Thaindian News

Vatican City, Jan 12 (IANS/AKI) The Vatican has launched a scathing attack on Italian racism, condemning the violent attacks against immigrants in the southern town of Rosarno late last week.
In an article in the semi-official church newspaper, the Osservatore Romano, the Vatican Monday denounced what it called the persistence of “hatred” in 2010.

“More than disgusting, the racism that has ricocheted around the media take us back to the mute and savage hatred towards those with another coloured skin that we thought we had overcome,” the article said.

The attack was issued as residents in the southern Italian town of Rosarno conducted a street protest Monday to counter perceptions they were “xenophobic, mafiosi, and racist” after violent clashes with immigrants last week.

Several African immigrants joined local residents who carried a single banner stating: “Abandoned by the state, criminalised by the mass media, 20 years living together (with immigrants) is not racism”.

“With this peaceful and silent protest we want to refute the inflammatory label of ‘mafiosi, racist and xenophobic’ city that has been spread about Rosarno,” the protesters said.

Italian authorities evacuated more than 1,200 immigrants, many of them African farm workers, from the town at the weekend after dozens were injured in two days of violence.

On Sunday Pope Benedict XVI denounced the violence while Italy’s hardline interior minister Roberto Maroni from the anti-immigrant Northern League pledged to deport any illegal immigrants involved in the violence.

“The immigrant is a human being, different in culture and tradition but one who should be respected all the same,” the Pope said.

“And violence should never be used as a way to resolve difficulties.”

Hundreds of immigrants, most of them Africans employed illegally as labourers for less than 25 euros a day, took to the streets in a violent rampage after two of them were shot at with air rifles by unidentified gunmen Thursday.

Demonstrators set fire to cars, smashed windscreens and attacked local shops before police intervened, leading to further clashes Friday that left several of the demonstrators wounded.

At least 65 residents, police officers and immigrants were injured. Five immigrants were seriously injured and are now recovering in hospital in nearby Gioia Tauro.

The riots were among the worst seen in Italy in recent years and provoked a fierce political debate across the country.

They also raised serious questions about the role of the powerful Calabrian Mafia, ‘Ndrangheta, in the exploitation of illegal immigrants.

In September 2008, Italy sent 400 members of the National Guard to Castelvolturno, outside Naples, after violent protests broke out over the shooting deaths of six African immigrants in clashes with the Camorra, the Neapolitan Mafia.

Last February, immigrants set fire to a detention centre on the island of Lampedusa where many had been held awaiting deportation.

–IANS/AKI

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