Europe rights body, Spain, say worried about Italy immigrants

Europe's leading human rights watchdog and Spain both expressed concern on Friday over episodes of xenophobia and violence against immigrants in Italy.

Rome said the worries were unfounded. Italian police evacuated illegal Roma camps in Naples this week after local people, angry at a suspected baby-snatching incident involving a 17-year-old Roma girl, set fire to Roma shacks repeatedly during the night. Nobody was injured.

On Thursday police said they had arrested almost 400 suspected illegal immigrants associated with crime, with focus on Roma, known in Italy as "nomads", who come mainly from Romania and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

In Vienna, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) urged Italy's new right-wing government to prevent attacks on Roma communities.

"We are troubled by the recent incidents of violence against Roma in Italy," said Christian Strohal, head of the ODIHR, the democracy watchdog arm of the 56-nation Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OECD). "Frustrations about high crime levels may be understandable.

But the current stigmatisation of Roma and immigrant groups in Italy is dangerous as it contributes to fuelling tensions and increases the potential for violence," he said in a statement.

In Madrid, Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega also expressed concern about events in Italy since the new government of Silvio Berlusconi took office last week.

"The government rejects violence, racism and xenophobia and therefore cannot agree with what is happening in Italy," she told the cabinet's weekly news conference.

Stefania Craxi, undersecretary at Italy's foreign ministry, dismissed the perceived criticism "in Spain and Europe" as coming from people who are "faking naivete".

"If they would better research the facts, they would understand that the provisions by the Italian government are aimed precisely at calming an explosion of xenophobic feelings," said Craxi, daughter of late Socialist premier Bettino Craxi. She said Italy's immigrations problems stemmed from the "irresponsible policies" of the previous centre-left government of Romano Prodi.

Italian Foreign Ministry sources said Italian diplomats in Spain were confident that that Fernandez de la Vega was referring to anti-Roma violence in Naples and not government policy and that Rome considered the incident closed. They said Foreign Minister Franco Frattini had spoken to Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and everything had been cleared up.

Berlusconi's government is drafting an emergency package which, according to media reports, includes reimposing border checks despite Italy's membership of the European Union passport-free Schengen zone. It also aims to make illegal immigration a jailable offence, hasten deportations. turn holding centres into detention camps and promote special "Roma commissioners" in some cities to deal with nomad slums seen by many Italians as emblematic of crime. Roma complain of being exposed to violent xenophobia due to collective racial profiling as thieves and thugs prompted by offences of a small minority in their 170,000 population.