Roma People in Italy launch desperate SOS

Sat Jan 23 19:04:57 GMT 2010

    fyi

--- On *Sat, 23/1/10, Roma Virtual Network <romale at zahav.net.il>* wrote:

From: Roma Virtual Network <romale at zahav.net.il>
Subject: [British Roma] Roma People in Italy. We are launching a desperate
SOS to the European Union and the United Nations
To: Romano_Liloro at yahoogroups.com
Cc: "Roberto Malini" <roberto.malini at everyonegroup.com>
Date: Saturday, 23 January, 2010, 11:38

  For the attention of: the European Commission, the European Council, the
European Court of Human Rights, the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
(CERD), the International Criminal Court of the Hague

Copy to: the Roma rights organizations and human rights associations

**
*We are launching a desperate SOS: an appeal to the European Union and the
United Nations to intervene and save the Roma people in Italy from ethnic
persecution.*
Milan, January 22st, 2010. The Milanese authorities have bulldozed 80
makeshift shelters, home to a community of Roma families, and totally
destroyed their blankets, warm winter clothes, stoves for heating and
essential medicines. The forced eviction took place in Via Sant'Arialdo -
near the Chiaravalle Abbey - in a racist and cruel Milan that the author of
this report, (who was born in Milan) fails to recognise as the chief town he
has admired for decades for its spirit of solidarity and open-mindedness.
About 150 Roma citizens, including children, pregnant women and sick people
(many of them with cancer, heart problems, and handicaps) were thrown out
onto the street and forced to set off on a tragic march to nowhere. ï¿½It felt
as though we had returned to the Hitler years,ï¿½ commented a woman who lives
in the area and who has often helped these families in difficulty.
ï¿½Fortunately - after noticing the municipal police patrols driving up and
down - many of the families left the settlement before the clearance began
in order to avoid being charged for squatting and suffering the humiliation
of the ethnic profiling that other families have been subjected to. However,
their homes, makeshift shelters made from wood, plastic and cardboard, no
longer existï¿½.  Ninety-five Romanian Roma were charged with illegally
occupying a plot of land and are undergoing mass expulsion as the
authorities have ordered them to leave the city: a reminder of the way the
Roma were forced to leave centuries ago and during the pre-Holocaust years.
The January 21st pogrom (what else do we call the destruction in mid-winter
of 80 makeshift homes, shelter to hundreds of human beings living in extreme
poverty and bad health?) and mass expulsion (what else do we call the
unlawful forced eviction of innocent families from the city they have lived
in for years without the offer of any social aid or alternative lodgings?)
is the umpteenth violation of human rights that has taken place in Italy.
150 vulnerable people in poor health are now wandering around in search of a
new shelter in an attempt to prevent themselves dying of hunger, cold,
infections and racial violence.  The police operation was carried out on the
order of the local authorities, and was initiated by the deputy mayor,
Riccardo De Corato, a politician who is responsible for numerous other
persecutory measures against the Roma people and unfortunate immigrants. The
operation called for the deployment of 102 police officers from the local
police force. De Corato has expressed his satisfaction at this deliberately-
induced humanitarian crisis, and has announced yet another camp clearance in
Milan, in Via Vaiano Valle - the site of more makeshift huts where other
marginalized, discriminated against and desperate families live. But the
list is long: over the last two years more than 7,000 people from the Roma
ethnic group have been forcibly evicted from their settlements in Milan
without the offer of alternative housing. Unfortunately, both the
administration of the Mayor, Letizia Moratti, and the centre-left opposition
are driven by intolerant and anti-Roma sentiments.  As a result the tragic
police operations are taking place with the blessing of all the political
parties, government associations and local authority consultants. At the
same time, the activists who are attempting with non-violent means to stop
the brutal evictions are being intimated and threatened by the same
institutions. After learning of the terrible sanitary and social
consequences of the police operation, EveryOne Group (which has lost all
contact with the Roma left homeless during the Sant'Arialdo eviction) is
today presenting a complete report on this tragic episode to the European
Commission, the European Council, the European Court of Human Rights, the
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the International Criminal Court
of the Hague. These operations are pushing Europe back to the days of the
racial laws and ethnic persecution. EveryOne Group is appealing for urgent
intervention, something more effective than a resolution or a letter of
warning which have no legal bearing, and which the Italian institutions in
the past have already shown to ignore and even mock. EveryOne Group,
together with the committee against intolerance, ï¿½Sa Phralaï¿½; the
association for human culture, ï¿½Watching the Skyï¿½; and the 586 anti-racist
organizations that make up the ï¿½Unitedï¿½ network are sending out a dramatic
and desperate SOS to the international authorities, asking them to help the
persecuted Roma people, who are being wiped out and expelled in mass from
Milan and Italy.
We have to act immediately, because over the last two years the Roma
community has fallen from 180,000 units to only 40,000 human beings. This
number includes the Italian Roma and those who fled from the former
Yugoslavia, who are being profiled, rounded up into authentic ghettoes with
round-the-clock surveillance and specially-created ethnic laws. We are
talking about human beings who are being hunted out; subjected to brutality
and racial violence; excluded from employment and integration programmes and
left in appalling sanitary and social conditions.
...
See also:
http://www.everyone group.com/ EveryOne/ MainPage/ Entries/2010/ 1/13_The_
conditions_ of_the_Roma_ people_in_ Italy_has_ become_intolerab
le.html<http://www.everyonegroup.com/EveryOne/MainPage/Entries/2010/1/13_The_conditions_of_the_Roma_people_in_Italy_has_become_intolerable.html>
http://www.everyone group.com/ EveryOne/ MainPage/ Entries/2010/ 1/2_Rome%
2C_where_ the_Roma_ people_continue_ to_burn_to_
death.html<http://www.everyonegroup.com/EveryOne/MainPage/Entries/2010/1/2_Rome%2C_where_the_Roma_people_continue_to_burn_to_death.html>
http://www.everyone group.com/ EveryOne/ MainPage/ Entries/2009/ 12/1_Roma_
People_in_ Italy__Intolerab le_Violations_ of_Human_ Rights_in_
Pesaro.html<http://www.everyonegroup.com/EveryOne/MainPage/Entries/2009/12/1_Roma_People_in_Italy__Intolerable_Violations_of_Human_Rights_in_Pesaro.html>
http://www.everyone group.com/ EveryOne/ MainPage/ Entries/2009/ 11/7_Stop_
to_the_ethnic_ cleansing_ of_the_Via_ Triboniano_ Roma_camp_ in_Milan.
.html<http://www.everyonegroup.com/EveryOne/MainPage/Entries/2009/11/7_Stop_to_the_ethnic_cleansing_of_the_Via_Triboniano_Roma_camp_in_Milan..html>
http://www.everyone group.com/ EveryOne/ MainPage/ Entries/2009/ 10/22_The_
situation_ of_Roma_citizens _in_Italy_ is_getting_ more_and_ more_desperate_
every_day. .html<http://www.everyonegroup.com/EveryOne/MainPage/Entries/2009/10/22_The_situation_of_Roma_citizens_in_Italy_is_getting_more_and_more_desperate_every_day..html>
http://www.everyone group.com/ EveryOne/ MainPage/ Entries/2009/ 9/5_Roma_
people_and_ other_minority_ groups_in_ Italy_and_ throughout_ the_European_
Union..html<http://www.everyonegroup.com/EveryOne/MainPage/Entries/2009/9/5_Roma_people_and_other_minority_groups_in_Italy_and_throughout_the_European_Union..html>
http://www.everyone group.com/ it/EveryOne/ MainPage/ Entries/2010/
1/22_Persecuzion e_dei_Rom_ a_Milano_ _denuncia_ alle_autorita_
internazionali.
html<http://www.everyonegroup.com/it/EveryOne/MainPage/Entries/2010/1/22_Persecuzione_dei_Rom_a_Milano__denuncia_alle_autorita_internazionali.html>
For further information:
+39 340 8135204 :: +39 334 3449180 :: +39 331 3585406
www.everyonegroup. com <http://www.everyonegroup.com/> :: info at everyonegroup.
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-- 
"We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet /Yet is there no
man speaketh as we speak in the street.ï¿½

-- 
"We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet /Yet is there no
man speaketh as we speak in the street.ï¿½
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