Posted on 11/03/2007 4:33:58 PM PDT by Pikamax
Italy expels Romanians, condemns attack Sat Nov 3, 2007 2:23pm EDT By Phil Stewart
ROME (Reuters) - Authorities tore down a gypsy camp and expelled around 20 Romanians from Italy on Saturday while condemning a "racist" attack in Rome apparently triggered by this week's murder of an Italian naval officer's wife.
Masked assailants brandishing knives, clubs and canes stabbed and beat four Romanians outside a Rome supermarket late on Friday. One of the victims is in serious condition.
The attack partly overshadowed the Rome funeral on Saturday for Giovanna Reggiani, 47, who police believe was fatally wounded by a Romanian man as she exited a Rome train station.
"We're looking for justice -- severe, austere -- but not intolerance," chaplain Patrizio Benvenuti said at Reggiani's funeral service, according to Italian media.
Reggiani's death was a tipping point in Italy and prompted authorities to level the Rome gypsy camp where the Romanian suspect lived, a job they finished on Saturday.
It also prompted them to start expelling Romanians deemed to be dangerous. Seventeen expulsion orders were signed in the city of Genoa and three others in Rome on Saturday, local media said.
The tragedy has also sparked a war of words over centre-left Prime Minister Romano Prodi's immigration policy and, officials fear, raised the threat of racist violence.
"We must prevent this terrible tiger, which is xenophobic rage, the racist beast, from getting out of control," Interior Minister Giuliano Amato told La Repubblica newspaper.
The Romanian embassy, alarmed by the attack on its citizens, called on Rome to ensure "acts of xenophobia like this one don't repeat themselves".
The archbishop of Lecce, Cosmo Francesco Ruppi, warned against targeting foreigners and following the "dangerous path of racism".
Italians have fumed for years over petty crimes by poor immigrants from Romania and elsewhere.
But, after Reggiani's attack, Prodi on Wednesday issued a decree giving prefects the ability to expel European Union citizens who were considered to be dangerous.
The targets of the decree have so far been immigrants from Romania, which joined the bloc this year, and have the same right as other EU citizens to freely travel across borders.
"Nobody imagined having to face 500,000 poor souls, that in one year have left Romania for Italy," Amato said.
A judge must sign off on the expulsion order but no criminal history is necessary and nor is a trial, according to the interior ministry.
Milan's Prefect Gianvalerio Lombardi expelled the first four Romanians on Friday, sending them home.
"There is no exact list of people to send home. We have to do it on a case-by-case basis," Lombardi told Italian media.
(Additional reporting by Antonella Cinelli in Rome)
So are these “Romanians” gypsies or not?
I know what gypsies are. My question is whether the people who are the subject of this article are gypsies.
I believe this will finally happen over most of Europe.
The murderer was a Gypsy. The victims of the ‘retaliatory’ attack were Romanians.
It’s pretty basic:
When you destroy civilized debate and render all heterodoxical thought “racist” you will end up pushing reasonable opinion into the racist camp. They have nowhere else to turn to find support.
But if enough people join in, the Euro-elite Left can no longer pretend it’s racism.
Romania is where most of Europe’s gypsies come from. I hate to generalize but I came in contact with gypsies here in the States. Great group, nothing but con artists and thieves.
Gypsies are and have been a problem everywhere in Southern Europe for decades if not centuries. However, they only became violent about 40 years ago, when drugs and drug dealing were introduced into gypsy encampments. Prior to that, they were known mostly for fraud and pickpocketing.
However, many gypsies fled Eastern Europe in recent years, and lots and lots of “rumanos” (Rumanians) entered Italy and Spain after the Balkan wars. So I would say these are probably people from the former Yugoslavia, that is, gypsies from the Balkans.
The article mentions a “gypsy camp” and refers to “racist attacks” but describes the immigrants directly using only the word “Romanian”. A “Romanian” is a citizen of Romania. Romanian people can be Saxon (Germanic), Magyar (Hungarian), Dacian, Gypsy or other ethnicities. It seems that political correctness may be preventing the author of the article from telling us what is really going on.
Great group, nothing but con artists and thieves.”
Oh, you mean like politicians?
I would imagine the Italian public, and a lot of their politicians, are reacting to the whole mass as if they are criminals ~ as if Italians weren't themselves known for their own criminal classes.
On the money!
Well, whoever they were, the Italians could have told them they wree being deported for their own protection.
Too many racists are attacking you! You’ll have to leave.
There are also vast numbers of people in this country with Gypsy forebears who are totally assimilated and have no knowledge whatsoever of what the old timers were up to.
as if Italians weren’t themselves known for their own criminal classes.
Just depends on who’s ox is getting gored.
If we started expelling illegal Mexican immigrants because of one murder by an illegal in this country, the libs would have a cow.
Italy, especially Rome, has a horrible gypsy problem. They rob everyone and everything, employee children and women to do the robbing because the stupid Romans won’t prosecute them. They attack people in broad daylight as bands of little hoodlums, trained by mammy and pappy to the trade. I understand Romania is over-run with gypsies. No doubt they have all rush off to Italy for easy pickings.
totally assimilated and have no knowledge whatsoever of what the old timers were up to.
Hey, they sound like the Irish! (I’m Irish)
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