Anger at call to use ‘SS tactic’ on immigrants
A POLITICIAN has shocked Italians by proposing that immigrants be treated with the same severity the Nazis used when they occupied the country.
Giorgio Bettio, a city councillor in the northern city of Treviso, told a council meeting: “With immigrants, we should use the same system the SS used, punish ten of them for every slight against one of our citizens.”
That revived memories of the 1944 Ardeatine Caves massacre, when Hitler ordered that ten Italians be executed for each of the 33 German soldiers killed in an attack on occupying forces in a Rome street.
Immigration has been a burning issue in the rich northern Veneto region, where Treviso is located. Tensions have flared regularly between residents and immigrants, some of them seeking work in the area’s factories and fields.
Mr Bettio, a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League, was roundly condemned. Il Giornale, a newspaper that normally backs the Northern League, said in a front-page editorial: “Even if he was drunk or his brain short-circuited…he must be condemned without appeal.”
