Italy's action against the gypsies

[Hax]

Yes, yes, it would appear that discrimination hasn't been kicked out of the EU just yet. (Story Link):

In a throwback to the Second World War, Italy's new Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, has announced an initiative to fingerprint all Roma adults and children living in the country. Using a planned census of the community as cover, the program is scheduled to start some time this fall.

Immediately after Maroni's disclosure of the plan, Italians began voicing their concerns. 'In order to respect children's rights of equality, it would also be necessary to take fingerprints from every Italian child,'' UNICEF Italy president Vincenzo Spadafora told Italy's biggest news agency, ANSA.

Contending that Italy had lost it's memory of the Holocaust, former Jewish community chief Amos Luzzato told ANSA that the program was "unacceptable" and a form of "ethnic surveying," explaining to La Repubblica that it criminalizes the gypsy community, and is "a clear and unacceptable sign of racism."

Anyone expecting anything different out of a government led by Silvio Berlusconi ought to have their head examined. Both Berlusconi and his coalition partners aren't exactly known for espousing multiculturalism. As even the most casual observers of Italian politics will tell you, quite the opposite, in fact.

What remains open to question is how a country that is a respected member of the European Union can get away with prosecuting policies like these. With the EU fretting over whether to admit Turkey over it's treatment of the Kurds, how could it tolerate such illiberal behavior from fully integrated member states?

At the very least, the European Union should move to censure member governments who take such actions against their own people. The longer it waits to do so, the more the entire continent will end up sharing responsibility for such crimes against Europe's increasingly diverse and vulnerable citizenry.

And a more recent update:

ROME -- Italian officials carrying out a survey of the country's Gypsy population will only fingerprint those who don't have a valid ID, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday, apparently dropping plans to fingerprint all Gypsies after critics called it discriminatory.The ministry said the new guidelines were sent to local authorities in Rome, Milan and Naples, where tens of thousands of Gypsies live in hundreds of shabby encampments built on the cities' outskirts.
Officials in the cities had already begun taking information from the inhabitants with varying methods after the government ordered the census as part of a crack down on street crime, which Italians blame mostly on foreigners.
Government officials had said the census would include fingerprinting those living in camps, adults and children alike.
That plan provoked a storm of criticism from center-left opposition as well as from the European Union and human rights groups. Opponents say the campaign is a discriminatory measure that singles out a minority.
More than 700 encampments have been built, mainly around Rome, Milan and Naples, populated almost entirely by Gypsies, also known as Roma.
The conservative government of Premier Silvio Berlusconi maintains the census is needed to establish who is living in the country illegally, and to spur efforts to get Gypsy children to attend school.
The ministry guidelines issued Tuesday say fingerprints will be taken from adults and children above 14 only if they don't have a valid ID.

What do you think?