FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Vice Blog

Italy – Ethnic Integration & Press Freedom

As in, integration and a free press are two things that we'd like to see in Italy. We first started smelling the shit when putting together the Italian Cops Issue. We found out that it is ILLEGAL to take pictures of or interview Italian cops- even if you are a journalist. The only way you can do so is by getting a special permission from the Ministry of Interior, as well as the Head Commissioner of the Police in the Central Office, in Rome, all of which is subject to review by the Police Force's Press Office. Which takes about 6 weeks. Which made us feel like Winston Smith in 1984. In theory this law wavers when faced by the "right to report": i.e. When something newsworthy and urgent occurs that requires reporting. Ok. Then one of our photographers was stopped by cops three times in one afternoon and had his entire digital camera swiped, when reporting on the scene of ethnic clashes between gangs of Moroccans and Nigerians in the Anelli ghetto of Padua. This could mean two things: either inter-sectarian gang violence featuring machetes and heroin is not newsworthy, or Italian cops can pretty much do what they want, and fuck the free press.

Advertisement

The rising violence in the last week has resulted in more than 150 immigrants jailed. It all started in the night of the 25th of July with a clash between two drug dealing gangs. On the night of the 27th, however, it escalated into full-on urban warfare, when a gang of 150 Moroccans, masked and armed with machetes, cleavers, metal pipes, and a typical weapon of the area, the roncola, clashed with a group of 200 Nigerians who had assembled in Via Anelli, an isolated ghetto in the suburbs of Padua.

Via Anelli has, over the years, transformed from a normal suburb to one of the most dangerous places in Italy- a neighborhood controlled by rivalling gangs of drug dealers. One the one hand, Muslim Moroccans, and on the other Nigerian Christians from the Ibo tribe. Had Italian authorities been aware of the problems of imigration, had they studied what happened when Italians first mass-emigrated to the USA, they would have avoided the left-wing, no global tripe that has lead to this situation.

They could have avoided the mistake of having up to 10 immigrants sleeping in shifts in a 40 square foot bedsit. Had they been able to look at Italian immigrants beyond their rose-tinted glasses, they would have seen that every Italian ghetto, in Chicago or New York, set off a chain reaction, starting with hostility from local residents, leading to further ghettization, and then to hate and finally to open violence. In the end the ghettos became a mafia stronghold- and the same story has occurred in Via Anelli, Padua.

So we sent our guy Mariano to take some pictures of this paradise of integration over the weekend. The neighborhood is entirely blocked by police forces on every corner, and roadblocks going in and out of the ghetto. We asked Mariano what happened to him, and this is what he had to say:

"It was hard to keep the cops out of the frame because they were everywhere but I think I did a good job at it. When I first got there I walked up to a Lieutenant and asked him if I could venture inside the hood without being an actual resident. He told me to fuck off, but after persuading him he conceded that if indeed I was a freelance photographer I could walk around the corner and get into the hood via a side street, where the roadblock was unmanned- and that's what I did. I took maybe a dozen pictures of last night's devastation. At that point a cop approached me.
"Yes, officer."
"What are you doing?"
"I'm taking some pictures for a magazine."
"Press ID please."
"I don't have press ID. I work freelance."
"Ok, your ID please."
"Here." I handed him my driver's licence.
"You have to delete those pictures."
"But officer, these pictures are harmless, no policemen are in the shots."
"You have to delete them or I'm taking you back to HQ." He said, and took the camera from my hands and deleted every picture in it. I was very upset."

Reportes Without Borders ranks Italy 42nd in its worldwide chart of press freedom, right underneath Costa Rica and Mali. According to RWB, Italy has the least free press in all of Western Europe.