Italy to Fingerprint Gypsy Population

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.