APPEAL TO TOURISTS

Do you enjoy Italy? Are you satisfied with its monuments, its scenery, its cuisine? Fine, you know that the only reason why you, foreigners, are well received in Italy is because you have the right papers in your wallet, those that are able to open all borders, to win all affection, to ensure every kindness: money.

Tourists, you are not the only foreigners who have chosen our country as your destination. Every day, masses of the poor and desperate also come into Italy -- escaping from war, from misery, from famine. But while you are rich foreigners (tourists), they are poor foreigners (immigrants).

You come with the intention of amusing yourself. They come with the hope of survival.

You get smiles and flattery, they get contempt and violence.

For you the doors of the welcoming hotels open, for them the doors of actual concentration camps open.

When poor foreigners in Italy are not immediately turned away, they get hounded, persecuted, humiliated, arrested, beaten, expelled after a period of detention that can last as long as six months. Anyone who helps them, by giving them hospitality, can be imprisoned for 3 years. Even doctors can end up in prison, if they treat them without denouncing them to the authorities.

In this climate of terror, it is not at all surprising if the Minister of the Interior, after having declared that he wants to be "very nasty with immigrants", has ordered that boats full of the desperate be sent back into the sea; or if a representative of a party in the government has proposed reserving seats in the Milan subway only for Italians.

Tourists, you are visiting one of the Countries that was the cradle of civilization, but the only civilization presently in it is that of racism and xenophobia. Today in Italy, there are no more poets like Dante, no more lovers like Romeo and Juliet, no more inventors like Leonardo; there are only reactionaries, police and inspectors, all provided with handcuffs and truncheons.

You know, tourists, that your money also helps the Italian regime to carry out its politics. By supporting the Italian economy, you support the economy of a racist and xenophobic country. Are you sure you want to do this? are you sure that you also want to be accomplices of the raids, the mass arrests, the concentration camps, the deportations?

It is with a heart full of shame that we urge you: tourists, leave Italy!

Go away from this country, so splendid, and yet so vile.

Go away, right now. Don't finance the war against the poor conducted by the Italian government. Go away and spread the word among all your acquaintances: Italy is a racist country, boycott it!!!