A White Christmas in Italy means Christmas without non-EU citizens

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Thursday November 19, 2009 21:35 by candlelight

Police in 2-month house to house search to check up on non-EU citizens and deport them if their papers are not in order.

Franco Claretti, Mayor of Coccaglio, near Brescia in Northern Italy said” Our objective is to clean the town out”. Claudio Abiendi, Northern League Councillor for Security stated “Christmas isn’t a Welcome Festival, it’s Christian tradition that celebrates our identity” And two neighbouring towns Castelcovati and Castrezzato are copying the initiative.

BRESCIA – The right-wing council with its Northern League Mayor and three councillors with the other three belonging to Berlusconi’s Liberty Party have just inaugurated the “White Christmas” operation to rid the town of non-EU citizens. The name was chosen because the initiative ends on Christmas day .In Coccaglio, just under 7,000 inhabitants and 1,500 foreigners, the police will be knocking on the doors of the 400 non-EU citizens. If their residence permits expired more than six months ago and if they cannot prove they have applied for renewal, “then” says Mayor Franco Claretti “their right to residence is revoked” .

In Coccaglio the number of non-EU citizens, mainly Maroccans,Albanians and people from the former Yugoslavia, rose from 177 in 1998 to 1562 in 2008, becoming 20% of the population. “They are not criminals” insists Claretti “we just want to start a clean-up” .

Councillor Claudio Abiendi, who says he ”was one of the founder members of the Northern League” stated “Since we started on 25th October we have carried out 150 inspections and 50% of the people we checked up on did not have their papers in order”.
In Milan on 24th October, at the first Convention for Northern League Mayors, operation White Christmas was approved by the powers that be in the party. “Minister Maroni is a practical man” says Mayor Claretti “he advised us on how to carry out the operation without running into any legal hitches”
Umberto Bossi, leader of the Northern League admits “ You may not like the name of the operation but the law is being applied. Maybe “White Christmas was a poor choice of name. Perhaps they should have called it “Christmas Legality Inspection” . Sometimes form is substance”