Italy minister sparks outrage with Roma comments

Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has caused outrage among opposition politicians and rights groups after announcing controversial plans to conduct a comprehensive census of the country’s Roma community with an eye on expelling those who do not have Italian nationality.

The 45-year-old far-right minister, who is also one of the country’s two deputy prime ministers, defended his census project on Tuesday, tweeting, “I’m not giving up and I’m pushing ahead! The Italians and their safety are first.”

His comments came a day after opposition lawmakers lambasted the idea of the census as “racist” and “fascist.”

Also on Monday, and in a question-and-answer session held on Italy’s regional television channel TeleLombardia, Salvini, who is the head of the far-right League Party, stirred controversy when he unveiled his census plans, arguing that it would allow the authorities to see “who, and how many” Roma were in the European country.

Italy’s Roma community, whose members are estimated to number between 130,000 and 170,000, is mostly composed of people originally from Romania and the former Yugoslavia. According to a 2015 poll by Pew Research, some 86 percent of Italians have unfavorable views of the community, some of whom prefer to be called Gypsies.

“I’ve asked the ministry to prepare a dossier on the Roma question in Italy,” Salvini said on Monday, adding that the current situation with the Roma was “chaos.” He noted that the aim of the counting project was to study the overall situation of Roma in the country, rather than to identify and keep records of individual Roma.

He also said that the census would mean those members of the community who were in Italy illegally could be deported.

Salvini, however, showed no favorable attitude towards legal members of the community, either. “As for the Italian Roma, unfortunately, one has to keep them at home.”

The anti-immigrant Salvini said at the end of his comments that his main intention was in fact to protect the Roma children “who aren’t allowed to go to school regularly because they prefer to introduce them to a life of crime.”

His televised comments, however, drew rapid reproach and condemnation from opposition legislators, who pointed to Italy’s “terrible” history with a census of Jews during the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini.

SS