By AFP | Mar 12, 2010

Amnesty urges end to 'forced evictions' of gypsies in Rome

The human rights group Amnesty International on Thursday urged the city of Rome to halt the "forced evictions" of gypsies from camps on the outskirts of the Italian capital.

A plan to destroy more than 100 Roma (gypsy) camps and resettle some 6,000 inhabitants is likely to leave one in six of them homeless, Amnesty said in a new briefing paper titled "The Wrong Answer."

The London-based group warned: "If the plan is implemented it could be used as a blueprint for forced evictions in other Italian regions."

The centre-right government of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was elected in 2008 largely on an anti-immigration platform and moved quickly to make good on its campaign pledges.

In October 2008, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, a member of the populist and xenophobic Northern League, announced a plan to close 167 Roma camps across the country and rehouse thousands of people in "villages" with running water, electricity and rubbish collection.

He said illegal camps where Roma live in squalid conditions would be shut down.But the so-called "Nomad Plan" "violates the housing rights of Roma in Rome," Amnesty said.

"Roma families... face losing their possessions, their social contacts, their access to work and to state services," said Ignacio Jovtis, Amnesty's expert on Italy.

"Many Roma live in shacks and caravans lacking basic hygienic conditions," Jovtis acknowledged, but said: "The current situation is the result of years of neglect, inadequate policies and discrimination."

He said the rehousing plan is "incomplete and risks making the situation for many other Roma even worse."

Jovtis added: "Instead of offering Roma access to proper housing, the authorities are shuffling them off into remote camps."

This exacerbates further the obstacles and discrimination Roma face when applying for the regular employment that would enable them to afford private accommodation," he said.

Between 12,000 and 15,000 Roma live in and around Rome, of whom nearly 3,000 are ethnic Sintis who arrived in the area centuries ago.Immigration of Roma from Romania and the former Yugoslavia is a more recent phenomenon.