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ANTIGYPSYISM
Antigypsyism is known as prejudice or a racial or cultural basis against Sinti and Roma people, expressed through stigmatisation, hate speech, segregation, violence and various forms of discrimination - including institutional discrimination, such as ethnic-based censuses.
The genocide of the Sinti and Roma people represented the height of Antigypsyism.
The survey carried out by the European Union in 2019 finds that Italy has the highest degree of Antigypsyism in Europe.
Eva Rizzin talks about the past
and present of Antigypsyism
Eva Rizzin is in charge of the National Observatory on Antigypsyism at the CREAa of the University of Verona.
Cover of the Zigeuner Buch
Zigeuner-Buch
In 1905, the Zigeuner-Buch (translated literally: The Book of Gypsies), a collection of personal and genealogical data of 3350 people belonging to the Sinti minority, was published in Munich.
The ethnically-based census was commissioned by the Munich police to collect data and information on the presence of Sinti people in Bavaria, but was also disseminated to the rest of Germany, Switzerland and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The study continued in the following years and by 1936 more than 19,000 names had been registered.
Statistical survey
On 24 September 1963 the Ministry of the Interior, headed by Mariano Rumor, sent to all Prefects of the Republic a confidential circular, No. 10.10895/12791.A(3) entitled 'Gypsies - statistical survey'.
This is the first known ethnically-based census carried out in Italy after the fall of Fascism.
Italian Sinti and Roma people were registered in municipal registry offices and counted in the national censuses, but the Italian government deemed it necessary to register, on an ethnic basis, every family considered to be 'nomadic', including children, because they were 'prone to crimes against property and begging'.
2008 census
State of emergency
On 21 May 2008, the then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, at the request of former Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, signed the 'Declaration of the state of emergency in relation to the settlements of nomadic communities in the territory of the regions of Campania, Lazio and Lombardy'.
On 30 May 2008, the former Prime Minister signed three ordinances, 'Urgent civil protection provisions to deal with the state of emergency in relation to nomadic community settlements', for Lombardy, Lazio and Campania - to which Piedmont and Veneto were added in 2009. The measures against Sinti and Roma people in the five regions made explicit reference to natural disasters (such as an earthquake), giving full powers to the Prefects. One of the special measures adopted was the census on an ethnic basis, with fingerprinting of all people - including minors - living in places recognised as 'nomad camps'. Families living in their own areas were also censused.
In its judgement 6352 of 1 July 2009, the Regional Administrative Court annulled 'Article 1, paragraph 2, letter c) of the Prime Ministerial Order of 30 May 2008, insofar as it allows the identification of persons, including minors, to be carried out sic et simpliciter by means of sign surveys'.
On 26 March 2013, the Supreme Court of Cassation declared the so-called 'nomad emergency' unlawful.
To date, there is no news of the destruction of the data collected by the Prefectures.
