EU Parliament: Fingerprinting of Gypsies In Italy is racial discrimination

PR-inside.com

© AP, 2008-07-10 19:30:19 -

STRASBOURG, France (AP) - The European Parliament on Thursday called the fingerprinting of Gypsies in Italy a clear act of racial discrimination and urged the authorities to stop it.

In a resolution, the EU assembly said the measure is not supported by EU human rights treaties and that EU citizens of Roma, or Gypsy, origin

must not be treated differently from others in Italy, who are not required to submit their fingerprints.

In Austria, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitors and reports on the human rights situation in its 56 participating states, including Italy, also expressed serious reservations about Italy’s handling of Gypsies.

The Italian government has begun the Roma fingerprinting as part of a wider crackdown on street crime. Italian newspapers have published photographs of gloved officials taking fingerprints from the ink-stained hands of Gypsies living in around Naples, and authorities are expected to move in on camps in other cities in the coming days.

Early examples of the papers filed in Naples showed local authorities also were identifying those fingerprinted according to their religion, ethnicity and education level.

Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said last week the measure was needed to fight crime and identify illegal immigrants for expulsion.

EU lawmakers called on the European Union executive to thoroughly check whether the steps taken by the Italian government violate European law.

They said Italian claims that the presence of Gypsy camps around large cities justifies the government to declare a state of emergency and implement extraordinary measures are disproportionate and inappropriate.

The parliamentary resolution, which is not binding but puts political pressure on Italy to refrain from the fingerprinting, was approved by 336 to 220 votes, with 77 abstentions. Center-left deputies voted «yes,» despite protests from conservatives.

Franco Frattini, the Italian foreign minister and former EU justice commissioner, criticized the motion as politically motivated.

The fingerprinting measure «does not target ethnic groups and is not inspired by racism but by the elementary need to identify anyone who does not have a valid document,» he told the online Repubblica TV.

More than 700 encampments have been built in Italy, mainly around Rome, Milan and Naples, housing tens of thousands of Gypsies in squalid conditions.