ITALY: Italian railways should segregate immigrants from locals on a busy commuter train unless the foreigners stop "behaving like animals", a senior member of the right-wing Northern League party said yesterday.
"They sleep on the seats, taking off their shoes and boots, meaning that other passengers can't sit there," former senator Mr Enzo Boso and a political ally wrote in a letter to the head of the provincial council in the city of Trento.
Mr Boso and his colleague, Mr Sergio Divina, demanded that the state railway carried out checks to make sure that all the immigrants had tickets and residency papers, and behaved "properly".
"If this doesn't happen, then we believe . . . that the moment has come to provide different wagons for the immigrants and for the 'poor' Italians . . ." the letter said.
Mr Boso said accusations that he wanted to create an apartheid system in Italy were "hypocritical".
"People are afraid about being called a racist, but I'm not.
"If I have to defend my people, my culture, my traditions, my roots and they call me a racist, then I'll say 'you're right'." - (Reuters)