Europe's latest wall - the drug ghetto of Padova, Italy

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Friday August 11, 2006 07:56

by sofia

Favio Zanonato the mayor of Padova, Italy elected as a social democrat has astounded rights groups worldwide and provoked polemic indignation in his own city with what he terms a "temporary measure". A troublesome neighbourhood and its core complex of flats which are home to marginalised migrant groups and native Italian poor with high instances of drug use and sale has been walled.

Construction workers arrived without prior warning and erected in one day a security fence of 4 milimetre thick steel fencing and 3 metres high around the flats. Only one entrance or exit has been left where residents and visitors alike must submit to searches by the police before passing through.

4mm thick, 3 metres high and 84 metres long. Padova's council (Italy) wall in their drug addicts.

The flat complex was scene to a drug related feud between Nigerian and north Africans in the last month with a police seizure of 125 grammes of cocaine resulting.

Can that justify a ghetto?

For the moment Italian press makes comparisons to the Bronx of the infamous past of NYC. However, the Bronx never saw a steel wall erected. The ease with which such a measure has occured ought worry people worldwide.

http://www.rai.it/news/articolornews24/0,9219,4359691,0....html
http://www.adnkronos.com/3Level.php?cat=Cronaca&loid=1....97457
http://www.ilgiornale.it/a.pic1?ID=110711
http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2006/08_Ago...shtml
http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2006/08_Ago...shtml

I presume there will be a campaign and the polemic will deepen & I'll update in comments.
For the moment for italian readers there are a few links here, and one opinion piece from Italy indymedia which reflects on the ghetto-ization of Italy's urban areas.
http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2006/08/1130540.php