29.10.2014 Borgaro Torinese: mayor wants racial segregation in public buses

Many newspapers reported about the racist demand of Borgaro Torinese’s mayor, a municipality neighbouring Turin. He asked for to transport Rroma in segregated buses. The focus of attention is on bus line 69, which runs along the outskirts of Turin, among others also along a large Rroma settlement. It is said that this line has been the site of repeated attacks, be it insults or physical ones. Wherefrom the certainty is taken that the perpetrators are Rroma, is not addressed. At a community meeting, Claudio Gambino promised to fight the asserted ethnically related crime of this minority: ““The Roma” have plagued us for more than 20 years”, he told the local media. In the buses, there are thefts and other petty crime. “To ensure the safety of our citizens, we need two buses”, he said, according to the reports. “One for citizens, the other for Roma.” The city council member Luigi Spinelli of the Party Left, Ecology, Freedom (SEL) also supports the initiative. His party leader Nichi Vendola called of Spinelli on Saturday. To ascribe people different rights, is called “apartheid”, he told the newspaper La Stampa” (TAZ 2014). Rroma are not more criminal than other ethnic groups. Many people have unfortunately memorised the racist statement that criminal activities are part of the Rroma culture. In Western Europe, the racial prejudice has been passed down for centuries from generation to generation. In addition, since the economic crisis and the rise of right-wing nationalist parties, Rroma are more and more often scapegoats for social ills that de facto origin in society as a whole. Unsurprisingly, Claudio Gambino, member of the Social Democratic Party, received encouragement from the right-wing populist Lega Nord.

Brown (2014) interprets the incident in the context of a widespread Rroma hostility in Italy, which is fuelled by massive prejudices and misinformation, and is critically questioned only among few: “From the right to the left, Sinti and Roma are confronted with revulsion: 85 percent of Italians admit a negative opinion towards them, this is a European peak. The devaluation and hatred is associated with a completely distorted image: thus, 84 percent of Italians actually believe that “Zingari” are “travelling people” without residence. About 80 percent are convinced that they live voluntarily separated in miserable camps, because they want to be “among themselves”. Therefore it is not surprising that even the stereotype of Gypsies stealing children is still alive in Italy. In 2008, in Naples, a true pogrom against a Roma camp took place, because a young Romni had allegedly tried to rob a baby” (compare Die Welt 2014, RP Online 2014, Tiroler Tageszeitung 2014, Vogt 2014).