Italian Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini on Tuesday defended his plans to count the Roma community living in the country and deport those without legal status, despite outrage at home and abroad.
“I’m not giving up and I’m pushing ahead! The Italians and their safety first,” Salvini tweeted, after opposition lawmakers slammed the idea of a census as “racist” and “fascist.”
The anti-immigrant Salvini — already under fire over refusing to let a rescue ship carrying 630 migrants land in Italy last week — had floated the plan on national television on Monday.
A census would allow the authorities to “see who, how [they live] and how many there are,” he said.
It would then allow the authorities to study the possibility of expelling Roma of foreign nationality without the proper documentation, he said.
Condemnation of his proposal was rapid and widespread, with not only the opposition parties, but also members of the newly established ruling coalition adding their voices.
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio — leader of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement that makes up the coalition alongside Salvini’s League — said that any census based on ethnicity would be “unconstitutional.”
It is the first time that Di Maio has spoken out against his coalition partner and fellow deputy prime minister Salvini since the populist new government was sworn in on June 1.
The plan also drew the ire of Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
“No one is planning to create files or conduct a census on the basis of ethnicity, which would be unconstitutional because it is clearly discriminatory,” Conte said in a statement on Tuesday.
He also called for checks to ensure Roma children had access to school services, “since they are often kept out of compulsory education courses.”
The EU also weighed in on the controversy.
European Commission deputy chief spokesman Alexander Winterstein told journalists that “as a general rule, we cannot deport a European citizen based on ethnic criteria.”
Confronted with the backlash, Salvini sought to clarify his plans.
“It is not our intention to record or take anyone’s fingerprints,” he said, according to a statement from his far-right League party.
“Our goal is a recognition of the situation of Roma camps. We intend to protect thousands of children who are not allowed to attend school regularly,” he said.
Italy’s Jewish community said the idea of a census drew parallels with measures targeting Jews under fascist war-time leader Benito Mussolini.
The “announcement is worrying and evokes memories from just 80 years ago, which are sadly increasingly forgotten,” community leader Noemi Di Segni said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of