Police raid 9 Chinese businesses in Italy
Print Edition
ITALIAN police yesterday said they raided nine premises in the country’s biggest Chinatown as part of an investigation into a gang suspected of organizing vigilante-style attacks on North Africans.
The raids were carried out in the Tuscan town of Prato, home to one of the biggest Chinese communities in Europe and a booming textile industry notorious for sweatshop exploitation.
The individuals being investigated are all linked to a Chinese cultural association called “The City of the White Stag.”
Yesterday’s raids were carried out under warrants issued for criminal association and commissioning racially motivated violence.
A police statement said the head of the White Stag group had organized vigilante-style patrols in Prato which had led to attacks on Arab immigrants with no criminal connections.
The raids followed clashes between police and some 300 Chinese on Wednesday evening after a health and safety inspection of a Chinese-owned textile factory in Sesto Fiorentino, a suburb of Florence close to Prato.
The mini-riot was sparked after an altercation between officers and an elderly Chinese man who was stopped leaving the factory with a baby in his arms, according to local reports.
Four policemen and three workers were hurt in the scuffles and police made two arrests.
Reports said protestors had shouted: “All you know how to do is to hand out fines.”
At yesterday’s foreign ministry press briefing in Beijing, spokesman Hong Lei said Chinese diplomats have made representations to the Italian authorities, “asking them to enforce the law, carry out just investigations, and safeguard the security and legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens in Italy.”
Hong said China would “continue to follow this incident and offer necessary assistance to Chinese citizens there within our remit.
“Meanwhile, we ask Chinese citizens in Italy to safeguard their own rights and interests in a reasonable way.”
The latest incidents underline long-standing tensions between the Italian authorities and the country’s Chinese community, which has prospered economically but is regularly accused of showing no interest in integration and of sending millions in untaxed profits back to China.
In the Florence area, authorities have long battled the related problems of sweatshop exploitation and clandestine immigration.
But local officials say efforts to better regulate the textiles sector have borne fruit since a 2013 fire in a garment factory left seven people dead.
It emerged afterward that the workers had been living in the factory and were unable to escape because the windows were barred.
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