Camps cleared after rape

Two Roma gypsy camps were cleared in Rome Monday after the latest in a string of rapes brought crime fears and anti-immigrant feeling to a new pitch.
The camps were near a park where a 14-year-old girl was raped on Valentine's Day after she and her 16-year-old boyfriend were allegedly set upon by two men, reportedly with eastern European accents.
Amid fears of reprisals by citizens taking the law into their own hands, the first 15 of a task force of Romanian policemen arrived in the Italian capital Monday to help local police deal with the situation.
On Sunday a Rome kebab shop run by Romanians was wrecked by masked men with clubs. Four Romanians were hurt.
There were other attacks on immigrants after the gang rape of a young woman whose boyfriend was beaten and locked in the trunk of their car two weeks ago.
The St Valentine's Day incident, and a rape in Bologna by a Tunisian who had ignored two expulsion orders, have spurred the government to ram through parliament a measure contained in a crime bill: permission for mayors to use unarmed citizen patrols to help police high-risk areas.
The new decree, set to be approved Monday, will also keep suspected rapists in jail rather than allowing them to be granted house arrest, as happened in another recent case.