Tor Sapienza violence 'cry for help'

(ANSA) - Rome, November 27 - Recent anti-immigrant violence in low-income areas of the capital is not to be "dismissed merely as racism", Senate Speaker Pietro Grasso said Thursday. "This would be a major error of evaluation: I believe those protests are a request for help and for attention," Grasso said.
    In mid-November city authorities were forced to transfer 36 underage refugees out of a reception center in Tor Sapienza, a working-class neighborhood in east Rome whose residents have long complained of poor services, ill-lit streets, and a rising crime rate, including several attacks on women.
    The move became necessary after local residents threw bottles and stones at the centre, sparking the refugees' response. "The unrest in Tor Sapienza has forced us to ask questions that still remain unanswered," Grasso said. "The problems facing these neighbourhoods are the same as those facing the country: unemployment, insecurity, school abandonment, absence of services," he added.