What is happening in Italy pains me as Roma and as Italian citizen but also as a human being. Having seen the Roma children and women escape under the launch of Molotov in may was a terrifying event. These images are passed only on Sky pay-TV and not on national networks unencrypted. After months none was suspected, no blame, no one will pay for attempted massacre.

There is a deafening silence at this time in Italy. A guilty silence, criminal act ... It can lead to a dangerous cultural genocide that we know Roma on our skin with the name of Porrajmos.

How is it possible that the Italian situation is very clear abroad seen the warning of the European Parliament and the High Commissioner while in Italy nobody noticed anything? Not a single authoritative voice was raised to condemn the inhuman situation of the Roma! A scapegoat useful and necessary built ad hoc because of polluted! Stop the mystifications! The Roma fled from war in the Balkans instead of obtaining the status of political refugees were kept in a limbo with no recognition and today to be fled from the war are illegal and therefore will be prosecuted There are European funds intended for integration of the Roma, European citizens, not used by our governments doing to believe that the integration of the Roma and Sinti in Italy and burdensome for all Italians! The safety and legality must be guaranteed to all. Roma and Sinti included. We must restore legality about the blatant violation of the most elementary human rights against romanès different communities in Italy, forced to live in discriminatory conditions in stark contrast to the Italian Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and European standards and international. We must dismantle the camps nomads who are social bin degrading and frustrating, centres of racial segregation and permanent symbol of discrimination.

The direct consequence of repressive policies and not a choice of life as the public is led to believe by some journalism, from some literature, some film, by some documentarists, by certain representatives of associations of pseudo-volunteers and certain pseudo - experts. Those who live today in the fields yesterday nomads had homes in Romania or in the former Yugoslavia. 70% of the population romanì in Italy has Italian citizenship and lives in homes (the arrival dates back to the fifteenth century). We must develop urban settlements facilitating the use of public services and encouraging as possible equal access to schooling, employment and health care. We must promote knowledge of history and culture of Roma and Sinti to combat negative stereotypes and promote integration. Currently gives 99% of media space to chronicle el ’1% of space to cultural events that while we organize throughout the national territory (Festivals, concerts, shows, exhibitions, conferences, film fe stivals, literary competitions, etc.). Take note of the blatant failure of ’welfarism of voluntary associations that have arrogate the right to represent the Roma and Sinti, to decide the future of our children. It squander annually hundreds of thousands of euros for projects of little or no value for the Roma and Sinti.

In recent months in Italy there has been an escalation of events that now you briefly summarize :

 In May at Ponticelli, near Naples, racist groups have bombed with molotof a field romn a result of incorrect information given by the national press.

 On 17th and 20th of June two Italian police officers in Milan beat up Rebecca Covacius, her father Stelian and younger brother without any reason, except perhaps to force them to leave Italy immediately and return to Romania. Rebecca, was recently awarded the 2008 Unicef Prize for her artistic gifts.

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.

Piero Terracina, a survivor of Auschwitz, was taken around the Tor di Quinto and 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”, “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. “ contrary to stated position of the Italian Government, and the declarations of the Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, the treatment of the Rom in Italy is assuming the characteristics of a terrible persecution that, if judged by the International Court at the Hague would certainly be classified as a crime against humanity. 140,000 Rome are currently living in Italy, of whom more than 70,000 (among these more than 35,000 children) are homeless, evicted on a daily basis from abandoned buildings, beneath bridges, parks and rubbish dumps. The break-ups of mini-settlements have multiplied compared to last year and we don’t see how tens of thousands of Rom men, women and children will be able to survive without food or medicine when temperatures drop below zero next winter. While the big Rom camps are monitored by charities and human rights groups (and despite this still subject to institutional abuse of every kind) the evictions of settlements made up of single families or small groups are causing a dispersal of tens of thousands of Rom who, after they’ve been moved away and often deported from the council or region, end up vanishing. The evictions are taking place at a fierce rhythm. In the Commune of Sesto Fiorentino in Tuscany, a settlement of over 130 Romanian and Kosovar Rom – mostly pregnant w omen, children and sick people – was brutally broken up in daylight by the police on the orders of the mayor Gianni Gianasi, without the inhabitants being offered any alternative place to stay.

This is a practice, much more common than you might think, that is part of the day-to-day running of all those so-called “illegal” camps where Rom families are forced to live without water, electricity or toilets, in sheds or makeshift tents. The Rom in Italy are stopped and questioned daily and repeatedly by law-enforcement officers who persecute them until, exasperated, they move on. They are ignored by employers or, worse, terribly exploited, forced to take on the most dangerous jobs without a legal contract and underpaid. Entire families are forced by discrimination and racial prejudice to beg in the cities, on the pavement or outside churches, without any programme of integration or welcome, and no chance of entering the waiting list for council housing. Epidemics, infections, parasites, malnutrition and other illnesses run rampant among these people. Local, provincial and regional organisations often refuse to speak to human rights activists and, at the same time, block in any way they can – on occasion police chiefs and officers have attempted to intimidate us.

 On June 24th, as you’ll be aware, the Italian Senate approved the new security decree that allows for, among other things, the deployment of the army in cities, being an illegal immigrant as an aggravating factor in sentencing and the “trial-blocking” norm with a view to speeding up the legal system. The power of this last provision that is antidemocratic and damaging to human rights cannot be underestimated: the fast-track trials remove from the accused caught in the act (at least according to those same authorities who are often guilty of the most serious abuses) all rights of defence. We know of many cases where Rom and other immigrants have been condemned with this procedure. Article 11 of the Declaration of Human Rights, point 1, affirms that “everyone should be considered innocent until their guilt has been legally demonstrated in a public trial where they have every opportunity to defend themselves”. This, Commissioner, is not happening in Italy, and the fast-track tr ial allows police officers to transform themselves into “street judges”, denying citizens the right to a fair trial.

Nico Grancea, told us his experience: “Last year,” he told us, “my mother had a kidney removed. She was operated on in Milan by not very professional doctors and she was very ill when she left hospital. When we were evicted from the Sesto San Giovanni camp, we moved out of Lombardy and went to Pesaro in the Marches, where we found shelter in an industrial building. The alternative was to let my mother die in the street. The owner of the building reported us to the police who came to evict us without offering any alternative. Nobody, neither social work nor religious organisations, helped us. We endured terrible months after the eviction.” However, Nico and his father didn’t just have to face up to the difficulties of poverty, marginalisation and sleeping rough. “When we were evicted,” he told us, “we were charged with the illegal occupation of private property. The verdict is already written because the magistrate will sentence us to jail. But there won’t be a normal trial wi th a defence lawyer. Since we were caught in the act, our trial will be fast-tracked and we will have no rights. The fast-track trial allows the judge to condemn us, in fact, without even calling us.” Furthermore, the Italian Supreme Court recently handed down a sentence that goes against the principle of non-discrimination and all the international conventions of human rights, but which, above all, decriminalises racial discrimination against the Rom.

The court absolved the Northern League mayor of Verona, Fabio Tosi, accused by the prosecutor Guido Papalia of “spreading discriminatory ideas”. In 2001, Tosi, leader of the Northern League in Veneto, distributed a petition and flyers against illegal travellers’ camps. During his campaign against the Rom, he stated “the Gypsies have to be sent away because wherever they go thieving takes place”. The reason for his absolution is the following: “Discriminating against someone because they’re different is different from discriminating against someone because they’re a criminal. Someone can legitimately be discriminated against for the way they behave but not for their being different.” According to the Supreme Court, “Discrimination has to be based on the characteristics of the victim (being Black, Gypsy, Jewish, etc) and not on how they behave.” According to the Italian Supreme Court, therefore, the Rom can be accused of being delinquents because this affirmation does not refer to their “blood” but to their “social danger”. In the same way, following this sentence, any other minority can be accused of being filthy, immoral, uncivil, cheating. Or in one word, “asocial”: the same thing the Nazis accused the Rom of to justify their persecution and extermination. In the same way, the persecution and extermination of the Jewish people were often related to stereotypes that weren’t related to their “diversity” but to their assumed behaviour, their “criminality” and their “asociality”. Thus they were accused on numerous occasions throughout history of being sly and diabolical, greedy and lustful, dirty and superstitious, full of envy towards Christians and dedicated to obscure plots to overthrow social values. In Italy we are living in a police state, in a sort of regime – the term may seem over-the-top but we assure you it’s not that is progressively removing from its citizens every constitutional guarantee and that represses antifascism and antiracism with an ever- heavier hand that is inappropriate in a democracy and for justice.

Regarding this, we wish to inform you of another unacceptable situation that has been occurring for some time and damaging innocent Rom families: the illegal removal by social work departments of Italian councils of minors from their families, making use of the children’s courts in various cities. “Over the space of a couple of years all trace has been lost of 12 Rom children who were removed from the parents by the Naples Children’s Court,” revealed Euro MP for the ALDE Group Viktoria Mohacsi, during her recent visit to a number of Rom camps in the South of Italy. “Some of these children were accused of begging, but the parents have heard nothing about them for two years”. In some case, the children are taken into “indefinite foster care” by social workers. Deprived of their children, often in the space of a few hours, following a spurious police check, sometime after being administered powerful sleeping pills or other drugs, rendering them incapable of opposition, the mothe rs are subject to a further moral and psychological blow that is so traumatic it often leads them to attempt suicide. In Rome, according to testimony, one young mother threw herself in front of a car, killing herself, after realising her child of a few months was not going to be returned to her. Having been deprived of their children (a few months old, but also four, five, six years or older) the Rom families are subject to every kind of pressure and intimidation until they give up protesting or turning to the legal system for help (that, in Italy anyway, is already deficient when it comes to defending Rom). In many cases, after their children have been taken away, the parents received a written or verbal notification of expulsion. Unfortunately, we have come across similar cases to this in Florence, Fano, Naples and Milan as well, but there are dozens of Italian towns and cities where this cruel practice that tramples human rights is carried out by local authorities in cahoots with the police and children’s courts it is necessary that the European Commission to assume a clear position with regard to resolutions and admonitions that so far the Italian authorities have gleefully ignored. While dealing with this and dozens of other serious abuses, we have been informed about the deaths of a number of babies following eviction operations and all sorts of violence against Rom children, woman (often pregnant) and men, especially Romanians. Senator Borghezio of the Northern League commented happily on these actions of ethnic cleansing: “We’re having a good clean-out in Padania”. Newspapers and television that have now been reduced to propaganda organs pay no attention at all to these crimes against humanity and operate a policy of total censorship with regard to the information is essential to inform you about this series of events that have been subject to censorship by the Italian media as well as central and local authorities. These events need to be severely condemned in a European setting and urgent provisions have to be made to look after the tens of thousands of Rom families dispersed throughout Italy in terrible social and health conditions. The onset of winter could cause a humanitarian disaster in the Rom community, an unprecedented genocide, amidst total indifference in our country. We make our sorrowful appeal to you in the hope that Europe will bring Italy back to a proper respect of human rights.

Naples, July 19th - Two young girls of the Roma ethnic group drowned yesterday in front of Torregaveta beach along the Neapolitan coast, The press reports the tragedy based on witness accounts: an accident. Four young girls, all of the Roma ethnic group and aged between 11 and 13, were begging on the beach, when suddenly they decided to take a dip in the sea. They were unable to swim, the sea was rough and they drowned in front of more than 70 bathers. No one went to the girls’ rescue, while the emergency services called to the spot saved two of the girls and recovered the lifeless bodies of the other two. The children came from the “gypsy” camp of Secondigliano. But the dynamics of what happened are unconvincing. There is something strange about the fact that four young girls who are non- swimmers would throw themselves fully-clothed into a rough sea (which can’t have been that rough seeing there were many other people, including several children, in the water at the same ti me). There is something strange about the fact that four young girls would dive into the waves in front of dozens of people, forgetting all about their traditional modesty. Unconvincing too is the fact that in a climate hostile to the Roma people, they would stop begging for money in order to abandon themselves to a joyous, carefree activity without fearing what people around them would say. the most shocking aspect of all this (and this is visible to everyone from press photos and TV pictures of the moments after the bodies were recovered) is the attitude of the people on the beach. No one appears the slightest upset at the sight and presence of the children’s dead bodies on the beach: they carry on swimming, sunbathing, sipping soft drinks and chatting. Unreal, cruel scenes, indicative of how racism has transformed the Italian people into a inhuman people, educated by propaganda to consider the Roma people on a level with animals, unworthy of sentiments of pity and pain. The lifeless bodies of the two children killed by the sea and racial hatred lie on the sand, before dozens of eyes, yet no one seems to have realised what has happened. They continue to enjoy the warmth of the sun and the sea’s waves. Two jellyfish, two dead fish lie – motionless – on the sand.

In the summer the unexpected proposal from the Extraordinary Commissioner for the Roma in Rome Carlo Mosca: use of male adolescents in the Roma ethnic group of shoeshine - "shoeshine boys". Those who responded that Mosca has proposed such a situation, which humiliate the young Roma in perpetuity in the face of the Italians, putting them on their knees before them and their opulence, like slaves, with an openly racist regard, the prefect of Rome replied: ’ ’I will not retract a single word. The important thing is to guarantee the right to work and create a new sense of responsibility and the idea must be shared with the Roma community. My proposal respects the Italian laws on labor, is a proposal which affects only those over 14 years’’. Incredibly, some political figures, even "left party”, defending the idea of Mosca. The shadow Minister of Defense Roberta Pinotti (PD) commented that in his opinion the idea of Mosca expresses "the sense of who knows deeply the subject of Roma." But then she thought and said that "perhaps Mosca has used a folk image to emphasize a concept that I feel and need to share: enhance the capabilities of these guys that have always been very good in manual work."

That is absurd, because the Roma children have the same potential as all other both in manual work in both intellectual and should allow them to make any kind of study, rather than shoeshine.

But even the chairman of the Red Cross Massimo Barra agrees with the idea of shoeshine Roma boys as "a positive step, beyond the terminology, a proposal to appreciate, the Extraordinary Commissioner for the Roma, because ’idleness in which these young people live is the father of vices and what the fighting is always positive.

The racist movements have always made use of strong symbolic images, for use in propaganda to highlight the alleged superiority of one race compared to those persecuted. There was a poster advertising of 1930, which presented the image of a young black shoeshine intent on polishing the boots of a white man. It ’a paradigm, very experienced in the sphere neofascisti and intolerant. In Monza, a police officer requires Roma children - according to some witnesses - to burnish the boots, as a sign of submission. Then, humiliate them with a tip.

At the end of august: In the Casilino 900 Roma camp, that is the biggest in the capital and has been often at the centre of current a crew of the Hungarian "Duna" TV was filming a documentary at the Casilino 900 Roma camp, the biggest in Rome and the most ancient of Europe, when their filming was cut short by the police. The initially imposed sanction could have been the start of a diplomatic affair had it not been solved by the intervention of the Embassy and of the Prefectorate. Finally, after more than an hour, the situation was solved and the police returned all the material to the crew. The case was an attempt at censorship".

September 2, - In Legnaro, in the province of Padua a fire destroyed the shed and the carousel that belonged to some Sinti. Unfortunately, the fire killed in a horrific way two young engaged couple. He had 19 years, she 18. Died burnt alive.

September 5, at 12. Three families were in a caravan park in the square Vittorio Veneto, Bussolengo [Verona]. Families formed by of Angel and Sonia Campos with their five children from the couple’s adult son with his wife and two children, also the brother-in-law Christian Hudorovich with his companion and their three children. Among the caravan park is already one of Denis Rossetto, their friend. They are all Italian citizens of Roma origin.

What happens after the recounts Cristian, who has thirty-eight years old and was born in San Giovanni Valdarno [Arezzo]. Cristian lives in Busto Arsizio [Varese] and is an evangelist preacher among the Roma community in Lombardia (region in the north of Italy). They were preparing lunch, and came a patrol of Urban vigilant to tell us to move within a couple of hours. They replied that we would have eaten and that we would be immediately distributed. After a few minutes arrive two policamen. We are told to move immediately then they begin to beat, including minors, they were then taken to the police command and here they were tortured for hours, finally released.

September 11, a blitz of Law Enforcement to the field ROM dell’’Ordine Casilina 900 from Rome led to the detention of more than 20 people in the field, loaded on buses Police without any justification and released after 12 hours of anguish. "My father was inexplicably stopped," revealed a witness, pending the release of the 20 Roma, "we are worried about him. I hope that solves everything for the better, but how can you live like that? We are 24 plants by police hours a day, we do not have human rights and we are going through a malavitosa, although, in reality, only live in families in desperate conditions. ’impossible to work and citizenship us looks with suspicion. Surviving is a daily, increasingly harsh, but it is the only goal that remains, the people of Casilina 900 ". "This is an intimidating action in the view of the Roma camp visit, next September 19, by a delegation of the European Parliament - announced in recent days with an official letter from the President of the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament, Gérard Deprez , to Interior Minister Maroni, Mr Fini and Schifani and the mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno.

Roma of Casilina 900 are terrified. In recent weeks, several times they “were encouraged” not to speak with journalists and visitors and not to communicate the abuse suffered. Recently, moreover, police officers prevented the Roma of Casilina to have guests and whoever controlled entry or exit from the field. A strategy of terror had created tension and suspicion within the community. The Delegation of the European Parliament would have to make surprise visits to the camps: unfortunately all, however, knows that the Casilina 900 is a settlement that will be inspected Friday September 19.

Given the current condition in Italy we express great concern about the methodologies implemented by EU institutions to restore respect for human rights and European law in Italy. While the European Parliament adopted some resolutions and issued warnings to obtain from the Italian government and local institutions respect for the rights of the Roma population, the interruption in the repression, the initiation of integration policies, it is equally true that Resolutions and Admonitions have not followed any kind of sanctions, allowing the government and local administrations in Italy to continue, without scruples or limitations, the operations of ethnic purge.

We underline how the Italian government has made a mockery of Parliament resolutions (publicly ridicule) and warnings from the United Nations, the Catholic Church and the main organizations for Human Rights, continuing with the oppressive and discriminatory measures and encouraging each municipality to implement actions directed towards scouring the Roma people. Likewise, institutions, authorities and Italian media (in Italy the media receive substantial funding from the government, which exercises de facto control on heavy) have deliberately ignored the alarm raised by racism eminent personalities and high morality as Juan de Dios Ramírez Heredia, Piero Terracina, Nedo Fiano, Tamara Deuel, Marcel Courthiade, Moni Ovadia, Jeanne Gamonet, Saimir Mile, that familiar with the dynamics of racism and persecution in history.

The fact that the instruments of the European Union - Resolutions and Warnings - have proved ineffective, raises serious concerns about the moral forces of the Union and its ability to preserve democracy, civilization and respect for fundamental human rights. It is necessary to prevent - the source - that politicians and parties of racist or fascist can conduct election campaigns based racial hatred, impersonating "emergency security", otherwise what happened in Italy could be repeated in other member countries of the European Union. Roma people needs insured equal rights over other peoples and which - as has happened to the Jews - Europe recognizes its guilt for them to promote and provide a true emancipation.

This appened few days after the Bruxelles meeting in Milan, on 24th September 2008. Ciprian was a Roma boy died burned alive in the fire in the night of 24th September giving his life saving his friends. He lived in Sesto San Giovanni at the former Falk area with two brothers, parents and others relatives. It was the pet of the community of Sesto, loved by all. A fire has torn their lives. Now we need to prevent the disinformation cover with the mud of slander the memory melting of a young life ended too soon.

For further informations:

spithrom@webzone.it