Top UN human rights official Navi Pillay has slammed the Berlusconi administration for treating Roma people and immigrants as "security problems" rather than looking at ways to include them in society.
After visiting two Roma camps on the outskirts of Rome and a nearby Identification and Expulsion Centre on Thursday, Ms Pillay said: "I have raised the issues of fundamental human rights such as access to health care and education, especially for those Roma living in informal Roma settlements, and the excessive resort to repressive measures such as police surveillance and forced evictions."
Ms Pillay also criticised what she called the "often extraordinarily negative portrayal of both migrants and Roma in some parts of the media."
She noted that a survey of 5,684 television news stories linked immigration with a specific criminal activity or security issue nearly every time.
"I am a firm believer in freedom of speech - but vilification and deliberate negative stereotyping of any group of people is unacceptable and dangerous," Ms Pillay observed.
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