Rome. 20 thousands demonstrators protesting against the persecution of the Roma

Rome. June 8th. (Apcom) They gathered in front of the Colosseum in Rome and at 4 o’clock the demonstrators set off for the Global Village at Foro Boario:

Roma and Sinti demonstrators; and with them dozens of organizations including the Jewish community, all protesting against the camps (modern-day concentration camps), “the drift towards racism” and the “persecution” at present underway in Italy. They can be picked out by their placards: ‘We are with the Roma people’ and ‘We are all Roma citizens’. “There are 20,000 people taking part”, say the organizers; surprised and happy, a higher number than was expected, they were hoping for 4-5,000 participants which “would already have been a success”.

But many more people turned up, from all over Italy: Florence, Pisa, Naples, Turin, Milan, and Bologna. All the Roma camps of Rome and Italy have sent representatives. There is music and dancing. “A determined, beautiful, peaceful demonstration; there’s a change in the air. There was a fine reception”, says Roberto Malini from EveryOne, enthusiastically. “There is no hostility; the people sitting at cafés and restaurants have smiles on their faces, it is wonderful”.

The demonstration was organized by ‘Thèm Romanò’ in collaboration with EveryOne Group, ‘Comitato del Casilino 900’ and dozens of human rights organizations working for the rights of the Roma people. The demonstration ended with the “summit” of human rights organizations.

Beside: Santino Spinelli and Roberto Malini

For the first time many Roma families demonstrated against their exclusion, racial discrimination, the institutional persecution and abuse that is hitting the Roma ethnic group in Italy.

“A racist campaign is underway that is singling out the Roma people as a race addicted to criminal activities”, say the leaders of EveryOne, Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro and Dario Picciau, “While in fact, we are talking about settlements made up of families effected by such deep-rooted racist prejudice that it has led to their complete marginalization from Italian society.

Roberto Malini reports terrible stories taking place every day: Roma girls returning to Bucharest with the dead bodies of their small children in cardboard boxes; tiny babies dying after being left without blankets and medicines after the camp clearances (as happened two weeks ago after a camp evacuation in Bologna after which Malini talked to two desperate Roma mothers); and the rape of young Roma girls who have no homes to take shelter in.

Even Rebecca Covaciu, the young Roma artist has had to leave Italy.
Two days ago a 16-year-old girl, Neli, was beaten up and kicked by an Italian in front of a café on the sea front of Rimini: No one protested; no one raised a finger to help her - a girl six-months pregnant. Roberto Malini tells her story: “Neli was assaulted by an Italian on Friday June 6th in Rimini along the promenade. She was begging among the tourists sitting at the tables, when a man of about forty got up, shouted racist insults at her and kicked her hard in the back several times. None of the tourists or passers-by protested and the assailant returned to his table as though nothing had happened. The girl, in pain and suffering from shock returned to Pesaro. She spent the night with her husband and family lying on a blanket in an abandoned factory.

During the demonstration, from right to left: Dario Picciau (EveryOne) and Piero Terracina (Holocaust Survivor) beside the Mrs Spinelli and European political personalities

In the morning though, her condition had deteriorated. Fortunately EveryOne Group is keeping a close eye on the small Roma community in Pesaro and her husband, Nico G., phoned me”, continues Malini. “The girl was examined at the San Salvatore Hospital in Pesaro, where they confirmed the signs of the beating. Fortunately the pregnancy did not suffer serious consequences, and apart from the pain and the shock, Neli is fine”.

The activists of EveryOne have reported to the European Parliament and the United Nations a horrifying sequence of abuse being carried out towards Roma citizens, by the institutions and others. “We have sounded the alarm for 70,000 people (40,000 of whom are children), whose lives, next winter, will be in serious danger when the temperatures fall below zero and they have no shelter”.

Arriving in “villaggio globale”

The demonstration in Rome had the support of many people from politics, culture and show business, from Holocaust survivors and former partisans, who demonstrated alongside the hundreds of Roma citizens – including Santino Spinelli, the famous musician-teacher, an Italian of the Roma ethnic group, better known by his stage-name Alexian.

During the demonstration: Roberto Malini (EveryOne) interviewed by LA7 Television

As the organizers emphasised, the significant participation of the Jewish community and Holocaust survivors, like Piero Terracina, at the head of the demonstration, Nedo Fiano and Tamara Deuel, who have likened the present persecution of the Roma people to the years of the racial laws. “We also have the support of the Party of European Socialists, Viktoria Mohacsi, the Hungarian Euro MP of Roma origin, recently stated in an interview: “It is simply horrifying what is happening in Italy right now”.

Some moments of the demonstration.

At the same time as the event in Rome, emphasizes EveryOne, in Paris, the travellers in London, in Brussels and Bucharest, groups of activists are forming who are planning to organize sit-ins in front of the Italian embassies and take part in the campaign for the rights of the Roma persecuted in Italy. “And yet”- say the activists, “We have checked police records over the last ten years: the number of offences committed by people of Roma origin out of the total is insignificant. The most frequent “offence” is begging and since 1899 not one Roma citizen has been sentenced for abducting a child”.

During the demonstration: Santino Spinelli (Thèm Romanò) interviewed by Sky Tg24 Television

June 8th is an important anniversary: it is the date the Central Office of the Reich for the Fight Against the Gypsy Menace was set up in Munich in 1936. The central office organized a census of the Roma people on Third Reich territory; it carried out camp clearances and a “zero tolerance” policy. The propaganda of the press stirred up great alarm among people, by painting the Roma as criminals, swindlers, thieves and child kidnappers.

EveryOne Group

Tel: (+ 39) 331 3585406

www.everyonegroup.com :: info@everyonegroup.com

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Rome. 20 thousands demonstrators protesting against the persecution of the Roma

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