Italy

Italian Deputy Prime Minister says EU Justice Commissioner's critique of Italy's treatment of Roma is "nonsense"

31.10.2018 11:44  full story

Italian Deputy PM Salvini is behaving like a neo-Fascist, former Italian Labor Minister says

28.10.2018 13:43 Former Italian Labor Minister Elsa Forner, speaking in a recent radio interview, said the current Italian Deputy PM and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini is behaving like a neo-Fascist. Salvini, who heads the anti-immigration party Lega ("The League"), and wasted no time in responding bluntly.  full story

Italy: Moroccan beaten to death, athlete of Nigerian origin attacked as fascists in the Govt spread racism

1.8.2018 11:29 Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, the boss of the anti-immigrant Lega party, is facing criticism from opposition politicians for creating a hateful atmosphere in the country. In recent days Italy has witnessed a series of attacks with apparently racist motivations including Monday's attack on Daisy Osakue, an Italian athlete of Nigerian origin.  full story

videoLIVE BROADCAST TODAY AT 16:00 in Prague: RomanoNet protests discrimination and racism against Roma in Europe, publishes manifesto Dost! Basta! Enough!

31.7.2018 13:53 Today at 16:00 a march will take place in Prague, Czech Republic to support the Roma of Ukraine. The event is part of a larger series of protests taking place in several European countries  full story

LIVE BROADCAST: RomanoNet delivers protest manifesto to the Italian Embassy about Italy's racist measures against Roma

30.7.2018 13:52 Representatives of RomanoNet will deliver a protest manifesto to the Ambassador of Italy to the Czech Republic, Aldo Amati, very shortly. The organizations are protesting against the situation of Romani in Italy, where the Italian Interior Minister and leader of the ultra-right Lega group, Matteo Salvini, is demanding a census of Romani people and the application of racist policies against them.

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Romania: 900 protest recent violence against Roma in Italy and Ukraine, more demonstrations in other European countries to follow

29.7.2018 13:34 As many as 900 people assembled on Saturday, 28 July 2018 in Bucharest, Romani in front of the Italian and Ukrainian embassies to express their disagreement with many violent anti-Romani crimes and to protest antigypsyism in Europe. The assemblies were the first in a series of protests that are being realized in nine European countries.  full story

Italy: Romani infant hospitalized after being shot with pellet gun

21.7.2018 8:55 On 19 July Italian media reported that a pellet fired by an air gun struck a Romani baby as she was being held in her mothers arms. The child is now in intensive care in a hospital in Rome.  full story

Italy: Court in Rome convicts four perpetrators of 2011 pogrom on Romani camp in Turin

20.7.2018 9:45 The ANSA wire service reported last week that a court in Rome, Italy found four people guilty of ethnic and racial hatred when they set fire to a Romani camp in the Vallette suburb of Turin in 2011. The appeals court in Turnin had upheld the first-instance conviction but reduced the sentences to between two and four years in prison, according to court sources.  full story

Italy asks Czech Republic to receive asylum-seekers, Czech PM refuses

16.7.2018 10:13 Responding to a question from the Czech News Agency (ČTK) about the current Italian request for aid with refugees arriving on Italian territory, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO) said the Czech Republic will not be accepting any migrants and that he is insisting the reception of migrants be governed by the principle of voluntary action by the EU Member States. Italian PM Giuseppe Conte has asked the EU Member States for aid with redistributing 450 such people who recently ended up lost at sea.  full story

European Parliament: Shouting matches over Italian "census" of Roma - Járóka finds it reasonable, Post calls for a halt

8.7.2018 22:22 The European Parliament experienced a stormy debate last week over the most recent anti-Romani statements by Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. The minister announced that he is planning a census of Romani people in the country and the deportation of all who do not have documents.  full story

Italian Interior Minister threatens to cancel police protection for crimefighting author who criticizes his anti-Roma attitude

27.6.2018 9:07 Roberto Saviano, the Italian author and journalist whose work has been key to combating the mafia, is criticizing Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's harsh stance against refugees and Romani people. The author has faced death threats for years because of his book about the Camorra mafia in Italy - and last week the Interior Minister said he could lose his police protection.  full story

Italian Interior Minister insists on "census" of Roma despite criticism

20.6.2018 12:13 Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, despite harsh criticism of his announcement Monday that he is planning to conduct a census of Romani people and to deport those without documents, is insisting on his plans. Yesterday he tweeted his defiance of the criticism.  full story

Italian Interior Minister plans to deport Romani people, opposition calls the plan repugnant

19.6.2018 17:39 Developing an "inventory" of Romani people and deporting those who do not have proper documentation is a plan being developed by Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. Last week he also advocated for taking a hardline approach against boats in the Mediterranean Sea that rescued several hundred migrants.  full story

Czech PM says migration must be addressed beyond Europe's borders

15.6.2018 15:44 Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO) said on 11 June that he believes Frontex, the EU's border and coast guard, should be given a mandate to intervene beyond EU borders. The statement was issued as a press release ahead of the 12 June meeting of the European Commission about the financing to cope with the current migration crisis.  full story

Italy: New Government demands closure of Romani encampments, redistribution of asylum-seekers by EU

11.6.2018 10:35 New Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has emphasized that his country is demanding the automatic, compulsory redistribution of asylum-seekers throughout the EU by the Member States. He made the remarks in a speech on 6 June to the Italian Senate which, after debate, gave the new "Government of change" a vote of confidence.  full story

Italian police forcibly evict yet another Roma camp

31.3.2018 13:40

According to Italian news site La Stampa, Italian police in Beinasco demolished a Roma camp on 7 March, forcing five families to leave their homes. Almost all the camp’s inhabitants had already left the location in recent days, complying with an ordinance issued on 20 December 2017 by the municipality. One elderly woman remained in her home, only to be driven out by bulldozers.

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Tensions rising between Austria and Italy over migrants

26.7.2017 9:58 Tensions are continuing to rise between Austria and Italy over disagreements about how to deal with migrants entering Europe. The chair of the Socialist group in the European Parliament (EP), Italian MEP Gianni Pittella, has accused the Austrian Foreign Minister of wanting to transform one of the Italian islands in the Mediterranean Sea into a "concentration camp".  full story

Italy: Children and Pregnant Romani Women Left Homeless

15.6.2017 17:10 Unlawful demolitions of Romani property in Italy are rendering members of that community homeless, including newborns and pregnant women. Most recently Romani people were driven from the Germagnano informal settlement in Turin two weeks ago, according to the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), based in Budapest.  full story

Italy: 1 000 attend march to mourn Romani children who died in arson attack

19.5.2017 12:46 Roughly 1 000 people in Rome, Italy attended a march to protest the brutal arson attack at the Primavera shopping center during which three Romani sisters died, two of them
minors, last week. People have now planted three olive trees in their memory.  full story

Director of ODIHR on arson in Italy that killed Romani children: If this was racism there must be a strong reaction

15.5.2017 7:58 Michael G. Link, the director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has
condemned the murder of three Romani sisters aged four, eight and 20 last week. They died after a Molotov cocktail attack on the caravan in which they were sleeping with their parents and other siblings on 10 May 2017 in Rome, Italy.  full story