Rome begins Gypsy census without fingerprints

Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government has drawn a stream of criticism from the European Union and human rights groups since announcing last month it wanted to fingerprint the tens of thousands of Gypsies, children and adults alike, who live in hundreds of encampments built mainly around Rome, Naples and Milan.

A government ordinance required a census of the camps but left authorities in each city leeway on how to identify the inhabitants. Rome Prefect Carlo Mosca, the government's top security official for the city, has been skeptical of mass fingerprinting.

Officials with the Italian Red Cross began the census at a camp on the outskirts of the city Thursday, taking down details on the health, education and family status of a few dozen inhabitants. Police didn't take part in the process, but stood by to provide security.

Mosca said at a news conference Friday said that Gypsies will not be fingerprinted unless there is suspicion they may have committed a crime, in which case police will carry out the process after approval by a magistrate.

"When there is suspicion of a crime ... fingerprints can be taken as for any Italian," he said on Friday.

The national government maintains that fingerprinting, part of a wider crackdown on street crime and illegal immigration, is needed to establish who is living in the country illegally, and to spur efforts to get Gypsy children to attend school.

Critics say the campaign is a discriminatory measure that singles out the Gypsy, or Roma, minority.

The camp in the Corviale neighborhood was half-empty and those residents who stepped up to fill the forms said some of the inhabitants had fled in fear of the approaching throng of media and officials.

"We are here only for humanitarian purposes, to get in touch with these people who have been always marginalized," Massimo Barra, President of the Italian Red Cross, told reporters at the camp in Rome. "(We) have nothing to do with fingerprints."