Monday 23 August 2010

More Roma Bashing

Ashamed of being out-bigoted by the French, well-known right-whinge racist demagogue and Italian Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, has resurrected one of his favourite excuses for expelling the Romani from Italy: if they live solely on welfare benefits they should be deported.

The European Commission have already refused Italy permission to carry out this pogrom once before but for Moroni the logic behind such a move is inescapable: because the Romani are persecuted and ghettoised*, denied the normal everyday rights that anyone else would expect, forced to live in penury with a chance of finding a proper job, home, education and health care, and therefore end up living on welfare benefits, it is a legitimate excuse to persecute them further.

And where is Moroni going to deport them to, as many have lived in Italy for generations? Any where but Italy obviously. And of course, many of the Romani will not be able to prove any connection to Italy because they have been systematically denied their citizenship and it has long been police policy to confiscate documentation that can prove such rights.


* And have been so for centuries wherever they have tried to make a home.

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