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.
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