Italian outrage over Roma drowning photos

[Michael Laudahn eOpposition]

Italian newspapers, an archbishop and civil liberties campaigners expressed
shock and revulsion on Monday after photographs were published of sunbathers
apparently enjoying a day at the beach just meters from where the bodies of
two drowned Roma girls were laid out on the sand.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/WORLD/europe/07/21/italy.drowning/art.beach.gramma.jpg
<--- The bodies of two drowned Roma girls were laid out on the sand under
beach towels.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/WORLD/europe/07/21/italy.drowning/art.coffin.jpg
<--- Police officers are helped to carry one of the bodies away in a
coffin.

Italian news agency ANSA reported that the incident had occurred on Saturday
at the beach of Torregaveta, west of Naples, southern Italy, where the two
girls had earlier been swimming in the sea with two other Roma girls.
Reports said they had gone to the beach to beg and sell trinkets.

Local news reports said the four girls found themselves in trouble amid
fierce waves and strong currents. Emergency services responded 10 minutes
after a distress call was made from the beach and two lifeguards attended
the girls upon hearing their screams.

Two of them were pulled to safety but rescuers failed to reach the other two
in time to save them. Watch why the photos have generated anger »

The Web site of the Archbishop of Naples said the girls were cousins named
Violetta and Cristina, aged 12 and 13.

Their bodies were eventually laid out on the sand under beach towels to
await collection by police. Photographs show sunbathers in bikinis and
swimming trunks sitting close to where the girls' feet can be seen poking
out from under the towels concealing their bodies. A photographer who took
photos at the scene told CNN the mood among sunbathers had been one of
indifference.

Other photos show police officers lifting the bodies into coffins and
carrying them away past bathers reclined on sun loungers.

"While the lifeless bodies of the girls were still on the sand, there were
those who carried on sunbathing or having lunch just a few meters away,"
Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported.

Corriere della Sera said that a crowd of curious onlookers that had formed
around the bodies quickly dispersed.

"Few left the beach or abandoned their sunbathing. When the police from the
mortuary arrived an hour later with coffins, the two girls were carried away
between bathers stretched out in the sun."

The incident also attracted condemnation from the Archbishop of Naples,
Cardinal Crecenzio Seppe. "Indifference is not an emotion for human beings,"
Seppe wrote in his parish blog. "To turn the other way or to mind your own
business can sometimes be more devastating than the events that occur."

Recent weeks have seen heightened tensions between Italian authorities and
the country's Roma minority amid a crackdown by Silvo Berlusconi's
government targeting illegal immigrants and talk by government officials of
a "Roma emergency" that has seen the 150,000-strong migrant group blamed for
rising street crime.

That has provided justification for police raids on Roma camps and
controversial government plans to fingerprint all Roma -- an act condemned
by the European Parliament and United Nations officials as a clear act of
racial discrimination. Popular resentment against Romanies has also seen
Roma camps near Naples attacked and set on fire with petrol bombs by local
residents.

In a statement published on its Web site, the Italian civil liberties group
EveryOne said Saturday's drowning had occurred in an atmosphere of "racism
and horror" and cast doubt on the reported version of events, suggesting
that it appeared unusual for the four girls to wade into the sea, apparently
casting modesty aside and despite being unable to swim.

"The most shocking aspect of all this is the attitude of the people on the
beach," the statement said. "No one appears the slightest upset at the sight
and presence of the children's dead bodies on the beach: they carry on
swimming, sunbathing, sipping soft drinks and chatting."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/21/italy.drowning/index.html

--
Give us back our countries: Stop the criminal multiculturalism ideology
enforced upon the white world against the will of its peoples, leading to
mass immigration from the third-world: Mul-cul + pol-corr = lethal mixture
for the white world. And give us back our freedom: Dismantle all
surveillance technology.