Chronicles of ordinary racism 2011 - Cronache di ordinario razzismo

8 October 2010 Gavardo (BS), Lombardy
Mayor Emanuele Vezzola of the PdL (People of Liberty) party decides to carry out
checks into ‘fitness for habitation’ and ‘standards of hygiene’ of buildings in some areas
of town. It’s a kind of drawing up of records expressly designed to discourage residence
requests by foreigners, and to persuade them not to seek lodgings in certain areas,
streets and buildings where there’s already a large concentration of immigrants (there
are 106 addresses to be checked on the council’s list). The mayor’s order is contained in
a regulation covering ‘registration at the local records office and public health, hygiene
and safety standards.’ Under the terms of the regulation anyone providing lodging to a
foreigner not only has to communicate their presence (within 48 hours of arrival, as
stipulated by law) to local police; they also have to specify length and terms of stay, the
number and ‘type’ of lodger in proportion to the dimensions of the property, and
provide land registry office data on the property. UNAR (the national anti racial
descrimination bureau) roundly condemns the initiative: the regulations ‘violate
principles of equality of treatment, especially in those articles where they introduce new
and stricter requisites for communicating terms of lodging.’ Source: La Repubblica
10 October 2010 Fabrica di Roma (VT), Lazio
A tow truck is about to load up a Volkswagen which has double parked. The owner
runs up, all out of breath: ‘Sorry, Iʹll move it right away!’ Iulian, a Romanian national, is
here as a dinner guest of his fellow countryman Mihai M, together with his wife, his
sister and his two‐month‐old son. Itʹs Mihai who first noticed that the Carabinieri were
checking his friendʹs car. He shouted out of the window that his friend was just coming
down, to which one of the policemen replied ‘Coming down my a***! As soon as Julian
appears, the same policeman says ‘Youʹre a pain in the a***. You should go back to your
country. We make the law!’ The tow truck hooks up the car, encouraged by a policeman
who is waving on the manoeuvre, even though Julian is now in the driverʹs seat. Fed up
with Mihaiʹs protests, the driver of the tow truck gets out and attacks him while he
films the scene on his mobile phone, squaring up to the lens and shouting into his face,
‘Listen you, youʹre not allowed to film me because….’ Then he unleashes a full‐on
punch and the mobile phone flies into the air. Mihai falls to the ground with mutiple
fractures to the jaw and the right cheekbone. His son picks up the phone and carries on
filming, threatened all the while by the policemen. Mihai M, 62, files a report to the
Viterbo public prosecutorʹs office against Luigi Crescenzi, owner of the tow‐truck
company, for actual bodily harm and failure to stop and give assistance. Source:
Corriere della Sera.
11 October 2010 Pisa (PI), Tuscany
A 54‐year‐old air force marshall, Michele Greco, is stabbed to death by his 19‐year‐old
drug addict son. Itʹs the son himself who calls the Carabinieri and the ambulance,
saying ‘Come quickly, my fatherʹs been attacked, heʹs dying.’ At first he attempts to
explain the attack by pinning the blame on a scapegoat: he tells them that he and his
father were attacked by ‘some immigrants, two Moroccans.’ But after a few hours of
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