Italy expels Romanians with criminal records
ROME - Italy began deporting Romanians with criminal records in response to a streak of violent crime blamed on immigrants, authorities said Saturday. A knife-wielding mob attacked a group of Romanians in Rome.
Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu warned of rising xenophobia in Italy. Last week, he backed the crackdown and came under criticism at home for apologizing for violence blamed on Romanian immigrants.
“We should fight against the wave of xenophobia that is manifesting itself in Italy and we must fight against the bad image that Romanians who are working in Italy have,” Tariceanu said Saturday.
Up to 10 people wearing motorcycle helmets attacked a group of Romanians with knives, metal bars and sticks Friday night in the parking lot of a Rome supermarket, police said. Three Romanians were injured, one with serious head wounds. Police said they were looking for the attackers.
Authorities in Milan said that four Romanians with criminal records were put on a flight to Bucharest on Friday night, and that deportations for 12 others had been authorized.
They were the first reported expulsions since Premier Romano Prodi’s center-left government approved a decree Wednesday night allowing the deportation of European Union citizens deemed dangerous.
Pressure on authorities to crackdown on immigrants rose after the wife of a top navy commander was beaten to death near a Gypsy camp on Rome’s outskirts last week. A young Romanian man who lived in the camp was arrested. Romanians have poured into Italy since their country joined the European Union at the start of year, taking jobs as bricklayers, maids and janitors. Romanians number some 560,000 in Italy, or roughly 1 percent of the population.
Two other Italians have been killed in recent attacks blamed on Romanians: a woman stabbed in the eye in a Rome subway and a cycler beaten by suspected Romanian muggers.
In Northern Italy, a young Romanian man was arrested last month for the rape of a woman on the steps of a church. In Milan, the 75-year-old owner of a coffee bar in Milan was beaten and her daughter raped during a robbery.
As part of the crackdown, bulldozers in Rome for a second day knocked down shantytowns where thousands of foreigners live without permits.