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TOURISM

‘Selfies and ignorance’: Italy’s Colosseum director slams badly-behaved tourists

A spate of incidents of vandalism at Rome's Colosseum has prompted the site's director to criticise tourists who “lack knowledge” about the site and are more interested in “taking selfies”.

Published: 17 July 2023 17:17 CEST
'Selfies and ignorance': Italy's Colosseum director slams badly-behaved tourists
Rome's Colosseum has seen an increasing number of reports of vandalism and defacement by tourists in recent years. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)

The Colosseum archaeological park’s director Alfonsina Russo said on Monday that such acts of vandalism at the site were caused by “ignorance”.

READ ALSO: Anger in Italy as another tourist caught carving initials into Rome’s Colosseum

“There is a lack of civic education about heritage. There is a lack of a priori knowledge of what people are visiting,” Russo said in an interview with newspaper Il Messaggero on Monday.

“We have signs everywhere [detailing the laws against vandalism], on the website and on site, but only a minority read them,” she said.

“The will of the tourist-vandal is to leave their own mark, because we are by now a society oriented towards ourselves

“See the 25,000 tourists who visit the Colosseum every day who are primarily interested in taking selfies,” she said.

A 17-year-old German tourist was the latest to be reported for allegedly damaging brickwork at the site on Saturday by scratching the walls, just one day after a 17-year-old Swiss visitor was caught on camera doing the same.

Less than a month earlier, a 27-year-old Bulgarian fitness instructor had sparked outrage across Italy by carving “Ivan+Hayley 23” into an inner wall at the Unesco Heritage Site.

He later admitted in a letter of apology to Rome’s mayor that he had not been aware of “the antiquity of the monument”.

In the last six years, the number of people charged with ‘defacement of cultural heritage’ has increased steadily, though many more cases likely went undetected, reported Il Messaggero.

Anyone found guilty of causing damage to a site of historical and artistic interest in Italy can face a fine of up to €15,000 and even a prison sentence of up to five years.

Russo noted that parliament was set to give the green light to a new draft law making these penalties harsher.

Ministers in April gave preliminary approval to plans to increase the maximum fine for defacing cultural property to €40,000, while anyone damaging or destroying monuments could be fined up to €60,000, with possible prison terms of up to seven years.

Member comments

  1. i’d love to see these vandals get hit with heavy fines.. they seem to only get a slap on the wrist.. one person fined €15,000 would surely make a big difference in terms of reducing potential for future vandalism..

  2. It’s not a “lack of prior knowledge”, it is purely arrogance, a don’t take care attitude and a mindless shot for insta and likes. These morons who deface monuments should be fined heavily, then kicked out of the country. Only heavy fines and loss of their tourist money with being shown the exit is going to deter these idiots.

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CRIME

Indians march to end ‘slavery’ after worker death shakes Italy

Thousands of Indian farm labourers urged an end to "slavery" in Italy on Tuesday after the gruesome death of a worker shone a light on the brutal exploitation of undocumented migrants.

Published: 26 June 2024 09:00 CEST
Indians march to end 'slavery' after worker death shakes Italy

Satnam Singh, 31, who had been working without legal papers, died last week after his arm was sliced off by a machine. The farmer he was working for dumped him by the road, along with his severed limb.

“He was thrown out like a dog. There is exploitation every day, we suffer it every day, it must end now,” said Gurmukh Singh, head of the Indian community in the Lazio region of central Italy.

“We come here to work, not to die,” he told AFP.

Children held up colourful signs reading “Justice for Satnam Singh” as the procession snaked through Latina, a city in a rural area south of Rome that is home to tens of thousands of Indian migrant workers.

Indians have worked in the Agro Pontino – the Pontine Marshes – since the mid-1980s, harvesting pumpkins, leeks, beans and tomatoes, and working on flower farms or in buffalo mozzarella production.

Singh’s death is being investigated, but it has sparked a wider debate in Italy over how to tackle systemic abuses in the agriculture sector, where use of undocumented workers and their abuse by farmers or gangmasters is rife.

“Satnam died in one day, I die every day. Because I too am a labour victim,” said Parambar Singh, whose eye was seriously hurt in a work accident.

“My boss said he couldn’t take me to hospital because I didn’t have a contract,” said the 33-year-old, who has struggled to work since.

“I have been waiting 10 months for justice,” he said.

Paid a pittance

The workers get paid an average of 20 euros ($21) a day for up to 14 hours labour, according to the Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto, which analyses working conditions in the agriculture industry.

Far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has sought to reduce the number of undocumented migrants to Italy, while increasing pathways for legal migration for non-EU workers to tackle labour shortages.

But according to the Confagricoltura agribusiness association, only around 30 percent of workers given a visa actually travel to Italy, meaning there are never enough labourers to meet farmers’ needs.

This month, Meloni said Italy’s visa system was being exploited by organised crime groups to smuggle in illegal migrants.

She condemned the circumstances of Singh’s death, saying they were “inhumane acts that do not belong to the Italian people”.

“I hope that this barbarism will be harshly punished,” she told her cabinet ministers last week.

Italy’s financial police identified nearly 60,000 undocumented workers from January 2023 to June 2024.

But Italy’s largest trade union CGIL estimates that as many as 230,000 people – over a quarter of the country’s seasonal agricultural workers – do not have a contract.

While some are Italian, most are undocumented foreigners.

Female workers fare particularly badly, earning even less than their male counterparts and in some cases suffering sexual exploitation, it says.

“We all need regular job contracts, not to be trapped in this slavery,” said Kaur Akveer, a 37-year-old who was part of a group of women in colourful saris marching behind the community leaders.

“Satnam was like my brother. He must be the last Indian to die,” she said.

By AFP’s Ella Ide

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