Pope denounces Italy immigrant clashes, says immigrants have rights, are loved by God

Pope denounces Italy immigrant clashes

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI denounced the riots last week between immigrants and Italians in southern Italy, saying Sunday that migrants have rights, must be respected, and are equally loved by God.

Benedict made the unusual commentary on current events during his weekly noon blessing, clearly coming down on the side of the migrants in exhorting Italians to see them as human beings and not just labor to be exploited.

“I invite everyone to look in the face of the other and discover that there is a soul, a history, a life, a person whom God loves as he loves me,” Benedict said.

The riots by hundreds of African migrant workers erupted Thursday night in Rosarno, a town in the underdeveloped agricultural region of Calabria, after two migrants were wounded in a shooting. Dozens were injured in the two days of clashes, which officials say may have been provoked by the region’s powerful organized crime group — the ‘ndrangheta.

The violence underscored the simmering tensions between immigrants and Italians, many of whom resent the foreigners yet rely on their labor to do the agricultural, domestic or factory work that many Italians refuse to do.

“Every migrant is a human being — different because of provenance, culture and tradition — but a person to be respected and having rights, particularly in work, where the temptation to exploit is easy,” Benedict said.

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni concurred Sunday with the hypothesis that the ‘ndrangheta may have provoked the riots, either in reaction to anti-mob crackdown efforts or to show the mafia’s strength in the region.

Earlier this month, a bomb exploded in front of the regional courthouse in what was seen as the ‘ndrangheta response to the recent arrests of major bosses and efforts to shore up Calabrian law enforcement.

Newspaper analysts have suggested that Rosarno residents, who have long lived peacefully with the seasonal migrants, turned to their local ‘ndrangheta bosses when the migrants’ numbers increased yet field work dried up.

“It’s one of the possible (hypotheses), the investigations are under way,” Maroni told Sky TG24.

The U.N. refugee agency has said many of Rosarno’s migrants came recently from Italy’s north after factory jobs dried up last year because of the economic crisis. That influx added to the town’s existing migrant population.

Maroni faulted local authorities for not having intervened sooner, particularly considering the wretched conditions in which the migrants were living in an abandoned cheese factory. He also blamed local businessmen for paying migrants low wages under the table.

According to Italian law, migrants must have a job lined up before stepping foot on Italian soil.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative government has taken a hard line on illegal migration, sending back migrants found at sea even before screening them for possible asylum and repatriating those who reach Italy if they don’t have a job or fail to qualify for asylum.

Maroni, a leading member of the anti-immigrant Northern League party and the enforcer of the get-tough strategy, said Italy had forcibly repatriated 40,000 people in the last two years, and that the numbers of foreigners trying to reach Italy had fallen as a result. In 2008, 30,000 illegal migrants arrived in Italy; in 2009 only 3,000, he said.

In the wake of the Rosarno riots, several hundred of the town’s migrants were bused out of the region to shelters in other parts of Italy. Maroni said those who didn’t have valid work documents or asylum applications would be expelled.

The pope said immigrants to Italy were looking for a better life in a country that needs them, yet he also denounced the recourse to riot, saying: “Violence must never, for anyone, be the way to resolve differences.”