Under the guidance of Santo Matteo, Italy is cleansing itself, street by street, quarter by quarter:
Police in Rome on Thursday cleared nearly 400 people, including dozens of children, from a shanty camp inhabited for years by members of the minority Roma community, despite a European Union court ruling halting demolition. Residents stood outside the camp with mattresses and other belongings piled alongside vehicles, some protesting against the move with chants of “Racists!”
Some residents complained that police used force during the eviction. Police commander Antonio Di Maggio denied the claims.
Mayor Virginia Raggi wrote on Facebook that the shantytown, established in a former campground called Camping River on Rome’s northern periphery, was closed for hygiene reasons. Parts of the camp had been without electricity and running water. She said that the move was meant to provide greater protection to the Roma, especially minors, some of whom do not attend school.
“It is unacceptable to continue to finance places like this that create ghettos, and above all, where the living conditions don’t protect the rights of children, women and men,” Raggi wrote in a Facebook post.
The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday asked Italian authorities to suspend action until Friday and outline plans to rehouse the community, following an appeal by three camp residents. But city officials said that they had long been working to relocate residents, and had delayed the planned closing by more than a year.
Raggi noted that some who were not Italian citizens had returned to their native Romania in recent months. While many members of Italy’s sizeable Roma community, also known as Gypsies, are of Italian nationality, many living in the camp were from Romania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Serbia.
But wait, there’s more:
Condannato per violenza sessuale su una minorenne, che in seguito a quegli abusi si ammazzò, un uomo di 45 anni è stato ucciso ieri sera a Frasso Telesino, un centro del Beneventano, dove era tornato da un paio di giorni grazie a un breve permesso ottenuto dopo nove anni di detenzione. L’assassino ha raggiunto Giuseppe Matarazzo fin dentro casa, per poi allontanarsi senza essere notato da nessuno, almeno stando alle prime indagini avviate dai carabinieri. Che per ora non si sbilanciano sul movente, ma certo Matarazzo difficilmente può avere avuto il tempo di farsi qualche nemico nelle poche ore di libertà di cui ha goduto in questi giorni, quindi è più che probabile che l’omicida avesse con lui un conto aperto da molti anni, e vista la colpa di cui si macchiò, non si può escludere che chi ha deciso di ucciderlo abbia ritenuto che l’uomo meritava una condanna superiore a quella inflittagli in corte d’assise e poi in appello.
Translation: a priest in Napoli who was jailed for molesting a 15-year-old girl, who later killed herself, was let out of prison for two days after serving 9 years of his 11-year sentence. At the end of the two days, he was found shot to death in his home. His death was not believed to be a suicide.