Italian official slams Vatican over immigration criticism
Italian official slams Vatican over immigration criticism
Posted : Sat, 22 Aug 2009 11:38:42 GMT
Author : DPA
Rome - Italy's Reforms Minister Umberto Bossi lashed out Saturday at the Vatican over criticism of Italy's immigration policies by Roman Catholic church officials and publications. "Words that make little sense," Bossi said, referring to the condemnation that followed claims made this week by a group of Eritreans that some 73 of their fellow would-be immigrants died in the Mediterranean during a journey that began in Libya.
"So-called civilized societies," are increasingly developing signs of "rejection of the foreigner," the Vatican's top migrant affairs official Monsignor Antonio Maria Veglio, said in a radio interview Saturday.
In "extreme cases" people in such societies are more inclined to divide their goods with "domestic animals rather than with foreign people," he added.
Veglio also cited estimates that since 1988 some 14,660 mostly Afrcian would-be migrants and refugees, are believed to have died crossing the Mediterranean in an attempt to reach Europe.
On Friday, L'Avvenire, a newspaper published by Italy's bishops' association, said the West's "eyes are closed," to the plight of migrants, in a similar way, the newspaper suggested, that many countries failed to respond to the Nazi persecution and mass murder of the Jews.
But the criticism was rejected by Bossi who heads the anti-immigration Northern League party, the junior partner in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative coalition.
"Let the Vatican which regards (illegal) immigration a crime, open its doors" to the immigrants," Bossi said, speaking in Calalzo di Cadore, a town in northeastern Italy.
The tragedy involving the would-be immigrants, has Italy's opposition and rights groups to demand that the government review its anti-immigration policies.
In particular they condemn an Italian-Libyan accord which came into effect earlier this year, and which United Nations officials say violates the rights of political refugees seeking asylum.
The incident involving the Eritreans has also triggered a diplomatic row between Italy and Malta.
Malta's top military officer on Friday said a Maltese patrol boat had made contact with the five Eritreans earlier this week, but said an rescue offer was turned down by the would-be immigrants who instead said they wanted to reach Italy.
Brigadier Carmel Vassallo also told The Times of Malta newspaper, that the Eritreanswere in good health and "in good spirit," contradicting, Italian officials who say the five were in a serious condition, suffering from dehydration and heat exhaustion.
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