Italy Rounds up its Gypsies onto a National Database

Anyone with a sense of the past would be forgiven for a strong feeling of foreboding about what is happening.

Thousands of migrants, many of them Roma gipsies from the old communist bloc and racially troubled Balkans, have poured into the country since the dismantling of border controls across a greatly expanded European Union in 2004.

The huge diaspora was political good fortune for 73-year-old Berlusconi.

In a country where fascism under dictator Benito Mussolini thrived until the end of World War II, Berlusconi warned of a 'Roma emergency' in big cities and produced a dossier of dubious figures alleging foreigners were involved in half of Italy's attempted murders, muggings and robberies.

The interior minister went further. Roberto Maroni, a leader of the anti-immigrant Northern League aligned with Berlusconi's nationalist Forza Italia party, claimed the controversial census and fingerprinting was essential to discover 'who is entitled to be here and who is not'.

It would stop anonymous armies of Roma children being sent out begging or stealing by their families, 60 per cent of whom have no identity papers or passports, he claimed.

Gipsy people with the right to stay would be re-housed in 'decent conditions rather than with rats'. The remainder, Maroni made clear, could expect deportation.