10|01|08 During the last couple of days, the town of Rosarno, in Calabria, has been been the site of protests and riots by African immigrant farm workers. According to news reports, on Thursday night hundreds of cars were damaged, several people injured, and some immigrants detained after clashes with police. The protests continued today. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni commented that such incidents showed that Italy's immigration policy had been too lenient for too long. "In all these years illegal immigration has been tolerated without doing anything effective, an immigration that on the one hand has fed crime and on the other has led to situations of extreme squalor such as that at Rosarno". "What is needed now is to calm the situation in Rosarno. There is mafia, exploitation, xenophobia and racism there. You have to go to the roots," said the leader of the opposition Democratic Party, Piero Bersani.

|CiaoAmerica.net|