Racist laws led to the extermination
of the Roma, President Sergio Mattarella said Wednesday.
He added that "the poison of racism is still penetrating
society".
Mattarella said "tested with measures implemented in the
African colonies, despite the robust roots of thousand-year-old
Italian civilisation, racial laws led to the ferocious
persecution of Jews, a premise for the Holocaust.
"In the same way it was unleashed against Roma and Sinti, and
those monstrous discriminations led to the extermination, the
'porrajmos', of the Gypsies."
The head of State was speaking on the 80th anniversary of
the proclamation of the Manifesto of Race in Italy.
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