Italy: Police
01 January 1991
Italy: Police
artdoc April=1995
Victimisation of Romanies
Police punish Romany girls by cutting hair
The police have launched an internal investigation into claims
by three young Romany girls (aged 9, 11 and 13) that the police
cut off their hair when they caught them begging.
Gypsy organisations say that this is the first time this has
happened in Turin, although it is common practice in Rome and
Milan. It is a particularly cruel and degrading act as long hair
is highly prized in the Romany community and is very much a
cultural tradition. `The person who did this cannot have been
ignorant of the significance for Gypsy women of their long hair'
said one of the girl's mothers. The eldest of the three girls has
taken a long time to recover, waking up in the middle of the
night in tears (Il Manifesto 23.7.94).
Romany girl interned in religious institution after arrest
Romanies in the Veneto area organised a series of demonstrations
to have a young Romany girl, Bilijana Nicolic, freed after she
was locked up by nuns on the order of a young persons' court.
Her story is an incredible one. Initially, Bilijana was stopped
by the police in the centre of Padua for begging and taken to the
police station accompanied by a nun and a voluntary worker. It
was only a month later that her husband was allowed to talk to
her. For twenty days he had been kept in ignorance of her
whereabouts. When he finally gained access to her, he found her
in a terrified condition. She had written a message to him
threatening suicide unless she was released. But even then, it
took Bilijana's husband a further fifteen days to obtain
permission for a solicitor to gain access to her and to establish
the reason for her detention.
Bilijana's ordeal commenced when, in the hope of obtaining a
residence permit, she said, under police interrogation, that she
did not like living at the nomads' camp at Ponte Di Brenta. But
her statement was used against her in a police report and it
seems to have been enough to secure her internment in a religious
institution. This was, in fact, illegal, because although
Bilijana is still a minor, her marriage is recognised under
Italian law (Il Manifesto 22.7.94).
Beating in Florence
The public prosecutor in Florence has launched an inquiry into
an incident in which a Romany was beaten and threatened by two
uniformed police officers. Hasani Nasser was picked up near a
railway station by the officers who said they wanted to take him
in to `run some checks'. However, instead of being taken to the
police station he was bundled into a car and taken to a park
where he was insulted and threatened before being beaten and
dumped. At a press conference, it emerged that Nasser's
testimony is backed by various witness statements and a doctor's
report. It has been suggested that the two police officers might
form part of the special patrol accompanying the electoral party
of Gianfranco Fini (AN) and Fausto Bertinotti of the Communist
Refoundation (PRC).
Hasani Nasser lives at the Poderaccio Gypsy camp just outside
Florence which is currently threatened with closure. It is home
to roughly 500 Romanies and 800 undocumented refugees, mainly
from the former-Yugoslavia (Il Manifesto 11.6.94).
More on Florence
The chair of a Senegalese community project in Florence, Mbaye
Pape Diaw has protested at police violence against two Senegalese
hawkers. In this incident, as in the attack on the Romany, two
patrol-car policemen were involved.
It was on a Sunday evening that the Senegalese men were (quite
legally) setting out their wares in a market in the centre of
Florence when two policemen approached them asking to see their
documents and residence permits. When one of the men was taken
into a side alley, called a `dirty nigger' and pushed around, the
other Senegalese man attempted to intervene, whereupon he was
attacked and hit in the eye.
The Senegalese men went to