Thread: Immigrants riot in Italy amid racial unrest

Pope denounces anti-immigrant riots

Sunday, 10 January 2010



The Pope denounced riots between immigrants and Italians in southern Italy


Pope Benedict XVI has denounced riots between immigrants and Italians in southern Italy and said migrants have rights and are equally loved by God.

Benedict issued the admonition at the end of his traditional Sunday noon blessing.

The Pope said immigrants were looking for a better life in a country which needed them, yet they ran the risk of exploitation because of their status.

He invited all to "look in the face of others and discover that there is a soul, a history, a life, a person who God loves as he loves me".

At least three dozen people were injured in two days of riots in the southern Calabrian town of Rosarno.

Hundreds of migrant workers rampaged after two migrants were wounded in a shooting.


http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/break ... html?r=RSS

Maroni sparked controversy when he said one of the reasons for the violence was that illegal immigration had been "tolerated all these years".

I'd like to know what is so "contorversial" about this statement. This person speaks the truth!

Being married to an Italian woman, i can attest that italians are fiercely protective of their heritage and rightly so. There is no way in hell italians will put up with this in their home country. This will only get worst.

First, I have nothing historically positive to say about Popes or the Vatican meddling in the foreign affairs of other countries like England (Elizabeth I), France (Philip VI), Scotland, Ireland, Middle East (Crusades)... History is full of their disastrous interference. America should always hinder their influence, especially considering America was populated by those who were fleeing religious persecution by the Tudors and the Holy Roman Impire.

Our government has been playing a foolish game with illegal immigration.

Every term, they imply promises of amnesty to 12-24 million foreigners, against the people's wishes. Both sides growing more and more frustrated and emotional with little resolve. Frankly, the government should enforce the laws, which is what the majority wants and tell the foreigners to leave. If the government goes against the people and hands out amnesty, I'm pretty sure it's going to upset the majority in ways never before seen. I will never condone or participate in violence but I do not believe it will remain peaceful, if amnesty is passed.

It doesn't take a mathematician to figure out that 80% (240 million) Americans don't want amnesty, and if as few as 269 people (majorities of 218 in the House and 51 in the Senate) force amnesty upon us, then there will be a reaction. Right now, Americans are loosing faith in the political process and will eventually seek alternative solutions to resolve their immediate and unpleasant situation.

Dixie

All churches should lose their not for profit status.

President Giorgio Napolitano called for an immediate end to the unrest, during which at least 37 people, including 18 policemen, have been injured

Wow. Any relation to our Janet Napolitano? I wonder how long their government sat by and did nothing about illegal aliens coming into their country. Now Italy sees what happens when you mix uncivilized cultures into civilized ones. They are burning buildings, overturning cars, destroying everything in their paths, because they want amnesty. How long will it be before the illegal aliens in our country start acting the same way?

The same thing has been going on in France with the Muslims. The illegal aliens and anchor babies their rioted.

Dixie

Originally Posted by FedUpinFarmersBranch

Pope denounces anti-immigrant riots

Sunday, 10 January 2010



The Pope denounced riots between immigrants and Italians in southern Italy


Pope Benedict XVI has denounced riots between immigrants and Italians in southern Italy and said migrants have rights and are equally loved by God.

Benedict issued the admonition at the end of his traditional Sunday noon blessing.

The Pope said immigrants were looking for a better life in a country which needed them, yet they ran the risk of exploitation because of their status.

He invited all to "look in the face of others and discover that there is a soul, a history, a life, a person who God loves as he loves me".

At least three dozen people were injured in two days of riots in the southern Calabrian town of Rosarno.

Hundreds of migrant workers rampaged after two migrants were wounded in a shooting.


http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/break ... html?r=RSS

Pope Benedict XVI obviously dosen't understand or consider history. Italy, its culture, people, created one of the greatest civilizations on earth, the Roman Empire, which when it collapsed, brought us 500 years of the Dark Ages, again with the Italian Renaissance, the Italian people brought us out of the dark ages and spawned a new era of light and hope. It is only natural that Italians protect their proud Heritage and culture. Pope Benedict, not being Italian obviously is clueless about this.

Italy in racism debate as migrants quit riot town
10 Jan 2010 16:19:15 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Immigrants evacuated from town after race riots

* Interior minister praises police, tears down camps

* Pope appeals for tolerance

By Gavin Jones

ROME, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Hundreds of African immigrants have been evacuated from a southern Italian town, authorities said on Sunday, following some of the worst racial violence in Italy since World War Two.

The evacuation followed three days of clashes in the southern Calabrian town of Rosarno, which began when some local residents began attacking immigrants who responded by rioting.

At least 53 people, including 18 policeman, were injured in the unrest in the town, located in Italy's southwestern toe.

Authorities moved more than 1,000 people, mostly illegal temporary workers from sub-Saharan Africa to immigrant centres around Italy in an operation that lasted from Saturday through to the early hours of Sunday.

Even workers with regular residence permits left the town to escape a climate that one political commentator compared to the 1960s Ku Klux Klan racial violence in the United States.

Immigrants without regular papers risk expulsion to their country of origin and the authorities on Sunday began demolishing their former makeshift homes in Rosarno.

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said the government had "brilliantly resolved the problem of public order" and thanked police for organising the exodus "in an exemplary way."

The violence has inflamed a long-running political debate on immigration. Maroni blamed the unrest on years of "mistaken tolerance" while the opposition accuses the government of fuelling xenophobia.

The front page headline of the anti-government Daily Fact newspaper referred to the immigrants' departure as "Ethnic Cleansing".

Pope Benedict departed from the prepared text of his weekly Angelus blessing to appeal for tolerance.

"An immigrant is a human being, different in origin, culture and tradition but he is a person with rights and duties who must be respected," he told the crowd in Saint Peter's Square.

AIR RIFLE ATTACK

The clashes started on Thursday, when a gang of white youths in a car fired air rifles at a group of African immigrants returning from work on farms, injuring two of them.

The attack set off a night of rioting by dozens of Africans, who smashed car windows with steel bars and stones and set cars and rubbish bins on fire. That in turn sparked more attacks from residents determined to drive the immigrants out of the area.

"I have never hurt anyone, I don't know why they attacked us, we are here to work," Ajra Saibu from Togo, one of the men fired at on the first night of violence.

Some 8,000 illegal immigrants work in Calabria, most as day labourers picking fruit and vegetables.

Many live in abandoned factories with no running water or electricity and human rights groups say they are exploited by the 'Ndrangheta, Italy's most powerful mafia organisation.

"The state does not exist in Calabria, it's the 'Ndrangheta which regulates social relations," said Pierferdinando Casini, leader of the opposition Union of Christian Democrats party.

Roberto Calderoli, a minister from the same far-right Northern League party as interior minister Maroni, said with unemployment at 18 percent in the south of Italy, "work should go to the Italians ... not to illegal immigrants".

If necessary, agricultural pay levels should be increased to make them acceptable to locals, he said.

Silvio Berlusconi's government has taken a hard line against illegal immigration and has moved to stem a tide of immigrants who board boats in Africa to try to reach its southern shores.

Some boats have been turned back on the open seas, prompting criticism of the Italian government by the United Nations' refugee agency. The European Commission has also voiced concern over the policy.


http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE60906D.htm

Italians evacuate migrants, bring in police after clashes
AFPJanuary 9, 2010
StoryPhotos ( 1 )
Immigrants leave the makeshift camp in the countryside near the village of Rosarno, southern Italy, January 9, 2010.Photograph by: Antonino Condorelli , ReutersRosarno, Italy, Jan 9, 2010

(AFP) - Italy deployed extra police and evacuated migrants on Saturday from a southern town after residents violently attacked African farm workers protesting against their conditions.


The clashes which began Thursday left 67 people injured in the Calabrian town of Rosarno, latest reports said, but calm was generally restored Saturday, with barricades erected by locals dismantled and shops open.


The injured included 31 foreigners, the latest of whom was fired at with a shotgun on Saturday, as well as 19 police officers and 17 locals, police said.


Buses with police escorts took immigrants from Rosarno to the towns of Crotone, 170 kilometres (105 miles) away, and Bari, around 400 kilometres to the northeast.


Locals applauded as the buses left Rosarno, and police said around 100 more immigrants had fled the town of their own accord.


"Around 700 foreigners have been evacuated to Crotone and Bari and 200 other immigrants will leave in the course of the night," local police chief Mario Morcone told AFP.

The situation in Rosarno was slowly returning to normal, he added.


The Italian authorities have said immigrants taking the special buses will not be arrested, even if they arrived in the country illegally.


Some of the immigrants who came to the region in their thousands to work on the fruit harvest are fleeing despite being owed wages by their employers.


Francis, a 25-year-old from Ghana, said he was owed 200 euros (290 dollars) but was too frightened to stay. "If we don’t leave, we will die," he said, "We came here to work and now people are shooting at us."


The violence broke out Thursday when hundreds of immigrants, most of them Africans employed illegally, demonstrated after some of them had been shot at with air rifles, ANSA said.

Demonstrators set fire to cars and smashed windscreens before police intervened, leading to a scuffle that left several of the demonstrators injured.

On Friday, local residents set up roadblocks and occupied the town hall, before violence erupted once more.

In separate incidents on Friday, two immigrants were beaten and seriously wounded with iron bars, media and officials said. One of the wounded was admitted to hospital for brain surgery.

Two other immigrants were hit in the legs with shotgun pellets and five more were deliberately run over by vehicles driven by locals, they said. They suffered minor injuries.

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, said the tensions were a result of "too much tolerance towards clandestine immigration".

The right-wing newspaper Il Giornale, owned by the family of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, agreed that illegal immigrants should be kept out.

But it added: "Once they are here, they cannot be shamefully exploited and shot at while they do work that our unemployed sneer at."

A priest, Luigi Ciotti, founder of the anti-mafia association Libera, pointed the finger at the ’Ndrangheta, the local criminal organisation which dominates Calabria.

According to Italy’s main trade union CGIL, about 50,000 immigrant workers in Italy live in poor conditions similar to those in Rosarno, being housed in insalubrious huts without running water.

It said immigrants employed as farm labourers earned low wages of around 25 euro (36 dollars) a day.

One employer, Pasquale Giovinazzo, 60 ans, justified the low wages, saying the African workers were less experienced than Italians.

Around 1,000 immigrants in lived in a disused factory in Rosarno, sleeping on mattresses surrounded by piles of shoes and dirty clothes.

The union also accused the mafia of controlling the sector and criticised Maroni’s statement, saying immigrants were paid "miserable salaries and have terrible hours, similar to slavery".



http://www.canada.com/news/Italians+eva ... story.html