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Stop racism in Italy against Roma people (the murder of Giovanna Reggiani)

Roberto Malini - EveryOne Group | 06.11.2007 12:02 | Anti-racism | Repression

Everyone Group asks for an end of the racist campaign against the Roma people
Hatred and tragedies taking place throughout Italy. Last night in rome, four roma were beaten up, one of them was seriously injured. In Genoa, Turin, Milan and other cities patrols of people are hunting down gypsies. The murder of Giovanna Reggiani: one man guilty, not a whole people.

Everyone Group asks for an end of the racist campaign against the Roma people

Hatred and tragedies taking place throughout Italy. Last night in rome, four roma were beaten up, one of them was seriously injured. In Genoa, Turin, Milan and other cities patrols of people are hunting down gypsies. The murder of Giovanna Reggiani: one man guilty, not a whole people.

The brutality of the crime that led to the death of poor Giovanna Reggiani has left us shocked and horrified, but we have to prevent this tragedy being followed by another appalling crime. Italy is blaming the entire Roma population for the crime of a single man” say Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro and Dario Picciau, the leaders of Everyone Group.
In the present climate of intolerance, it has not been enough to counterbalance the brutality of a vicious murderer with the courage of the Roma woman, Emilia who gave the alarm and testified to police (according to the moral code of the Roma themselves, who automatically exclude from their community those who stain themselves with violent crimes). The episode gave the racists an excuse to act, frustrating the many efforts made to educate the intolerant.
“Let us not forget the murder of the German diplomat Ernst Vom Rath by a Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, who had emigrated to France: a single man committed that crime, but Nazi propaganda turned it into an excuse to blame all the Jews in Europe. Instigated towards racial hatred by the institutions and media, the German people took an active part in the ferocious attacks on all the Jews living in Germany, and shopkeepers in particular, who had their shops smashed up on a night that was to go down in history as “Crystal Night” or “The Night of Broken Glass” explains Roberto Malini of EveryOne, writer and Holocaust scholar.
“When an event triggers off racism, and when this is followed by a series of rapid disciplinary measures against a minority, then we must ask ourselves important questions about the dynamics of the event itself.
The fact is, that the expulsion law and the organization of the deportations of the Romas were already prepared, and the first nomads are already on the point of being deported from Milan, Rome and other Italian cities,” point out the leaders of EveryOne.
Yesterday, on the day the emergency expulsion law was published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale, a gang of about ten people in the Tor Bella Monaca area of Rome began their own shameful Italian-version of “Crystal Night”. A group of racists, their faces covered by crash helmets and balaclavas attacked four gypsies with sticks. This violent beating took place in the car park of the Lidl supermarket along Via Casilina. Three nomads were wounded: one of them now lies in a critical condition at Tor Vergata hospital in Frascati. In Genoa, Milan and other Italian cities, patrols are already underway by racist groups and out-and-out punitive expeditions.
“As usual, when the victims are gypsies, it is to be expected that the investigations made by the authorities will not lead to an identification of the culprits” says Malini, Pegoraro and Picciau.
The leaders of Everyone Group are therefore appealing to the Italian politicians and citizens:
“We have to create solidarity where others destroy, humiliate, label, turn away, deport, strike out at and burn. Like in the days of the persecution of the Jews, we have to act like Schindler, Perlasca, Peshev and Palatucci: the few righteous in an Italy that is losing itself in unjust brutality. We have to tell young people the truth, and lead them away from the temptation of absurd nationalism, we must take them by the hand and accompany them along the path of brotherhood between different peoples.”

See also:  http://www.newsweek.com/id/42398/

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Email:  info@everyonegroup.com -  roberto.malini@annesdoor.com

Roberto Malini - EveryOne Group
- e-mail: info@everyonegroup.com
- Homepage: http://www.everyonegroup.com - www.annesdoor.com