided. Romania, on the other hand, should overcome its diplomatic fears and report the tragic return of Roma families crushed by the ill-treatment they received and in many cases, deprived for no reason of their children. According to Nico Grancea, a Romanian Roma, activist and member of EveryOne, the expulsion was carried out precisely because the families were threatened their children would be taken from them if they didn’t leave Italy.”
For further information:
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