Governmental racism rises across EU

Roma women and children in a Lyon camp who stand to be expelled
under Nicolas Sarkozy's proposals

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/139884.html

Governmental hostility towards ethnic and religious minorities across Europe is on the rise, undermining the values upon which the European Union is founded.

The new discriminatory wave mocks the words of EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is based on "human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity."

In the United Kingdom, under the 2003 European Arrest Warrant Act, people can be held and extradited on a charge that is not even a crime.

The warrant can be issued against any person by the prosecuting authorities of any EU country.

The defendants are often held in British custody. Sometimes they are held for months until their appeals against extradition are dismissed -- as they almost always are.

Britain's Home Office has predicted that the number of Europeans held for extradition by British police will likely go up 70 percent in 2011.

In Italy, from the prime minister down, politicians have all united in scorning "irregular third-country citizens and nomads" in a manner that has appeared to legitimize acts of discrimination and violence.

In July, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi made a "declaration of state of emergency" which justifies extraordinary measures, including fingerprinting and photographing Roma people and other immigrants, including children.

In France, criticism piles up against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to expel hundreds of Roma gypsies and shut down some 300 Roma camps in the country within the next few months.

Most of the new gypsy arrivals in France are from Romania and Bulgaria, which are EU member states, whose citizens are ostensibly entitled to freedom of movement and residence throughout the Union.

However, Roma people live on the margins of a mostly hostile mainstream society in poor standards of housing, healthcare and education.

A wave of governmental anti-Islamic tactics has also been observed across the European Union.

Earlier this summer, by a vote of 335 to 1, France's lower house of parliament approved a ban on wearing face-covering veils in public. There have been attempts to enact similar bans in Belgium and Spain.

The EU has already allowed France, among other states, to ban religious headgear in schools and universities.

Perhaps the most stunning demonstration of Europe's growing anxiety about diversity came in Switzerland, which has long prided itself as a haven for refugees.

In a referendum last November, Swiss voters imposed a constitutional ban on the construction of minarets, the prayer towers of mosques. This is while Switzerland has only four minarets and Muslims make up roughly 5 percent of the population.