On This Day

On November 3rd, 1927, a Prussian ministerial decree was issued requiring all Roma to be registered through documentation "in the same manner as individuals being sought by means of wanted posters, witnesses, photographs and fingerprints."
Infants were to be fingerprinted, and those over the age of six to carry identity cards bearing their photograph as well. Between November 23rd and 26th, armed raids were carried out by the police on Roma communities throughout Prussia to enforce the decree of November 3rd. Eight thousand were processed as a result.

History? No, it's happening in Italy right now. Italy's interior minister Roberto Maroni has proposed and begun implementing a policy of police fingerprinting of all members of the Italian Roma/Gypsy Community. That alone is a cause for concern, but when combined with the repeated (and unpunished) attacks on Gypsy camps, and the Italy's Highest appeals court ruling that it is acceptable to discriminate against Roma because "All Gypsies were thieves".
Déjà vu?

We are not monsters, we are not thieves. We are just people.