Could the decision be correct? because its true?

Let´s just see where this line of thinking goes ... yes, many Roma are/have been involved in pickpocketing & begging, so it´s okay to fingerprint every Roma ... and many blue eyed blond young men in London carry knives or even guns, so we can discriminate against every blue eyed blond boy in London ... and the Irish are known to be a nation of drinkers, so let´s ban them from driving

... and the very obvious parrallel to the Jews in Hitler´s Germany - same thinking

PS yes, Perikles, the term Roma is long established and the preferred name of the Romani see Romani.org Home Page

Although the Romani people are often referred to as "Gypsies" (and prefer to be called by their more proper designation, Roma), not all "gypsies" or nomadic peoples are Roma. The Roma are descendants of the ancient warrior classes of Northern India, particularly the Punjab, and they are identifiable by their language, religion, and customs, which can be directly linked to those of the Punjabi in northern India.

I thought it was recent (last 35-50 yrs) slang for Romanies or Gypsies

Mmm...

just looked at the link, the first few lines or so of which read
Haven't we heard things like this too, on the other side, before? A great deal of atrocity has been committed elsewhere in the name of a nomadic people's need for "recognition as a people and a nation" ... a nation?

This automatically makes me further suspicious about the reason I clicked the link to begin with. This claim of descent from "the ancient warrior classes of Northern India, particularly the Punjab" doesn't sit well with me. What do they mean by "identifiable by their language, religion, and customs, which can be directly linked to those of the Punjabi in northern India". This is a Sikh area ... do the Roma gypsies wear turbans? Do they bear the five holy items?

This isn't trivialising it, but calling it out for the spurious claim it probably is. It is possibly a misconceived association with Northern Indian (Indo-European) linguistic and cultural roots ... but the point of that is that we can all, each and every one of us, make the same claim. That's where our modern languages started.

Gypsies have long been associated with theft, there is nothing new with that, and I wonder if this legal ruling isn't some sort of tacit recognition of the fact, and a legal judgement that people can't actually be blamed for continuing a discrimination that has existed for ages, and which has recognizable justification a considerable amount of the time.

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There is no doubt that the origins of the "Name" Romani is Indian but I'd like to see the family that can accurately trace their history to India.

They are a "Mongrel" race same as the English, but with very little written history. At least the Jews can trace (by written records) their ancestry back many hundreds of years.

I wasn´t endorsing the link, just showing that Roma was the preferred name

So you support the expulsion of an entire group from an area because of this (which is what the whole case was about). At what point then is it okay to allow generalisations based on the wrong doings of some of a group.

You don't see a couple of hundred blue eyed blond men, in every major London tube station, waiting for the next mark.

It's difficult, I think. In the UK there have been very many examples of councils "moving on" gypsies due to local pressure from people who have found that the arrival of a group of caravans has coincided with a rocketing in petty burglaries, car thefts, pickpocketing etc. It might be Italy that's given a court judgement on the issue, but I think the issue is widespread.

The "thin edge of the wedge" argument is a strong one, but it's nonetheless a theoretical one. When it applies, it's because others are trying to deal with the issue on a practical level.

I don't know what the answer is.

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Janet Anscombe Associates
The Tenerife Experts
for anyone living in or moving to Tenerife
Visit our website www.janetanscombe.com

Unfortunately dirty kids get more begging than clean kids

Nobody has admitted to having any firsthand information regarding Roma/Gypsies.

We all stand back and insist that there be no discrimination without any reference to the victims of crime.

The Italians are not instigating a Holocaust they are hopefully only trying to protect their taxpayers and the enviroment in which they live.