Italian police on the eve of Christmas moved to combat illegal immigrants
What is happening can hardly be called a local event – rather, it is another stage of a targeted policy carried out by the nationalist Northern League, part of Berlusconi's government, on whose initiative a special camp for migrants has been set up near the city of Brescia.
Coccaglio, located between Milan and Venice, has a population of just over 8,000. Just over 1,500 of them are, as they say here, "non-Italians." Ten years ago, there were only 177. Local authorities decided to combat the nearly tenfold increase in immigrants by radical means. Police are now going door to door looking for foreigners whose residence permits have expired.
Unsurprisingly, the city council is controlled by the conservative-nationalist Northern League party. Although local authorities assure that these measures have nothing to do with Christmas, Italian journalists have already dubbed them Operation "White Christmas," because they are supposed to end on December 25.
A protest demonstration against the authorities' actions took place in the city, attended by 3,000 people, and the Vatican expressed solidarity with the protesters. However, the local council claims it is doing nothing illegal and is merely implementing the policy of Silvio Berlusconi's government.
Roberto Maroni, Italy's Minister of the Interior and also leader of the Northern League, recently praised Franco Claretti, the mayor of Coccaglio, for his diligence at the opening of a camp near Brescia for those suspected of illegal immigration (officially called the Center for Identification and Deportation of Illegal Immigrants from Italy). "The operation that is being called 'White Christmas' has been carried out under other names in other cities," Signor Claretti defends himself. "And it never caused such a stir as here. The measures are aimed at fighting illegals, so there can be no talk of racism."
The number of immigrants in the industrialized north of Italy has grown sharply in recent years. The Northern League has skillfully exploited the anxiety this causes among the local population. Suffice it to say that during the last elections, the party's campaign poster showed three white sheep driving away a black one.
The situation is especially tense in the neighboring city of Brescia, where in the central districts foreigners already outnumber Italians. In November, an angry crowd almost lynched a Moroccan arrested on suspicion of raping a local woman on his way to court.
Opponents of the Northern League believe that the party is doing everything possible to keep tension in the region from subsiding. In Brescia and several other northern cities, League members recently distributed crosses on the streets in protest against a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that called the Italian authorities' decision to mandate crucifixes in school classrooms a violation of freedom of religion.
Operations like "White Christmas" in Coccaglio became possible after the Berlusconi government expanded mayors' powers to combat illegal immigration. Under Italian law, local councils can revoke residence permits six months after the permit expires if immigrants have not applied for an extension.
However, according to current legislation, foreigners must be invited to the city council in writing. Sending people to their homes is tantamount to publicly declaring that these people are dangerous and should be treated differently.
Sergei Maximov.
Novye Izvestiya