An Italian councillor has sparked outrage by demanding that funding for a local marathon be scrapped because Africans always win it.
Speaking during a session of the Padua provincial assembly, Pietro Giovannoni – a member of the anti-immigration Northern League party – said: "Let's stop using public money to finance the marathon, since the winners are always Africans and foreigners in underpants."
Kenyan runners have won seven of the 11 marathons held locally, with Italians winning just two. The next race is scheduled for April 2011.
Giovannoni's comments were part of an upsurge of anti-immigrant and anti-gypsy sentiment in Padua, near Venice.
Earlier, rightwing city councillor Vittorio Aliprandi wrote on his Facebook page that the local Gypsies "make me vomit" and deserve "a kicking".
Last month, a train conductor was given a four-month prison sentence after he ejected two Nigerians from a train at Padua station, telling them: "You blacks cannot get on board."
Ivo Rossi, the deputy mayor of Padua, condemned the outbursts, warning that "this crescendo of idiocy is provoking an incalculable damage to the image of the Veneto region".
Paolo Giacon, a local centre-left politician, warned that the episodes were a warm-up for a possible electoral campaign as Silvio Berlusconi's weakened government heads for a crucial confidence vote on 14 December.
"On the centre-right there is a hateful and shameful competition underway to see who can be the most insultingly racist, possibly in the run up to an electoral campaign based on hate and fear of diversity," Giacon said.
In a speech yesterday, Berlusconi claimed leftwing politicians in Italy "want to throw open the borders to let foreigners in, to give them the vote and change this country's moderate majority".
With unemployment mounting, tensions are also rising among immigrants who, under Italian law, risk losing their residency permits and being expelled from Italy should they lose their jobs.
Immigrants from countries including Egypt, Morocco and Pakistan staged a 16-day protest on top of a crane in Brescia last month, demanding residency permits and drawing crowds of sympathisers who clashed with police.
ShareThis